Sports Illustrated, still here after all these years!

I love Sports Illustrated for their covers, photography, and stories about older players. Great players from the past. They cover the news is sports pretty well too. I'm looking at the February 17, 2003 issue with Michael Jordan on the cover. This particular issue has a great tribute story about my favorite NBA basketball player, Michael Jordan. By Jack McCallum. A great story telling us how Michael is now 40 years old. How he may not play as well as he used to. We see yearly pictures of him from 1983 all the way through 2002. A well written story about a great basketball player. Then we see a comparison of five great 40+ players in different sports. Jordan, Roger Clemens, Jerry Rice, Ron Francis, and John Stockton. Amazing careers, and all still able to play decent after they turned 40. To me unbelievable because i'm 38 and I know all the pains I have just trying to play sports. And let us not forget about another old player in Hockey, Brett Hull who just scored his 700th goal at the age of 38, another nice story by Nicholas J Cotsonika about another great older player. We have stories about college basketball, by Chris Ballard discussing the hottest team, Louisville Cardinals, coached by one of the greatest coaches, Rick Pitino. An early story about baseball, will Mike Hampton, traded from Colorado to Atlanta, reconstruct his career. Did Atlanta get a steal or did they waste their money on a long forgotten ailing pitcher, by Tom Verducci. I love the pictures on the first pages of the magazine, so colorful, telling us a story about something great that happened in sports recently. This issue only has three when usually there are six or more. a tiny story about Dave Justice retiring from baseball in the for the record section of the magazine. Short stories about what happened in sports good or bad. Jesus Colome (of the Devil Rays) involved in a car accident which killed three women. There is a little sweatie pie section telling us about sports people who have fell in love- kind of boring.

Sports Beat- just little notes about ballplayers, singers, movie stars, relating to sports, Jennifer Lopez won $400,000.00 betting on the superbowl- i'm sure she needs it. A section I like called Faces in the Crowd, little pictures and stories mostly about high school and college students(sometimes older people too) and something great they did in sports. This time of the year, we have an inside the NBA section by Ian Thomsen, short little stories about what is happening in the NBA. Another short section about baseball and pictures this year who will be under the microscope. These are some of the things I like about Sports Illustrated. Lots of little stories about the world of sports. Usually well written by great writers. I also like the baseball and football previews. The author guesses who he thinks will be in the playoffs, World Series, and Super Bowl. They are almost always wrong, but there is so much great information about each team. All kinds of facts about all the players, injury reports, who will be back this year, etc.
And of course I like the swimsuit issue. Most of us men do. I think it is done professionally and shows us beautiful women without any perversion.

I don't like all the advertisements in the magazine. This is a weekly magazine. Many teenagers read it (I know because I did and my friends did) and there are always beer advertisements. In this issue there are 16 advertisements and most of them are full page-too much for me. The price is too high if you buy it on the news stand and if you subscribe, they ruin your cover by printing your address on it. Some of the Sports Illustrated covers are valuable and my address on the cover takes away from the value. Who out there wants a Sports Illustrated magazine with my address on the cover? Since I am thrifty, I received my subscription for free. I went to qool.com gained my points and won the magazine. The price is too expensive for me, so I find ways to get it free.

If you like Sports Illustrated, try baseball weekly(I think still $1 a copy) for the true baseball fan or for a great daily sports newspaper, try the USA Today for great sports coverage.

I love to receive my Sports Illustrated each week. I enjoy all the great photography. Great writing especially stories about old or retired ballplayers. I don't like all the advertisement, we get enough when we watch it on television. All in all, I would still consider Sports Illustrated one of the best sports magazines still around. If you don't have the cash to buy it, go to qool.com (when they are fixed again), or borrow a used copy from a friend. A US subscription is 81.95 for 55 issues, ouch!