The demise of SI

Let's remember that "vintage" SI existed for readers who didn't have the Internet, ESPN, local sports cable channels and all-sports radio. SI (and maybe Sporting News) was their weekly sports fix and they could spend some time with it.

The needs of the audience have changed, and so has the magazine. Current "SI Lite" is still better than defunct Sport magazine and what Sporting News has become.

 

Sport's best days were prior to the chipmunk rebellion.
Given what they couldn't touch, back in the day,
they had very good writers turning out very good stuff.

 

can't really fault them for putting stuff on the cover that will help sell the magazine. nobody is going to buy it if there's a track meet on the cover.

 

With extreme sports and mixed martial arts all over the place, people going around a track fast, jumping high or long or hurling a javelin just doesn't seem that special anymore. It takes a Boltian feat for the sport to get noticed.

 

The Ovechkin pot shots were unnecessary.

And when Ovechkin retires with more career Stanley Cups than Crosby (he's a better overall player with a better supporting cast), it will all seem silly.

Stupid Hal Gill ...

 

No offence, but let's see if he can win one before we say he'll retire with more than Crosby. Or with more than Hal Gill, for that matter.

Besides, the number of Cups do not and should not define a player. If you were debating as to whether Wayne Gretzky was better than Mario Lemieux, you hopefully wouldn't resort to saying something like, "Well, Gretzky won four and Lemieux only won two, so that proves Gretzky was better." Unless you were prepared to agree that Claude Provost must have been better than both of them because he won nine Cups.

 

It's nice that Ovechkin can fight his own battles, unlike Cindy.

It's bad that he likes to take a cheap shot or two.

He'll have to sort that out, himself.

 

Ah, great....a thread about SI turns into an Ovechkin-Crosby fanboi battle.

 

Michael Gee: Access is more than just describing the interior of an athlete's dorm room or the smell of the leather in his luxury car. It's TIME. SI used to be given carte blanche. Now it's on the clock like everybody else -- and if affects the quality of the work. You get the sense SI's writers do a lot more stand-up interviews than they once did (and a lot fewer sitting-on-the-sofa-or-barstool interviews).

 

I think the most telling sign (and I'm sure I'm not in the same boat) is that I used to go to the mail box the second I got home on Thursdays (when I would get SI). Now, I don't really bother unless I make a point to check the mail.

 

This probably deserves its own thread (didn't see one in a quick search of 'Fimrite'), but he died April 30, and here is the NY Times obit from May 14.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/sports/15fimrite.html