* Privacy, please

My daughter — my high school freshman age daughter — started receiving Hooah!, a quarterly publication produced for the National Guard. This leads to a couple of question, the first of which is how did they get her name on a mailing list. I’m 99.9% sure she didn’t request it, meaning they had to get the info from another source, the identity of which is unknown and therefore disturbing. I will not go into a long diatribe about invasion of privacy issues, but I sure hope the school (or anyone else) is not supply such information without consent (which they obviously have done).

Be that as it may, the cover of the Spring ‘08 issue features Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett. I’m not sure why, although I am fairly certain it’s not because he has ever been a member of the Guard (where as another piece profiles Sgt. Jill Stevens, a member of the Utah Army National Guard as well as Miss Utah).

The article is written by Spc. Miko Holloran and features a quiz with such true/false questions as “Josh Beckett can throw a curveball faster than an M16 bullet” (didn’t know M16 bullets could through curveballs); “The Guard supports soldiers who are professional athletes”; “The Guard does not encourage its soldiers to stay physically fit after basic training”; and “Soldiers in the Guard do not get scored on how well they perform on physical fitness tests.” Oh, forgot to mention, it’s an on-line quiz, which means you probably have to give up even more personal data.

My apologies for the quality of the picture. It will have to suffice until I have a chance to scan my copy.

* Baseball in the latest issue of…

(May 19):

• Feature story on Elijah Dukes, the Washington Nationals’ “troubled” star
• Column by Tim Keown on the latest in the continuing soap opera that is Roger Clemens
• 8 Things to Know About Groundskeepers
• And the usual from MLB Insider

(May 12):

• Ben Reiter profile of Max Scherzer, rookie pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks

(May 12):

• The Next Generation of Yankees

* NY Daily News offers Yankee Stadium “collectibles”

The tabloid is including the six-part magazine supplement on the House That Ruth Built in its Sunday papers. They do something like this every so often to boost sales. Nice touch. I think it’s worth the price of the edition.

But remember, everything — commemorative magazines, thimbles, diner menus — is a “collectible” if you just collect them. They don’t have to have the official sanction of the issuing organization for it to be so.

* ESPN and SI baseball previews: A head-to-head comparison

Bearing in mind that SI is a weekly, and ESPN a bi-weekly…

	Sports Illustrated	ESPN The Magazine
Cover boy(s)	“New generation of Stars,” featuring Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Jacob Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Ryan Zimmerman	C.C. Sabathia
Lead Story	Tulowitzki profile	Sabathia profile
Sidebars(s)	Five future stars (Cameron Maybin, Ryan Braun, Jay Bruce, Justin Upton, Ryan Zimemrman; “Restocking a Rivalry (Red Sox vs. Yankees)	“Mamarama” (mothers of sports stars); Milkov Report, a take-off on the Mitchell Report on the demise of the National League; “Poison Ivy” (the Cubs’ 100-year slump)
Other features	Team scouting reports with projected lineups; “The Numbers Lie/Don’t Lie” on representative or misleading statistics for each team; “consider thiis,” and excerpts from previous SI issues as a way of promoting their new Vault archives	Buster Olney on the AL, Tim Kurkjian on the NL; Team reports with facts, projected lineups, and comments by each team’s local U.S. congressperson

It must be difficult to keep coming up with new ideas year after year. You would have thought, in the wake of the Mitchell Report and the Clemens-McNamee affair, the ideas would be falling off the trees, but that’s not the case here (except for the ESPN spoof).

Call me a traditionalist (or old fogey, depending on your POV). Usually I find ESPN is trying to be all things to all sports fans and covers too many sports I’m not interested in. There are too many mini-features, as if the reader doesn’t have a long-enough attention span for anything more. On the other hand, they often do a better job with their illustrations.

I’m a fan of SI’s editorial content. I find their stories more in-depth and investigative reporting, their graphics simple but elegant (they have a long tradition of using top notch photographers like Leifer, Iooss, and Sweet, among other iconic shutterbugs).

So, as if it matters to anyone else, I’m giving the nod this year to Sports Illustrated .

