"SPORT" magazine, March 1971, a review. Mavarich cover. 50 cents.

I have in my hands, SPORT magazine from March 1971 (50 cents!).
Pistol Pete is on the cover, dribbling past a prone Mike Reirdon (#6, Knicks).

Editorial/Commentary stories and etc. line the first part of the mag:

Spencer Heywood - Why I jumped leagues, Kyle Rote Jr. and the coming soccer boom, THE SPORT QUIZ, College Athlete of the month - Jerry Dunne, Regional viewpoints from Brent Musberger (midwest), Mickey Herksowitz (swest), Vic Ziegel (east), Charles Einstein (west).

The feature stories follow:

Mavarich- paul hemphil, Ali - DICK SHAAP, 2 page book review of Hot Rod Huntley's Clown, Baseball's Greatest Competitor (Rose)- Don Kowet, Sidney Wicks - S. Bisheff, George Blanda - Arnold Hano, Manny Sanguillen - James Ellison, Alex Delvecchio - J. Devany, Nick Meliti's expansion Cavs - Vic Ziegel, Ron Johnson - Mark Lewin, New Guns for 1971 - Bill Cede, THE SPORT SPECIAL Walt Frazier - Ed Kiester, Chuck Howley - MVP - Dodge Charger.

Followed by:

"next month in SPORT" and Inside Facts by Allan Roth.
There's an editorial on the last page.

The mag is sprinkled with great vintage ad's:

Cigs (smokes) too many to list, Gillete Techmatic Razor, Brut, Vitalis 2 pager with Pistol Pete before and after, Vitalis, Arrow shirts, English Leather, 8mm sports films (early super bowls, mets 69), Major League posters for 75 cents, and of course, the cartoon of guy tossing sand in your face at the beach.


Random thoughts:
what a variety of sports in one issue and just about every issue of SPORT....feature stories in order: NBA, boxing, NBA, baseball, college hoops, NFL, baseball, NHL, NBA, NFL, guns, NBA, NFL. Try to get that variety in the current SI (what you watched on TV last weekend).....New Guns for 71, how PC would that be today...1971, remember Rote Jr. as the face of soccer (and later a winner on the TV Superstars comp)...and yet 26 years later, we still get stories like that about soccer about to emerge...God, how I loved taking the SPORT QUIZ every month...who the heck is Jerry Dunne of tOSU to get college athlete of the month in march...besides Brent, who are the other regional viewpoint writers (Ziegel, I know, of course)....Schaap's Ali story is the best in the mag...Manny Sanguillen, remember him, a hitting catcher, so rare...the Ron Johnson story (Giants) ver good but doesn't touch much on his brother Alex...the SPORT SPECIAL of the month was about Clyde, and pretty good, Clyde on top of his game at that time and now a quarter century later who tought he'ld be swishing and dishing on TV...the Inside Facts piece, one pager, seems to predate the whole sabermetrics world by about 25 years...and Chuck Howley, Supe MVP, gets a Dodge Charger - I feel like a time traveler reading that piece - over 25 years later the Charger is reinvented.

I'm selling the magazine on ebay this week. Might as well with two Mav bio's out right now. I heard an excellant, excellant M. Kriegal on WFAN for a rare extended interview about his new Mavarich book. Chris Russo was actually good - restrained, asked decent questions, nice time line, probed at the right time, gave the interview time to breath and build, good conclusion. And then bravo, next gets a guy (sic) Les Bellows (?, wasn't paying much attention) who played for Press and coached his frosh team at NC State in 65 to follow the Kriegal interview. Kriegal was in studio for the marathon, for WFAN, interview, which helped a lot in the give and take. Key was Franseca taking a day off today, cause he would have killed the whole thing. Russo had good basic fan's inquisitiveness about Mavarich and didn't fake knowledge, but must have read the book or something cause he pulled the interview along with great bullet points.

Kriegal has now done two bio's. The well researched Namath, and it seems the equally well done Mavarich story. I miss reading him in the NY Daily News. When Russo pressed him for his next bio, he begged off. Will be interesting to see.

 

How was Einstein's preview, relativity to the others?

Actually I had that issue, mentioned it on the Maravich thread. Read it until it fell apart, probably.

 

My best flea market buy ever was a box of Sport magazines from the '60s, 10 cents each. Pretty good condition, great content. Still have 'em, still love 'em.

 

One of the things I miss most about my childhood is the quality and quantity of sports magazines available.

Back then, we had SI, Inside Sports, SPORT, Sporting News, (Insert Sport Here) Digest and a lot more, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on any of them. Now what do you have? SI and ESPN and that's pretty much it. I realize TSN is still around and USA Today puts out one, but as far as quality general sports publications, there's not much left.

 

bump, I forget to post second half of my review.

 

that's hard on TSN. can you elaborate?

 

Can't speak for Hack, but TSN blows, apart from Kindred.

 

Once the bible of baseball, TSN fell apart rather quickly after 1977. A lot of "sports" magazines now are basically just a stone's throw from being a teen magazine. Newspapers are in bad shape but magazines, man I don't see them surviving much longer.

 

Was at Jiffy Lube last week with nothing to read but their waiting room copy of Sporting News, it's Super Bowl preview. It wasn't memorable reading, but it wasn't a bad way to kill 30 minutes, either.
Trouble is, it's the first TSN I've read in this century.

 

That's exactly my point. Mike, you're in the business. You know what it takes. If it was the first time that you've read a TSN this century, that should tell you something.

 

I remeber the Bullets teams of the early 70s and I think that was actually Mike Riordon you are speaking of.

 

Helluva a player who could hit it from way out. Little slow of foot, but he made his money.