Puppies, Poison Ivy And A Dashing Duke

For 25 cents we gave you our two cents worth on the boomerang, two articles on the current baseball-card craze, an account of the first race between two sub-four-minute milers, a primer on what you should know if you are going to buy a puppy, Bill Talbert on Tony Trabert, an essay that tried to convince you (and ourselves) that we were in the middle of the golden age of sport and a puff piece on the sporting life of the "Dashing Duke of Edinburgh," Prince Philip. We also did a hard-hitting feature on poison ivy, in which Dr. Marcus Kogel was quoted as saying that the leaves might actually taste good in a salad, although he did add. "One man's meat is another's poison." And we made note of the 35th anniversary of Upset's upset of Man o' War in the Sanford at Saratoga.

All of that was in the Aug. 16, 1954, issue—the premier issue—of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves (batting), Wes Westrum of the New York Giants (catching), umpire Augie Donatelli (behind the plate) and County Stadium fans (those sitting on the first base side) were on the cover, and inside we felt our way around the world of sports, from the Himalayas to the New Jersey shore, from cricket to ladies' wrestling. After 35 years, it's fun to see how far we—and sports—have come.

According to tradition, the 35th anniversary is identified with coral and jade. We prefer coral, and not only because we don't like to think of ourselves as having become jaded over the years. Coral is, after all, formed in the sea by millions of tiny animals, and it is constantly changing and splendidly varied. SI today looks vastly different from the way it did 35 years ago, and it will undoubtedly look vastly different 35 years hence from the way it does now. Sports, too, are in a perpetual state of flux: Today's Braves are in Atlanta, and the Giants are in San Francisco.

But Milwaukee and New York came up with teams to replace them in the hearts of their citizens. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Since that first issue we have tried to offer the best in writing, photography and art, and we have always strived to entertain, enlighten and encompass. And one other thing: We have never been afraid to go out on a limb.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SI HISTORY, NO. 1. In our Oct. 1, 1956, preview of the World Series, we wrote, "Variety pitchers (Kucks, Sturdivant) might bother both Brooklyn and Cincinnati, but fastballers (Turley, Larsen) are looked on hungrily by muscular Dodgers and Reds." All Don Larsen did, of course, was pitch the only perfect game in Series history.

Advertisements are a good reflection of the times, and the ads in our first issue are no exception: Born for a long sporting life—new Stetson Railbird...You won't find many Kaiser-Darrins on the highway today—or tomorrow...Also makers of famous Falls City original air breather minnow buckets. Some of our editorial matter seems just as dated. We ran a fashion spread on sports-car racing teams. We hid Red Smith on baseball and Budd Schulberg on boxing in the back of the magazine, while devoting significant space up front to the comeback of the beaver. We no longer have a FISHERMAN'S CALENDAR ("WISCONSIN: Chippewa Flowage producing well, with 48½-pound muskie reported from Hayward last week"), nor do we run many features on beavers and poison ivy.

The writing and photography hold up pretty well, though. