Sports Illustrated Magazine

Sports Illustrated magazine has hired Calabasas-based T.HQ Inc. to produce a line of video games. The games, to be called SI and Sports Illustrated for Kids, will be made to be played on Nintendo and Sega video game systems. The first game, a football and baseball version designed for the Super Nintendo system, will debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. T.HQ is a producer of interactive games and toys.

Before ESPN "SportsCenter" and ESPN the magazine, before endless office chatter about fantasy baseball, and the ascent of the wisecracking, barely reformed frat-boy sportscaster, there was an undisputed gold standard of sports coverage, and that gold standard was Sports Illustrated. Gary Smith is a fortunate product of what Sports Illustrated wrought.

AOL Time Warner said it would stop publishing Sports Illustrated Women to cut costs at its Time Inc. unit. With a circulation of 400,000 after 34 issues, the spinoff of the company's 48-year-old Sports Illustrated magazine will end with the December issue. The company announcement follows news this month that the world's largest magazine publisher would stop publishing its Mutual Funds magazine. Both closings are casualties of the depressed market for advertising.

Sidney James, whose stewardship of Sports Illustrated as its founding editor saved the then-struggling magazine from a premature demise, has died. He was 97. James died Thursday at a nursing home in Alameda of cardiopulmonary arrest and prostate cancer. Sports Illustrated, a staple of every professional sports clubhouse and a centerpiece of coffee tables across America, would not have moved into the nation's consciousness were it not for James' persistence and unflagging optimism.

* Donald M. Elliman Jr. has been named president and publisher of Sports Illustrated magazine, it was announced Tuesday. Managing Editor Mark Mulvoy has been publisher of Sports Illustrated since October, 1990, and will continue as managing editor. Elliman had formerly been president of the sales and marketing division of Time Inc., with responsibility for advertising sales and marketing of all eight of the company's New York-based magazines.

What: "The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine," by Michael MacCambridge. Price: $24.95 (hardcover), Hyperion. The boy, a few weeks shy of his 10th birthday, realized what he wanted most that year. He pulled the subscription card from the magazine, carefully filled in the blanks and took it to his father for permission before mailing it.

Sidney James, whose stewardship of Sports Illustrated as its founding editor saved the then-struggling magazine from a premature demise, has died. He was 97. James died Thursday at a nursing home in Alameda of cardiopulmonary arrest and prostate cancer. Sports Illustrated, a staple of every professional sports clubhouse and a centerpiece of coffee tables across America, would not have moved into the nation's consciousness were it not for James' persistence and unflagging optimism.

Pete Rose, being investigated by the baseball commissioner's office for possible gambling activities, is also under close scrutiny from two of the nation's magazines. The specifics of major league baseball's investigation of the Cincinnati Reds' manager is for possible betting on baseball games, Sports Illustrated reported in this week's issue. Jim Ferguson, the Reds' vice president for publicity, said he spoke with Rose Tuesday night about the Sports Illustrated allegations.

Tommy Chaikin no longer seeks to alter his person by artificial means. In retrospect, he views his experiment with steroids as the height of stupidity. He gained 50 pounds of muscle, became a starting defensive end for South Carolina, and ended up in a state of mental and physical collapse and legal controversy. He says he knows now what a self-obsessed act of gall it was, to attempt to redefine his essential matter and muscle. "I was an arrogant . . .," he said.

AOL Time Warner said it would stop publishing Sports Illustrated Women to cut costs at its Time Inc. unit. With a circulation of 400,000 after 34 issues, the spinoff of the company's 48-year-old Sports Illustrated magazine will end with the December issue. The company announcement follows news this month that the world's largest magazine publisher would stop publishing its Mutual Funds magazine. Both closings are casualties of the depressed market for advertising.

What: "The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine," by Michael MacCambridge. Price: $24.95 (hardcover), Hyperion. The boy, a few weeks shy of his 10th birthday, realized what he wanted most that year. He pulled the subscription card from the magazine, carefully filled in the blanks and took it to his father for permission before mailing it.

Facing the threat of media boycotts at the Indy 500, the speedway reinstated credentials for a Sports Illustrated writer who had been barred because the magazine ran a critical article and photo of fans killed at a race. The ban had raised concerns at several newspapers around the country. The Chicago Tribune and Sports Illustrated said they weren't going to cover the May 30 race, and the Los Angeles Times was considering a similar move.

You are a supporter of USC athletics. You return home from your Newport Beach car dealership one early June evening to discover your favorite school has sent you a letter. You smile and wonder. Hmmm, maybe it's from energized new football coach Paul Hackett, discussing the team's spring progress. Or, perhaps, it's about the baseball team's inspirational march toward a national championship. You hurriedly open the letter, expecting something light and fun. And out falls a rock.

An even closer look at the fine print of the 1998 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue finds that a small Orange County swimwear company came away the big winner. Jamaican Style Inc. of Fountain Valley, a 10-year-old company owned by Jerry Goeden, had three of its suits appear in the magazine's best-selling issue of the year. That development is probably lost on most of the magazine's readers, but it's considered a huge honor--and big business builder--in the fashion industry.

If you didn't make it to the fine print of this week's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, two Orange County companies landed their goods in the magazine's biggest-selling issue of the year. The big winner was GirlStar Swim, the women's swimwear line of Irvine-based Gotcha International, which had two of its suits in the 220-page special issue. In addition, a suit made by Radio Fiji for Raisins, which is owned by Costa Mesa-based Quiksilver Inc., made the magazine.

Before ESPN "SportsCenter" and ESPN the magazine, before endless office chatter about fantasy baseball, and the ascent of the wisecracking, barely reformed frat-boy sportscaster, there was an undisputed gold standard of sports coverage, and that gold standard was Sports Illustrated. Gary Smith is a fortunate product of what Sports Illustrated wrought.

You are a supporter of USC athletics. You return home from your Newport Beach car dealership one early June evening to discover your favorite school has sent you a letter. You smile and wonder. Hmmm, maybe it's from energized new football coach Paul Hackett, discussing the team's spring progress. Or, perhaps, it's about the baseball team's inspirational march toward a national championship. You hurriedly open the letter, expecting something light and fun. And out falls a rock.

When Sports Illustrated first came out, it had a hard time identifying with the hard-core sports public. I know. I was there. Dan Jenkins, who later rode to its rescue, dismissed its early editions as "a slick cookbook for your basic two-yacht family." Still others saw it as "a coffee table item for polo players' living rooms." A colleague wondered when we would publish a lead story, "Falcons Are Fun," referring to the peregrine kind, not the Atlanta football team.

Sports Illustrated has gone swimsuit optional. For the first time, Sports Illustrated this week published a notice offering subscribers the option of not being sent the magazine's annual swimsuit issue. The notice appeared in a box on SI's letters-to-the-editor page in its March 24 issue. Most of the letters concerned the magazine's swimsuit issue, including one that denounced it as "pornography."