For years, I have listened to some of my buddies complain about The Orlando Sentinel. When they do, I always ask them the same question, “What is it that you don’t like so much?” Everybody has different opinions, but the one I hear most often is that the coverage is biased towards a particular person or team.

I am sure it is a criticism that every newspaper deals with, no matter how you report the news, somebody is going to find something wrong with the way you do it.

I have tried to defend the Sentinel in most cases, because I know some of the people who work there, and I know they work extremely hard. As I have said in this blog before, when I left Syracuse, one of the first papers that gave me a chance to write was the Sentinel, and I will always be grateful for that.

Despite what my friends say, I believe that the Sentinel usually does a good job toeing the line between covering the news, and cozying up too close to sources. Having said that, there was something in today’s paper that I felt crossed the line. It was Mike Bianchi’s column about the lack of fan interest in the Magic’s first-round playoff series against the Raptors.

Bianchi argues that the Magic shouldn’t have to beg fans to come see their playoff games. He believes that each game should be a sell-out because the team is good, and as a city, residents should get behind the team.

These are valid points. It’s the rest of the column that I have problems with though. The more you read into this column, the more it starts to sound like a member of the Magic’s PR Department wrote it. Bianchi lists a series of arguments (that I have put into block quotes), my words come after each set of quotes:

“You can’t say this team is just some one-and-done playoff pattycake. The Magic won a division championship for the first time in a dozen years. They have more than 50 wins for the first time since the days of Shaq and Penny. They have not lost a single series this season to an Eastern Division foe and have the second-best road record in the league.”

That’s all true, but this team also has some serious question marks on it. They don’t have a legitimate point guard. They don’t have a big man who can come in and score if Howard gets into foul trouble. And while I think they are going to knock off the Raptors, who says they will? The first time the Shaq and Penny led Magic went into the playoffs in ‘94, they were a four seed, and got swept away by the fifth seeded Pacers. Let’s see how Howard and Lewis do in their first trip together.

You can’t say management hasn’t spent money in an attempt to get better. The Magic paid $118 million for Rashard Lewis in the offseason and another $120 million extending Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson. That’s $230 million for three players. Who do these guys think they are — the Yankees infield?

No, but you can say that they haven’t spent it well. Signing Howard was a no-brainer, but they so obscenely overpaid for Lewis and Nelson that even Steinbrenner is probably laughing at them.

You can’t say the Magic don’t have star power. I mean, come on, they have Superman on their roster. Does it get any better than that?”

Yes, it does in fact, get better than that. Howard is great, but I would rather have the star power of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen on my team heading into the playoffs.

The list goes on, but when reading those it just sounds like they came straight from an employee of the Magic.

My other big problem with this column is that Bianchi is too good of a writer to continue to use this same angle. I can’t tell you how many times in the last few years he has played the “Come on Orlando, we’re a Major League Town” card in some of his columns.

Conference USA Title Games…”If we don’t fill the stadium up we won’t look good on ESPN.”

New downtown stadium project…”If we don’t build them, we’ll end up like Birmingham!”

I love the passion, but you can’t write the same thing so many times. Orlando is just not a good sports town. Period. I’ve lived here pretty much all my life, and the only time I have ever really seen people get excited about sports was when the Magic were good in the mid ’90s, and when two local Little League teams made it to Williamsport. That’s it. People care about football here, but the only true local team we have, aside from the Magic, is UCF, and they are not a major program right now, no matter what they say.

Instead of writing this column, I wish Bianchi would have written about why fans don’t seem as into the Magic, as they were in the Shaq/Penny era. There have been glimpses this season that things are going back to how they used to be, (both Boston home games come instantly to mind) and there have been a lot of sellout crowds this season. But, I have also been to several games where there are scores of empty seats, and people just don’t seem to care.

Even more than that though, back in the days of Shaq and Penny, you couldn’t walk around town without somebody talking about the Magic. You just don’t hear that anymore though. Why doesn’t somebody write about that?

Now, do I really believe that the Magic had anything to do with the way this column was written…no. I don’t think the people at the Sentinel would let that happen. Furthermore, I think that Mike Bianchi is one of the best columnists in the country, when he puts his mind to it. But, in this case, I think he could have done a lot better.