Yong-yi Zhu, sports columnist for The Tech, the newspaper of the thinking minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, went to the trouble of picking on Dodger general manager Paul DePodesta today.

Mostly, it's a harmless enough school rivalry bit in which Zhu mocks DePodesta's Harvard education. Having gone to college where the ticket office phone number is (800) BEATCAL, I can relate:

For one thing, we learned that running a baseball team is among the many tasks at which Harvard graduates don’t excel. They might be more arrogant than we are, but when it comes to making decisions, I wouldn’t trust them with the important ones.

It's funny how the end of the second sentence seems to disprove the beginning. Anyway, Zhu continues:

A perfect example is the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Paul Depodesta, a Harvard graduate. He was entrusted with the task of making the Dodgers successful but has both ruined his own reputation and severely hindered the chance for LA to win another National League West title in this upcoming year.

I don't want to fall into the arrogance trap myself, so I'll just say I disagree with that statement and much of what follows in his look at DePodesta, most notably that backing out of the original Shawn Green trade "destroyed his reputation and precluded him from other trades during this off season."

Ultimately, Zhu concludes by returning to his original point:

Well, what can you expect from a Harvard alum?

Ah, to be young and able to mock a GM for his Crimson. I'm feeling nostalgic.

And I'm thinking DePodesta isn't going to trade for Jason Szuminski anytime soon.