OMIGOD !!! The LA Times cans Robert Scheer, but retains the beautiful mind that crafted this gem:

His name is Ned Colletti, and he's an old-time baseball guy, from his affection for snakeskin boots to his love of snake-free clubhouses.

He will be named as the new Dodger general manager in a morning news conference which, to be true to Colletti, should take place behind a batting cage.

That's where the guy has lived for the last two decades, first in Chicago, then in San Francisco, often in first place.

Since Colletti became the Giants' assistant general manager in 1997, the team has compiled the third best record in baseball with Barry Bonds and a bunch of character guys.

Colletti, 50, loves the character guys.

He helped build a 2002 World Series team with a lineup that featured Benito Santiago batting fifth, David Bell playing third and Shawon Dunston doing whatever.

Months after the last Dodger regime traded Paul Lo Duca, Colletti worked out a Giant contract for Mike Matheny.

While the last Dodger regime didn't see the value in Adrian Beltre, Colletti was signing Omar Vizquel.

While the Giants struggled with injuries, their first losing season with Colletti, they were still in the race in the final week, and Matheny and Vizquel won Gold Gloves.

That each "paragraph" above consists of exactly one short sentence isn't caused by any problems I'm having with Blogger; it's a Bill Plaschke affectation, enabling him to extend his prose into a full column on those frequent occasions when he doesn't have anything substantive to add to the conversation. It's the sportwriting equivalent of "Heh. Indeed."

But c'mon, "character guys" (attention, Mr. Plaschke: Mike Lupica wants his cliche back) ? A G.M. with an affection for "snakeskin boots" and "snake-free clubhouses"? A columnist optimistic about the future of the home team because the new G.M. viewed the aging Omar Vizquel and Mike Matheny (who?) as pennant insurance, or that his definition of the "character guys" who supposedly surrounded Barry Bonds en route to their occasional playoff chokes includes Jeff Kent? Who believes that DePodesta was to blame for Adrian Beltre signing with more money with Seattle?

I cannot understand why newspaper empires are content to allow sports sections to have lower standards than the rest of the paper. Newspapers everywhere are losing the eyes of readers to the internet, but the sports section may well be the last bulwark, the one reason why people will drop a quarter to buy it off the rack. So why does the local paper peddle crap like that?