Congratulations to Derek Jeter, SI’s Sportsman of the Year.
I wonder which award is more prestigious: the AL MVP or this? On the one hand, the former is baseball recognizing its own. On the other hand, the latter encompasses all sports. Is there some sort of official award/plaque/trophy for that?
Tom Verducci does the honors in this profile. And since this is the Internet were talking about, there’s a video on “the making of…” to be seen (here).
Surprise, surprise: The Yankees. NOT.
Although Tom Verducci did write the story about the Yankees’ latest championship, as well as this sidebar on the upcoming hot stove league.
And in a case of raining on the Yankees’ parade, this week’s “Sign of the Apocalypse”:
New York City office workers who ran out of confetti during the Yankees’ World Series parade instead threw confidential financial documents, including pay stubs and bank statements.
Baseball takes center stage for perhaps the last time in 2009.
Derek Jeter makes an appropriate cover boy for Tom Verducci’s World Series story.
This makes the 11th time Jeter has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Four of those have come for the post-season, including three World Series covers. Here’s a link to the complete gallery on SI Vault.
Who could have conceived of a time where the Nov. 2 issue wouldn’t include any information about World Series games that had already been played.
Anyway, this week features Ryan Howard on the cover in a Series preview by Lee Jenkins.
Also:
Basketball preview this week, so not much in the way of baseball. Basically it’s Joe Posnanski on the Yankees.
Tom Verducci writes about the chances the Dodgers and Angels face each other in the Fall Classic. Lee Jenkins on Bobby Abreau, who had a major impact on his Angels teammates. And Phil Taylor’s column on the dyspepsia of being a Nationals fan.
The cover pays tribute to the one and only Mariano Rivera, profiled by Tom Verducci. (Of course, there may be more than one “Mariano Rivera,” but you know what I mean.)
Joe Posnanski contributed this piece on Mark Reynolds, the Diamondbacks’ strikeout artists — and I don’t mean the good kind. There’s this little item about Baseball Americana, a new coffee table title published by the Library of Congress. Another piece lists a few of the strange injuries this season. what, nothing about the Mets? They can’t even make for interesting injuries, it seems. That’s okay; The New York Times ran this story that puts things in perspective. It’s worth noting that seven of the members of the opening day line up have spent time on the D.L. By comparison, the Braves and Nationals have had four, the Phillies, two, and the Marlins, zero.
Lee Jenkins pays homage to Detroit, the backbone of the country, and the Tigers, with a photo of Comerica Park on the cover.
Other baseball items of note:
To break the ice at parties, some hosts might engage their guests in some questions, such as “Which character, real or fictional, would you enjoy having a dinner conversation with?”
For many baseball fans, it might be Bill James, as Joe Posnanski, late of the Kansas City Star and new to SI.com, does in this piece. Only instead of having dinner (unless dinner is a dog and a beer), they’re at a ballgame. Me, I’d like to hang out with Stephen King.
In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
What I'm reading now:
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
What I just read:
Paul McCarthey: A Life:, by Peter Ames Carlin
Grade: B. Pleasant enough; no sensational material. McCartney could be a right bastard at times, but aren't we all?
What's next:
L'Époque Glorieuse des Expos, by Alain Usereau
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets' 1969 post-season appears in
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