Remember 1997? Bill Clinton had just begun his second term in office, Titanic was a hit at the box office, and the nation's five most famous shortstops got together to lay around and pose topless—save for five matching gold chains—for a photo spread in Sports Illustrated. The image appears in a Sports Illustrated photo retrospective called "Derek Jeter: Off the Field." The set is accompanied by a collection of "tips from SI photographers on how to shoot sports."

But the tips left me searching for answers on how an aspiring sports photographer might recreate this magnificent tableau: Like, when you're shooting five baseball players at a time, is one of them necessarily going to end up looking a little creepy—in this case, Rey Ordonez? Do you have to provide the chains, or do they just show up wearing them? What is the correct lens to shoot a shortstop beefcake photo? (A friend is betting on a slight fishbowl). How do you convince these guys that this is a good idea? Finally, how can we bring 1997 back?

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol' Day: June 23, 1909

Dateline: New York, NY

Subject: Reporter at Yale-Harvard rivalry baseball game fluffs up his flowery play-by-play with a rhapsodic account of the glorious array of girls in attendance. Collect one in every ethnicity!

First, let us immerse ourself in the peculiar style of turn-of-the-century Ivy League baseball reporting:

The "real old Jamake," guy? Whatever—this man has clearly got column inches to fill. And then:

Who has a baseball game to report on when there are girls to scrupulously detail?

At this point, you might be thinking that this guy should get back to the game at hand instead of ranking the glorious blossoms of the rose garden that is female college baseball enthusiasts. No? Okay. What were they wearing?

That explains it: He fancies himself a novelist. Say what you will about this reporter's choice to obscure the whole ballgame with testimony on gowns "such as made Paris a memory" and excuses for his own lechery—it beats his baseball reporting:

Yeah, where are the girls again?