Lately I’ve been collecting the baseball preview issues of Sports Illustrated.
As you can imagine, some are more expensive than others. I have an upper limit on how much I’ll spend but I’ve been happy with the results.
The latest arrivals include 1957, 1958, 1965, 1968, and 1970. Aside from the wonderful writing and the nostalgia factor, you can’t minimize the fun of looking at the old advertisements, some of which would not be considered PC these days. Cars, clothes, booze, and tobacco in various forms. Crazy, man. You can see the changing styles from the Eisenhower decade (the first issue of SI came out in 1954) to the swinging 70s, with its “mod look.” It’s quite amusing to witness.
The magazine “trim” size used to be bigger in those days. You also used to be able to view every issue via sivault.com but that domain name is up for grabs it seems. I wonder if it exists in the same form under a different name. The magazine itself does offer various stories, but it’s certainly not like it used to be as far as a searchable entity. You might be able to examine full issues online via your local public library. It’s certain a deep rabbit hole.
At one point I was considering doing a book about the changing culture through the pages of SI, focusing on those ads and what was deemed important at the time. M
(BTW, Points off for lack of imagination between ’57 and ’58 covers).
