Friday, May 25, 2012

SPORTS ILLUSTRAT PREDICTIONS 2

11 Splendidly Bad 'Sports Illustrated' Predictions from the '80s
Published Monday, May 24, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM
"Sports Illustrated" is kind enough to have every single one of its covers available in a freedatabase. Certainly a bold move for a magazine whose covers are widely recognized as cursed.

I went through all of the "Sports Illustrated" covers of the '80s (along with the '90s and '00s too, but those lists are coming soon) and chose 11 that made the most enjoyable bad predictions. Here they are, in chronological order...

  1. Roberto Duran saying "No way" to Sugar Ray - June 16, 1980.

    When you think of Roberto Duran fighting Sugar Ray, "no *way*" isn't really the quote you think about.

    (And, yes, this cover was actually published a week before the fight where Duran beat Sugar Ray... but 30 years later, the only thing that people remember was Duran's reaction to Sugar Ray's pummeling in their rematch.)
  2. Sugar Ray Leonard retires - November 15, 1982.

    In 1982, "Sports Illustrated" devoted a cover and feature to a monumental, world-shaking story -- Sugar Ray Leonard was retiring!

    He would not get similar treatment for his retirements in 1984, 1987, 1991 and 1998.
  3. The NY Islanders push toward their 5th Stanley Cup - May 14, 1984.

    And 26 years later, that push is still going.
  4. Can Doug Flutie save the USFL? - February 25, 1985.

    This issue was published in February 1985. The USFL never played another game after July 14, 1985. So, to answer the question posed by "SI"... no, no he couldn't. I don't even think He Hate Me could've saved the USFL.
  5. D-III player Joe Dudek is the smart pick for the Heisman - December 2, 1985.

    It's weird seeing a magazine pull a move like this 25 years ago. I thought the whole "take an absolutely inconceivable position and argue it like a madman" thing started after ESPN instituted its policy of hiring on-air talent based on how loud they can yell, not how smart their opinions are. But here, two-and-a-half decades ago,"SI" pulled out a Baylessian argument that Bo Jackson should lose the Heisman to a guy who was tearing up Division III football.

    With all due respect, that's like saying Jeff Bridges should've lost the Oscar to Chad Vader.

    (Jackson ended up winning the Heisman. Joe Dudek finished ninth in the voting -- which is incredibly impressive for a D-III player. But still.) 
  6. The death of TV sports - February 24, 1986.

    Right now the NFL has $20.4 billion worth of TV contracts with four different networks, and owns its own network on top of that. Everyone else, from the NBA and MLB to NCAA football and basketball to bowling and cheerleading, also have lucrative TV contracts.

    If anything, decades later in the DVR era, sports are the most coveted TV programming choice -- because they're one of the few things that actually demand real-time viewing. TV sports are as alive and well as no one on "Lost".
  7. The Indians will win the American League pennant - April 6, 1987.

    Last week I went OFF on Cleveland sports failures so I don't want to re-open the wounds too much. But this cover came out ahead of the 1987 baseball season when the Indians went... 61-101, good for last place in the AL East. The two cover choices, Cory Snyder and Joe Carter, hit .236 and .264 respectively.

    The moral of the story: Never pick Cleveland to do anything. 
  8. Michael Spinks says "Don't count me out" against Mike Tyson - June 20, 1988.

    If this seems like a lot of boxing covers, that's representative of the '80s -- "SI" featured boxing almost constantly, and the sport was alive and well. It's amazing how much boxing's stock has plummeted in two decades.

    Anyway, this cover went up a week before Spinks was set to fight the up-and-coming boxing phenom Mike Tyson. Spinks was the forgotten man in the fight --everyone assumed Tyson would run him over, like he'd been running over everyone else -- and Spinks got the cover story on "SI" to let the world know he was in it to win it.

    Tyson knocked him out in 91 seconds. 
  9. Jimmy Johnson and Dallas begin a "long climb" - March 20, 1989.

    Sure, they sucked his first year, but... they made it to seven wins the next... won 11, made the playoffs and won a playoff game his third year... and won the Super Bowl his fourth and fifth years.