* Enough with the rivalry already

The current issue of Men’s Fitness features a cover story on Red Sox’ pitcher Josh Beckett.

Meanwhile the current issue of Men’s Health features Derek Jeter as it’s cover boy. (They also have a brief piece featuring Jacob Ellerbsy of the Sox).

I’m not just saying this because I’m from the NY area, but Jeter definitely looks more buff. But we all know what a good art director can do with a picture.

“I’ve been waiting for a Web site like you, to come into my life”

With apologies to Journey.

Other publications have made their full runs available as either CD (New Yorker, Rolling Stone) or on-line, but this, this is an important resource. Coming Thursday to a computer near you.

“The Bible of Baseball” pulls up stakes

American City Business Journals has completed its acquisition of The Sporting News and moved its operations to Charlotte, NC. ACBJ also owns the Street & Smith Sports Group. TSN has been on a decline over the last several years. They recently made the decision to halt print publication of its annual baseball record book and put it on-line at no charge.

Review: Sporting News Baseball 2008

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: TSN’s annual has pretty much the same team information — rosters, schedules, transactions, farm reports, impact rookies, and projected lineups — as every other magazine, as well as regional covers.

A personal favorite feature is the statistical targets: Omar Vizquel is closest to 3,000 hits among active players with 2,598; the team-less Barry Bonds is just four ribbies away from 2,000, behind only Aaron and Ruth; Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield can join the 500 home run clubs if they follow form. On the pitching side, John Smoltz is 25 strikeouts away from 3,000; Randy Johnson and Billy Wagner will have to put in great seasons to reach 300 wins and 400 saves, respectively.

As far as the predictions go, TSN picks the Red Sox, Tigers, and Angels for AL division winners (Indians as the wild card), and the Braves, Cubs, and Diamondbacks (Phillies) in the senior circuit. Hell freezes over as the Cubs appear in the fall classic against the Red Sox. Typically, they’ll lose again.

What separates TSN from the rest of the glossies, however, is in its abundant and well-done feature stories. As should be expected from a publication historically known as “the Bible of baseball,” TSN prides itself on hard-hitting journalism (relatively speaking. This is just sports, remember).

A two-part examination of steroids includes an interview with Lance Williams, co-author of the seminal Game of Shadows, which brought the whole problem out of the “shadows” and into the light. The second story is a profile of former Orioles Brady Anderson, who smashed 50 home runs and drove in 100 runs in 1996. The closest he came to those numbers were 24/81 in 1999. Needless to say, he raised some eyebrows with his career year.

Another issue seldom raised in baseball is the pressure on teenagers to decide whether to sign with the pros or enter college. Mike Giglio weighs the options in “The Road Taken.”

Cubs fans don’t have to be reminded that it’s been 100 years since their team last won a World Championship, but Scot Gregor does so anyway in “100 Years of Despair.”

Other features include a critical look at game-winning celebrations, “The evolution of the Ejection,”and the turnover in general managers during the off-season.

Review: Athlon Sports Baseball Annual

You know the season is just around the corner when the baseball annuals hit the newsstands. When I first developed an interest for the game, back in the mid 1960s, Street and Smith’s — Likes Topps baseball cards — was the only game in town.

Since then — again like Topps — other publications have come and gone, with a few, like Athlon, still going strong. Of course the Internet has made print versions almost anachronistic. By the time spring training is over, a fair portion of the information will be no longer be valid, in part due to trades or injuries (or Senate investigations).

Athlon puts out a slick product. These days, publishers print regional covers so my area gets David Wright and Derek Jeter, while Chicago would highlight comparable stars of the Cubs and White Sox.

Every annual contains certain similar information: schedules, the previous year’s stats, a recap/preview of the overall minor league (and perhaps college) picture and top prospects, as well as a brief fantasy component. Each also has its own version of rosters and capsule reports for all the major league teams, with some analysis of how the big club is set at their positions. For example, Athlon examines each team’s starting pitchers, bullpen, middle and corner infielders, outfield, catching, bench and/or DH, management, and a “final analysis.” They predict the team’s starting lineup and rotation. As previously stated, any data can change in a heartbeat with a twisted ankle or surprise mega-deal. There’s also a “beyond the box score” for each team, consisting of bits of trivia.

