The premise is wrong, or should be for a proud journalist. Sports reporting, like any reporting, has few opportunities for any sort of ideological observation. This is not a definition of ideology but a definition of reporting.

Perfectly objective reporters do not exist, for the simple reason that perfectly objective people are as ill-informed as perfectly ideological people. Objectivity is a process, not a leaning. It’s a job requirement. The assertion of this article — of all of these culture-war arguments — is that objectivity arises from some combination of collective balance, or perhaps proper thinking instilled at birth.

The taint of bias in a sports story is far less definable than the taint of bias in its reader, which is why these assertions seldom persuade (though this one I would say is quite readable and intelligent). The simple proof of it can be found in the graphic at the head of the story. Of all those elephants in the stadium, how many actually detect some sort of ideological push in the piece written by the donkey in the press box?

If they do — Leo Durocher’s Hat notwithstanding — they will likely move away from that writer. And they’ll move away not because they are partisan polarizees, but because ideological sportswriting — like almost any reporting — is weak sportswriting. For most baseball fans, the market decides. If you continually conflate a reporter’s political affiliation with bias, you’re not making an argument; you’re demonstrating an ignorance of the nature of reporting that is probably wilful — itself the product of an ideological bias.

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