Refering to the recent Aubrey Huff & puff, the Baltimore Sun’s Childs Walker concludes, “If an Oriole had disparaged Baltimore’s nightlife on a Florida-based radio show in, say, 1987, it’s possible that none of the club’s fans would have heard it.” Not with Sun reporters like this on the job, in any event. (link courtesy Repoz)

Athletes have been protected for so long that some haven’t caught on to this new reality, Deadspin’s WIll Leitch said. “I think a lot of athletes haven’t gotten the memo that if something’s being recorded, it’s never going to be just between you and the guys sitting in the studio,” he said. “And yes, it’s fun to see athletes who don’t get it yet.”

Leitch had always assumed that fans wanted athletes to seem more human. When a civil lawsuit emerged in 2005 alleging that Atlanta Falcon quarterback Vick had given a woman genital herpes and received treatments for the disease under the alias “Ron Mexico,” Leitch was surprised that neither ESPN nor Sports Illustrated picked up the story.

That pushed him toward creating Deadspin.

The slightly star-struck Walker fails to mention the Ron Mexico story was broken some 5 months prior to Deadspin’s public launch by The Smoking Gun. But speaking on behalf of the entire sports blogosphere, the rest of us are totally indebted to Will Leitch — how better to illustrate the nu-media paradigm than by mocking one Time-Warner property (Sports Illustrated) for their failure to quickly (say, within 5 months) cull material from, another Time-Warner property (TSG)?

In any event, Walker’s editor should be postively thrilled that Leitch was allowed a none-too-subtle plug for his forthcoming book.