Sports Afield Magazine

Hearst Corp. has sold its struggling Sports Afield outdoor magazine to publishing industry veteran Robert E. Petersen, founder and former chairman of Los Angeles-based Petersen Publishing Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Hearst previously had said the magazine would be sold to a company "more focused on niche publications." The deal marks a return to magazines for Petersen, who sold his publishing interests in 1996.

Hearst Corp. has sold its struggling Sports Afield outdoor magazine to publishing industry veteran Robert E. Petersen, founder and former chairman of Los Angeles-based Petersen Publishing Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Hearst previously had said the magazine would be sold to a company "more focused on niche publications." The deal marks a return to magazines for Petersen, who sold his publishing interests in 1996.

Heightened competition in the outdoor sports arena is prompting publishers of competing magazines to rethink their strategies, particularly among magazines that traditionally have courted hunters and gun enthusiasts. Guns & Ammo, for example, is sticking to its guns by redoubling its emphasis on entertaining, informing and educating sportsmen for whom rifles and handguns are as much a part of the sporting life as a long board is for a surfer.

Heightened competition in the outdoor sports arena is prompting publishers of competing magazines to rethink their strategies, particularly among magazines that traditionally have courted hunters and gun enthusiasts. Guns & Ammo, for example, is sticking to its guns by redoubling its emphasis on entertaining, informing and educating sportsmen for whom rifles and handguns are as much a part of the sporting life as a long board is for a surfer.

Thomas F. Braun has been named publisher of California Business magazine, which has headquarters in Los Angeles. Braun previously was publisher of Sports Afield magazine.

As reluctant as Calendar seems to be to have anyone on its staff who would be uncool enough to actually know anything about firearms, it is hardly any wonder that it has compounded Jack Matthews' Aug. 21 misidentification of "Dirty Harry's" "piece" as a .357 Magnum by letting letter-writer Russ Hale inform us with utter confidence that that bulge beneath Eastwood's jacket is none other than a ".45 magnum," whatever that may be (Calendar Letters,...

Joyce Ballantyne Brand, the artist who created the bare-bottomed Coppertone Girl who came to be regarded as a piece of commercial Americana, has died. She was 88. Brand, who had recently suffered a heart attack, died Monday at her home in Ocala, Fla., said her daughter Cheri Brand Irwin. For a model, Brand turned to her daughter, who was 3 in 1959. "She worked cheap and was convenient," Brand once recalled. So was the ad's cocker spaniel, based on her Bronxville, N.Y., neighbor's dog.

Thomas McIntyre, the hunting editor of Sports Afield magazine, has combined practical advice, philosophical musings, taxonomic persuasions, literary allusions and the kind of storytelling hunters reserve for times around the campfire to produce this volume.

Capstone Turbine Corp. signed a 10-year, $8.5-million lease for nearly 100,000 square feet of space in Northpark Industrial Center at 21211 Nordhoff St. in Chatsworth. Both Capstone and Northpark Industrial Center were represented by Michael Tingus and John DeGrinis of Colliers Seeley. * TV Guide Networks signed a 10-year, $8-million lease for 26,720 square feet of office space at 6922 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood.

Want a healthier diet? Buy yourself a rifle or bow, take a hunter safety course, apply for a license and a big-game tag, and go shoot an elk. Or a moose, or a deer . . . whatever suits your fancy. If hunting isn't your bag, find a friend who is a hunter and place your order. Chances are, the meat he or she brings home will be much better than what you've been getting at the market. Wild game is not only meaner, but a lot leaner and less apt to clog your arteries and send you to an early grave.

One angler said the fish he had caught shot out of the water like a missile before crashing down violently on the small, unsuspecting fish he was using for bait. Another said the fish he had not caught attacked his bait so viciously and swiftly that he had no chance to set the hook. Indeed, only slightly more than half of those who set out for a day's fishing recently from the sun-baked stretch of beach east of San Jose were able to land the fish they were trying to catch.

Actress Alexandra Wentworth, fiancee of ABC political commentator and former White House aide George Stephanopoulos, has listed her Sunset Strip-area home at $1.75 million. "I'm selling the house and moving to New York because I'm getting married," Wentworth said. The wedding is scheduled for Nov. 20 in New York. Wentworth, 35, has owned her home for almost two years. She renovated the house, built in the '50s. "I don't want to sell it, but it's too big to be a pied-a-terre ," she said.