Speaking of predictions, most publications will stick their necks out by offering their considered opinions about way the 2008 season will play out. Athlon’s picks Boston, Detroit, and LA to take the American League divisional crowns, with the Yankees as wild card, with the Sox winning the pennant and besting the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series. They also pick the MVP (David Ortiz), Cy Young (Justin Verlander), and Rookie of the Year (Jacoby Ellsbury). I believe forecasting how individual players will do is much more problematic than teams.

Over in the NL, it’s Philadelphia, Chicago, and Arizona, with the Dodgers as the wild card. and Ryan Howard as MVP, Brandon Webb as Cy Young winner, and Kosuke Fukudome as ROY. (The fact that Athlon has the Mets slated for third place in the East I attribute to the magazine’s release before the Johann Santana deal. See what I mean? These things are obsolete before the first copy sells. (Speaking of erroneous predictions, read Gregg Easterbrook’s piece on how football pundits got it so wrong in the 2007 season. I know, I know, it’s football, but it’s still relevant.)

So how do you pick which mag to read?Look at the features. Are they original? Entertaining? Stuffy? Repetitious? In-depth? That’s a matter of individual taste.

Athlon’s feature stories include “Short Hops: Our annual Calendar of the Weird highlights; an affectionate look back at 2007″; “12 Things to Watch in 2008″ (Including Joe Torre in Dodgertown, the final seasons of Shea and Yankees Stadiums, and, of course, Roger and Barry); “Young Star on the Rise”; and “Penny Wise Dollar Foolish: A rundown of baseball’s best bargains and biggest financial blunders.” Overall, nothing very original here; all these themes have been covered before. Same stuff, different day.

Analyzing the annuals

Hard to believe, but there are already sme fantasy baseball magazines on the magazine racks. Used to be Street and Smith’s was the only game in town; you knew the season was just a short time away when that became available.
But time no longer matters when it comes to fantasy baseball. As soon as the old season is over, the publishers can start putting their magazines together. So for those looking for advice on what’s worthy, here’s a thread on mbd.scout.com for your consideration.

Here’s another fantasy-based list, including books, from BrockforBroglio.com.

Old baseball titles available on-line

Don’t you just love the Internet? It’s filled with all sorts of treasure.

The latest nugget I’ve found is from Manybooks.net, a site for free e-books, available via download for several platforms, which include some rare baseball titles:

The High School Pitcher, by H. Irving Hancock

The Red Headed Outfield and Other Stories (1920) and The Young Pitcher (1911), by Zane Grey

 

 

Spaulding’s Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889, by Anonymous

Rival Pitchers of Oakdale, by Morgan Scott (1911)

 

A Ball Player’s Career, by Adrian C. “Cap” Anson (1900)

 

Base-Ball: How to Become a Player, by John M. Ward (188

You Know Me, Al (1916) and Alibi Ike (based on a series of 1915 short stories), by Ring Lardner

 

The “search” function is a wonder invention. Visit just about any publication of duration and stature and plug in “baseball” in the little rectangular box and see what you come up with. Some magazines, such as Time (which has its full archives on-line), offer full versions of the stories; others just abstracts, with the full story available for a one-time or subscription fee. Some, like the on-line version of ESPN The Magazine, even provide digital images of the original page (for an “Insiders” fee, or free if you subscribe to the print edition).

I’m looking forward to the day Sports Illustrated comes out with a digital edition of its full run. Other magazines such as The New Yorker, Playboy, and Rolling Stone have come out with DVD versions, so it’s just a matter of time.

* Gradual improvement for SI vault

Now this is what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

SI Vault has started putting up the digital version of the original issues, rather than text-only replications (right down to the “dog ear” turning of the virtual pages) The reader has the choice of viewing the entire issue, with all it graphic elements, or just reading the articles, sans fluff. Just a few are available right now, but it’s just a matter of time before the whole shebang is up and running.

Good show, SI.