Men’s magazine editors across the good ol’ U.S.A. have jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon by selecting the two most photogenic Boston players and photographing the hell out of them. Jacoby Ellsbury and Josh Beckett have been fighting for the worst sunburn related to flash photography since last season’s Series triumph.

(Ellsbury’s World Series bonus went towards a big damned truck, apparently.)

As OUT IN CENTER FIELD notes, Ellsbury’s SI featurette was just the latest salvo in the War on Q Ratings. Beckett was on the cover of MEN’S FITNESS. (No snickering.) Ellsbury was in a spread in MEN’S VOGUE. (Seriously? There’s a men’s version of Vogue now? Can we get Justin Timberlake to cover Madonna?) However, these men’s magazines aren’t really thinking about the big picture.

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Finding a copy of Brett Favre’s Sports Illustrated issue in Green Bay is like finding an HDTV box in Hawaii:

Good luck:

WBAY-TV reports that demand is still high in northeast Wisconsin for the SI mag featuring the Packers QB as Sportsman of the Year. When the issue first hit Green Bay-area newsstands on December 6, many stores sold out, some within a half-hour.

Weeks later, Packer backers still can’t get enough of the issue. One stand, Bosse’s News Depot, sold vouchers toward another 1,000-magazine shipment that would be arriving on Friday. And just like the first time, all certificates were snapped up quickly on Thursday - completely gone by 10:30 a.m.

Still hard to believe that the 38-year-old slinger from Southern Miss remains so popular. Then again, he is heading back to the Pro Bowl this year for the 9th time in his career.

And such a fine actor to boot.