I miss Sports Illustrated. But then, I miss a lot of print publications, including the one I used to work for from 2004-2016.
After more than 20 years working for a religious non-profit organization, I was unceremoniously downsized. It took almost two years but after doing some freelance work for the New Jersey Jewish News, I was offered a full-time job as a staff writer.
If you know anything about me, despite appearances I am a very shy person so the thought of talking to strangers on a daily basis, asking all kinds of personal and impersonal questions, was rather daunting. But if I do say so myself, I think I did all right, even winning a few awards for my work, including “Best Blog of the Year” from the New Jersey Press Association for “Kaplan’s Korner,” a site about Jews and sports which I carried on for a bit after leaving that job when the paper was bought out and I found myself again out of a position.
Anyway…
One of my hobbies was collecting first editions of magazines. It’s cool to go back and look at them from a pop culture standpoint: what were the big stories, the advertisements, the fashions? I even contemplated a book about the cultural history of SI, but never really followed through; maybe it’s time to revisit that. They went from a weekly to a monthly, pretty much losing the prestige and influence they once had (the swimsuit issue notwithstanding).
In a recent Bookshelf Conversation with David Fleming, author of the Baseball Obscura books, we discussed the demise of the baseball annual. Thanks a lot, Internet. You rendered such publications pretty much obsolete with your up-to-the-minute information that spelled the end of some of my favorites like Street & Smith and many others I would look forward to come springtime.
is available on Amazon.com,
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