Yes

AOL Sports blogger Michael David Smith asks, "Is St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bernie Miklasz the last great local sports columnist?"

I have to answer in the affirmative.

Smith continues,

Show me the highest-profile sports columnist in almost any American city and I'll show you someone who only considers the column a secondary gig to more lucrative opportunities on TV. I don't begrudge columnists like Kornheiser their decisions to quit working as a columnist to become a TV commentator, but I do wish more American cities had big-time local sports columnists who considered the column job one.

And then it occurred to me that there may be just one such columnist: Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He's the only guy I can think of who is the best and most prominent sports columnist in his city who hasn't turned the column into his secondary occupation.

I grew up reading Bernie and I still read almost every column he writes, even though I now lived in Denver for nearly 6 years. He is insightful, he is smart, he writes well and he seems to have his ego in check. I admire the way that he incorporates new statistical models into his columns whereas other columnists derisively bash the new trend towards objective statistics. They come across as rapidly fossilizing old men, imploring the neighborhood kids to get off of their lawn. In contrast Bernie comes across as intellectually engaged, concerned with informing his readers.

Living in Denver I have access to two local dailies and thus two sports sections and there isn't a sports columnist at either paper that is worth reading. Dave Kreiger, Mark Kzila and Bernie Lincicome are absolute dreck. They offer no insightful analysis and their columns read as though they were written by a high school newspaper columnist.

The undisputed heavyweight champion of the type of columnist that Smith is describing is undoubtedly the Post's Woody Paige. It's difficult to find the words to describe just how atrocious and embarrassing Paige is. He's clearly most concerned with keeping his face on TV (specifically ESPNs "Around the Horn") and with being a "personality" than in doing his job at the Post. His columns are completely vacuous. Paige's writing style leaves the reader wondering if the man is even literate.

The contrast between Miklasz's smart columns and the Denver Newspaper Agency's stable of know-nothings is glaring. The DNA columnists are consumed with trying to be contrarian, acerbic and snarky and as such their columns across as simply juvenile trite. I'm glad to see Bernie getting credit for being a solid columnist who's more concerned with doing a good job as a writer than indulging an outsized ego.