Chron sportswriter Fran Blinebury shows why he personifies the problems that most of us have with his employer with today's turd-ugly hack job that passes for his regular column. He hits all the usual cliches about Barry Bonds and the players not "getting it", going so far as to blame the MLBPA for the mythical "competitive balance" problem.

How many times and how many different ways do I have to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a "competitive balance problem", at least not in the way that the typical room-temperature-IQ sportswriter understands it? Let's take one more look, just for yuks. In the last 20 years, how many baseball, football, and basketball teams have played for their sports' championship?

Basketball - 14 of 31 teams (Boston, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago, Indiana, LA Lakers, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio, Utah)

Football - 18 of 31 teams (Buffalo, Miami, New England, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Denver, Oakland, San Diego, Dallas, NY Giants, Washington, Chicago, Green Bay, Atlanta, St. Louis, San Francisco)

Baseball - 20 of 30 teams (NY Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Kansas City, Oakland, NY Mets, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Florida, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona)

And look at the 10 who haven't: Seattle is a pretty good bet to get to one soon. The Angels are three games out of first place. The Astros and Rangers have made the playoffs consistently in recent years. Pittsburgh was a champ in 1979 and had three excellent shots at the Series in the early 90s. Montreal might have made it in 1994 had it not been for the strike. The only complete loser is the expansion Devil Rays. Baseball is the only sport of the three to have a recent expansion team as champions (Florida and Arizona).

I knew most of this off the top of my head, but Fran Blinebury, a Professional Sports Writer, can't be bothered to do the ten minutes of light reading required to see if what he's saying makes sense. And on a newspaper that also features Dale Robertson, he's not even the worst we have. Arrrgh...