New SI - Santana

The big picture of Howard dunking at the beginning of Ballard's story... is that Bill Simmons over Rudy Gay's left shoulder? I love looking at the reactions in photos like that (check out Jason Kidd's son's reaction) and that guy looks a lot like Simmons' mug shot on ESPN.com.

 

Jack McCallum has also written a back-pager, so I don't believe it's limited to a three-person weave.

I think what we're seeing is how hard it is to write a good back page column because that spot is so high profile. Remember, it's like 10 million readers (not subscribers, readers) a week. Reilly, for all his half-assed columns, still knew how to be interesting enough to make you read to the end. With Selena's Rocket/Lance piece, I just wanted it to be over. And I don't understand why, because I liked her a lot at the NYT.

 

I think that SI has been mostly great the past 6 weeks or so. I like the Verducci and Ballard pieces a lot. The Upshaw and Majerus pieces were excellent, as was the pigeon thing.

The ESPNish touches have not been too bad (with the exception of the Fire Joe Morgan thing this week).

 

Rushin = immense talent and swell fellow. But the Rebecca Lobo columns and the word-scramble columns and the Google-based columns (finding every time an athlete referred to himself in third person, for instance, and then citing them with a wisecrack) crowded out his great feature-writing ability.

As for Roberts, I've got to think we're all stuck with her on the back page (much of time) for a long, long time. Ain't nobody going to want to admit that it's not working or that they made a hire that fits poorly.

 

Not sure who wrote it, might have been Ballard, but the back page a few weeks ago was very good. About a high school basketball player and her father who died. It was a touching column that had nationwide appeal.

I used to enjoy reading Selena's basketball gamers. She'd make every game sound interesting. But after a couple of years her columns started sounding the same. Every writer has tricks but some are harder to detect. Her NYT and now SI columns follow a typical pattern. Metaphor, clever turn of phrase, simile, quote from an expert, indignation, another metaphor. She works in a lot of references to zen and man's inner child. There's not a lot of joy in her columns. Or much original reporting. Lee Jenkins would be a better fit in that space.
Reilly has a gift for getting people to talk. His writing is breezy, easy. He doesn't beat you over the head when he's being indignant. He still seems to like sports (ditto for SL Price). Not sure Selena does. I hope she succeeds for many reasons, but the back page of SI should not leave readers gritting their teeth or saying,"huh?"

 

What about the Joe Juneau story from last week? Did everyone skip over it because it was about hockey? I thought that the story of a former NHL player living in the middle of nowhere in northern Quebec to help some random Inuit community is pretty neat, and the type of thing I still subscribe to the magazine for.

But the column from a blogger was a bit of a shock to the senses this week. I hate numbers geeks. And I wonder if it will become a regular thing. But then again, maybe that will open doors for us regular people.

 

Ballard's dunk story is outstanding. Worthy of BASW in my opinion. Interesting topic told in a refreshing way.

Found it interesting that 2 writers in this issue included themselves in their stories, which is pretty much a universal no-no on this board.

 

Yeah, but what's the point of being able to have dunked without bragging about it?

 

SI is allowing a lot more first-person in its stories these days.

And it's not a universal no-no on this board for magazine pieces. Every long story in The New Yorker has some kind of first-person reference. Where people object is when it's used for ego's sake by people without enough subtlety or experience to pull it off, usually in newspapering or internet "look at me!" stuff.

 

Read it, Mods.
He comes off as an extremely strange lad.

 

Majerus story was amazing.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/01/17/majerus/index.html