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

See Smasher, boots and Gee's comments. I'll read it for Kindred when I see a copy, but there's usually little else of substance.

 

I trace metrtosexualism (word?) back to this era and, further, think Joe Namath and Mickey Mantle were the original poster boys with all of the early TV ads they did for grooming products.

 

The (Insert Sport Name Here) Digests are still around. I flipped through a Baseball Digest at Hasting's the other day. Not much has changed but I loved those when I was a kid.

I was a devoted TSN reader from about age 10 until I finally let my subscription run out about two years ago. I probably kept the sub about 10 years longer than I should have. TSN really hasn't been much to look at for about a decade.

 

Sirs, Madames,

As much as I was a devoted SI reader in the late 60s and early 70s I might have like Sport even more. Paul Hemphill was my fave. Used to do these great little postcard/vignettes way off the beaten track. Exchanged emails with him a couple of years ago ... a very pleasant guy, a great writer.

YHS, etc

 

I think Baseball Digest may be the only one still left -- Basketball Digest folded a couple years ago. I remember that because I tried to pitch them a story and the editor said "That'd be a great story. Too bad we're folding in two days."

Sure enough that weekend, they produced their final edition.

 

According to their crappy website, Baseball is the only Digest remaining. The site had the table of contents for the November issue.

They publish something called "Cruise Travel," too.

I always thought they had a smart plan -- low overhead with just a few full-time employees, pay $75 or $100 to reprint stories, charge a price decent enough for subscriptions to generate money, and there you go. They sold a lot of merchandise by direct response, which seemed to make up most of their advertising. Football Digest started in the early '70s, then they added Basketball and Hockey over the years. Much later they had Bowling and tried a Pro Wrestling one, too. Maybe they over-extended themselves with the additional titles, or maybe they blew a pile of cash trying to keep Inside Sports going.

 

Football Digest died about two years ago. Lost a pretty good-sized regular freelance check when it happened.

 

This will probably be misconstrued as me strutting my shit, but I thought I'd arrived when I was published in Baseball Digest. That magazine was a staple of my youth. Reminds me of Saturday mornings with my dad, when we'd go to buy the newspapers and he'd often buy me BD or Football Digest. Then I'd spend the whole day devouring it. I still have a bunch in a box somewhere at home.

The beauty of it today is it HASN'T changed. I love it. I don't read it a lot and it's too pricey, I think, for the content, but it's the sports publishing equivalent of Casey Kasem still broadcasting a top 40 countdown. It hasn't changed at all. It still has the goofy ads, the baseball quick quiz, baseball rules corner, the extensive letters to the editor, the bevy of statistics and the headlines that seemingly change tense with each story. It's funny to read a sidebar that I read in the local paper months earlier.

I know the Kuensters have edited that magazine forever. I wonder what will happen to it when they're no longer running it.

 

Schaap's Ali story in that mag might've been the best story in Greatest American of the century (if not, then it was either of the deford pieces). I'm in grad school and I have class where we had to do projects on Esquire issues from the 60s. Pretty sick stuff (in a good way).

 

You make a good point, Senor BYH. At least BB Digest is true to its heritage, unlike Sporting News, which is an embarrassment in its current form.

 

Great stuff Chet. SPORT mag was a great read.

Funny about that Soccer on The Upswing story - 1971 - we're still waiting. Perhaps another 30 years.

Anyone remember "Inside Sports"? It was Sport Mag imposter - never as good.

Up until the early 80's if my memory serves me SPORT sponsored the MVP of all 4 major championships. They would fly winner to NY and present him with a car and trophy.

I happend to be staying at the Hyatt the day they presented Brett Saberhagen with his car as MVP of the I - 70 series. I remember thinking that Brett was riding the crest then - new son - mvp- the sky was the limit .