    If only one of the teams I root for could have the "long climb back" that Jimmy Johnson and the Cowboys had.
  10. Tony Mandarich, best OL prospect ever - April 24, 1989.

    And, of course, he went on to be considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. He was in the Darko spot -- drafted second, behind Troy Aikman and directly ahead of Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders.

    The lesson: Only use a high draft pick on a Canadian if you run a hockey, curling, logging or pelting team. It's the hard truth, buddy. 
  11. The end of wooden bats - July 24, 1989.

    It's weird when "SI" puts out a cover story that resembles something from the "Weekly World News" or, even less credibly, the "New York Post". Twenty-one years later, wood bats are still alive and well... with not even a whisper about getting rid of them.

    Sure, they still shatter, occasionally they're filled with cork, and, no, baseball has not made many, if any, strides in bat innovation. But the innovations they've made with steroids -- incredible!

SPORTS ILLUSTRATION PREDICTIONN 3

11 Splendidly Bad Sports Illustrated Predictions From the 2000s


This is the long overdue third installment of my 20-20 hindsight trip down Sports Illustrated's memory lane. I've previous gone through Sports Illustrated's worst predictions of the '80s andSports Illustrated's worst predictions of the '90s. It's been a while, but I finally tackled the 2000s.

It's interesting to see the evolution of SI over the past three decades. In the '80s there were close to a dozen boxing covers a year. In the 2000s, there were maybe five for the decade. Instead, the 2000s had NASCAR and tons and tons of commemorative editions. Also... the predictions got less wild and less frequent. I found myself with a smaller selection of really bad predictions.

But I was still readily able to pull together 11 Sports Illustrated covers from 2000 through 2009 with bad predictions and misguided ideas that are nice and laughable thanks to hindsight. Here they are, roughly in chronological order.

  1. McGwire and Sosa are juicing the NL Central - March 6, 2000

    Might as well kick it off with the most regrettable cover of the decade. Not only do they say Sosa and McGwire are "juicing" the National League Central -- seriously, of all the words available, they picked juicing -- and they gave them comically oversized Barry "Hulk" Bonds heads. If they could get a mulligan on this one, I think they'd take it.
  2. Can Dennis Miller save Monday Night Football? - July 3, 2000

    No, Dennis Miller couldn't save Monday Night Football. In fact, having a comedian making Proust references kinda bombed. What DID save MNF was the NFL widening its gap as America's favorite sport. By the end of this decade it was untouchable and ESPN decided MNF was worth billions of dollars.
  3. Marion Jones worries about her husband's drug bombshell - October 2, 2000

    Turns out Marion Jones was probably more worried about her own drug bombshell too. It just wouldn't come out for a few more years. (Extra credit on this cover goes to the little upper-left insert about how awesome Wayne Cherbet was turning out to be. Would his star ever stop rising?)
  4. Do the Patriots have a prayer against the Rams? - February 4, 2002

    Not focused here on Apolo Ohno, but on the upper-right corner pondering whether the Patriots had a prayer against the Rams in the Super Bowl. Little did Sports Illustrated know their jinx was in effect.The Patriots would win and, in the process, kick off the Decade of Boston Sports. Known to everyone outside of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and scattered parts of New Hampshire as the most insufferable citywide dynasty ever.
  5. Notre Dame returns to glory! - September 30, 2002

    Yes, every year since 1993 the media has declared that Notre Dame is back. (They are not back.) But these days they usually have the common sense to bury the "Notre Dame is back!" puff pieces somewhere in the back in between articles on women's fencing and Malaysian snooker. S.I. took the bait here and gave it the full cover. And while 2002 was the closest to "back" Notre Dame has been (10-3, with a blowout loss to NC State in the Gator Bowl)... their backness was fleeting. They went 5-7 the next year, 6-6 after that, and that ended the Ty "What a difference a coach makes" Willingham era.
  6. Sebastian Telfair's future - March 8, 2004

    In their defense, Bassy Telfair DID make the leap to the NBA. He just didn't make much of an impression once he got there. And I think he one time he had someone shoot Fabolous. Telfair can't defend NBA guards, but maybe he's a defender of proper spelling?
  7. Sports Illustrated versus the Cubs - April 5, 2004 and May 5, 2008

    Sports Illustrated seemed extra determined in the 2000s to meld their curse with Chicago's curse. They gave the Cubs two covers predicting the end of their century-long championship drought -- one in 2004 and one in 2008. Both times, they featured a false savior (Kerry Wood and the rushed overreaction to one good month by Kosake Fukudome). And both times, obviously, the drought did not end.

