The demise of SI

Not that it matters at all to the current readership, or even should, but I remember (and yes, I walked through snow drifts eight miles to read them) when SI did 10 or 12 great coverage stories on the biggest track meets of any given year, and it was just fabulous stuff, some of which I've saved.

For old-timers: The cover of Marty Liquori and Jim Ryun coming off the corner at the Penn Relays in what back then was an amazingly fast mile is one of the best ever, at least to me:

 

Hell, I remember when the put racehorses & the Indy 500 winner on the cover.

 

Not only was the Shaq cover quizzical, but the story itself was lousy. I expected something, you know, cover-worthy. But it was a paint-by-numbers piece telling me NOTHING I didn't already know about the Big Lake Erie.

Shoulda put Braden on the cover. Wouldn't be the first time something happened on a Sunday that forced them to change up quickly like that.

rb

 

Patrick's "column" is nothing more than a transcript of one of his radio-show interviews during the week, right?

 

Merrell Noden was an excellent track writer.

 

Maybe, but I doubt it.

Chances are someone else had those anecdotes and tidbits, but because they were never tweeted or linked or blogged or posted anywhere you had easy access to . . . SI was your source.

I maintain and always will maintain that SI has changed very little, but the world (and our perception of SI against the backdrop of the world) has changed a lot.

That's why an 8-page swimsuit edition in 1975 sent hormones raging, but a 238-page swimsuit edition today elicits only yawns.

 

i saved all those track stories, too ... incredible stuff

for the record, the Ryun-Liquori race was indeed at Franklin Field but wasn't in the Penn Relays - it was the 1971 Martin Luther King International Freedom Games a few weeks after Penn

 

West Coasters got the Braden cover.

 

Which, of course, dilutes the significance of being on the SI cover (wouldn't be such a big deal except that they hyped and played along with the "cover jinx" nonsense for decades).

Now if someone says, "I'm on the cover of SI!" you have to ask, "In how many states? Three?"

 

K

Kenny Smith's story on the last full night of track and field at the Barcelona Olympics was so good that I specifically requested tickets for that same night in Atlanta four years later.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1004698/index.htm

 

The good old SI jinx at work again.

Yawn. Next?

 

I'll read the back page first if it's by Phil Taylor. If it's by Selena Roberts, I'll grab the anti-nausea meds first. I found the Shaq feature hilarious, but then wondered why it was in there when they blew off the Sharks-Red Wings and Suns-Spurs series. And, oh boy, another love letter about Sidney Crosby.