Featured on the cover of the Feb. 24, 1997 issue were two of the "finest group of shortstops since World War II": 22-year-old Alex Rodriguez, who batted .358 with 36 HRs and 123 RBIs in his first full season, and 23-year-old Derek Jeter, 1996 Rookie of the Year and newly minted world champion.

The cover was the second time around for both (SI cover search), and they look as happy as you or I would if nine-figure contracts to play baseball were in our futures.

So, I find the beginning of Tom Verducci's "Long on Shortstops" article on page 50. Flip. Flip. Flip. There's individual portraits of five young hot-shots: Jeter, A-Rod, Alex Gonzalez, Rey Ordonez and Edgar Renteria.

And then ... THIS!

Who's idea was this to strip five future stars so that they look like Miami Beach cabana boys on break?

Can you imagine if TIME magazine had done a 1933 cover story on MLB sluggers, lined up Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons and Charlie Gehringer and was like, "All right, boys, let's see some skin!"

Renteria looks like Dudley on Diff'rent Strokes, when Gordon Jump tried to molest him in the bath tub.

In future cover photos, SI featured Nomar Garciaparra and Tom Brady shirtless, and once had Sportsmen of the Year Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa dress in togas. But this one takes the cake. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

(But I still prefer Molly Sims for the skin shots.)

Today's Sports Links:

• Famous World Series of Poker Bad Beats — Strong hands, no matter how well played, can be beat if someone pulls a river card out his ass. Here are six such examples in big-time spots.

• A-Rod Wants to Represent Dominican Republic in World Cup — I don't get it. He was born in America, raised in America, lives in America and works in America. So how is he Dominican?

• The Anti-All-Time All-Stars — David Schoenfeld of ESPN.com's Page 2 comes up with the worst lineup of all-time, consisting of players who managed to hang around for several full seasons. All hail Aurelio Rodriguez, the original Yankee A-Rod.

• Why Does Joe Morgan Hate Moneyball? — SF Weekly on Morgan's eternal criticism of a book that he's never read — and doesn't even seem to be sure who wrote it. Among people who have read the book, I've heard nothing but universal praise. Myself included.

• MLBlogs — I've used this link on SportsBrooks.com before. An index of all the baseball-related blogs run through MLB.com. There's a lot of good stuff in there, from collectors, to groundskeepers to current executives and former managers. Unfortunately, they seem fairly terrible at cross-linking. You'd think it would be easy to jump from one Yankees-related blog to another, but it's not. Nor is there an index by team.

• Reviews: EA Sports' NCAA Football 06 — The game was released on Tuesday, and everyone's digging it. I'll have to rent one at Blockbuster and do a write-up.

• SI Previews All 119 Division I-A College Football Teams — I don't see a preseason ranking, but there's a full review of each team.

• Useless All-Star Information — I like these little nuggets Jayson Stark provides, like the fact that Andruw Jones and Mark Teixeira became the first duo of league-leaders in homers to go long in the Midsummer Classic.