  8. Jeff Francoeur and Zack Greinke: Best in baseball - August 29, 2005 and May 4, 2009

    Two inflammatorily, hyperbolic knee-jerk reactions to once and future Kansas City Royals.

    Jeff Francoeur's career started fabulously -- which is when they made this cover -- then regressed to the mean faster than you can say sample size. As for Greinke, this cover made me think of the Billy Madison argument over whether Mortal Kombat or Donkey Kong is the greatest video game of all time. Like, I want to hold up this cover and say, "I disagree. Zack Greinke is a very good pitcher, but I think [insert name of the 25 or so better pitchers] is the best pitcher in baseball."


  9. The league-altering 2006 NFL draft - May 1, 2006

    Everyone really thought the 2006 NFL draft was going to be something, thus "the most pressure-packed talent lottery in years." Vince Young, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinert -- all thrilling in college. Not as thrilling in the NFL. (Mario Williams, A.J. Hawk, Maurice Jones-Drew, and the gorgeously named D'Brickashaw Ferguson proved to be better.)

    Bonus points on this one for Vince Young's quote, "If you don't pick me, that's your choice. But I will remember." Which we could now edit to add: "Although I will hastily forget if you'd just please sign me as a backup."
  10. Is the Pac-10 stronger than the SEC? - September 24, 2007

    I'm not an SEC guy, but I still love thatthey asked this absurd question in 2007. LSU would go on to win the championship (following Florida the year before) -- which would mark year two of the SEC's current six-year title streak. So, no, the Pac-10 was not stronger.
  11. Hard for Brett Favre to say goodbye - March 17, 2008

    Even they fell for this Brett Favre retirement gambit. Little did they know he and his penis were about to head to New York and the will he-won't he dance would happen annually for years to come.

THE MOVIE PALACES OF YESTERYEAR


From the 1920s through the 1950s, thousands of ornate movie palaces were built across America, seating hundreds of patrons in lavish settings for films and live shows. But the introduction of television, the rise of the multiplex, and the dissolution of city centers caused the movie palace to go the way of the dinosaur. In the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, many were destroyed (usually for parking lots). Some were converted, into multiplexes, performing arts centers, or adult theaters. Others were repurposed into different (and somewhat incongruent) businesses entirely; others were simply left to fall apart.
In 2005, photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre (whose photographs of Detroit in ruins captivated us last year) began documenting theaters that had either fallen into decay or been transformed entirely. The results of the ongoing project can be viewed on their website; we’ve collected the most haunting and fascinating of those pictures after the jump, along with four photographs not yet in that collection, provided to Flavorwire by the photographers. (Follow the link on the theater’s name for more information on the venue, at the wonderful Cinema Treasures website.)

Paramount Theater, Long Branch, NJ. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Palace Theater, Bridgeport, CT. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Gem Theater, Cairo, IL. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Westlake Theater, Los Angeles, CA. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Westlake Theater, Los Angeles, CA. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Eagle Theater, New York, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Paramount Theater, Brooklyn, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Central Park Theater, Chicago, IL. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Uptown Theater, Philadelphia, PA. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

RKO Dyker Theater, Brooklyn, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Proctor’s Theater, Newark, NJ. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Proctor’s Theater, Newark, NJ (interior). Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Fabian Theater, Paterson, NJ. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Loew’s 46th Street Theater, Brooklyn, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

RKO Keith’s Richmond Hill Theater, Richmond Hill, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Kenosha Theater, Kenosha, WI. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Loew’s Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Loew’s Palace Theater, Bridgeport, CT. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Uptown Theater, Chicago, IL. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre

Casino Theatre, Brooklyn, NY. Photo courtesy of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Special thanks to Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre for their dedication to this project and for allowing us to use these remarkable images.

BONJOUR

1950's makeup

GOLDEN EAGLE

Digital Art selected for the Daily Inspiration 510

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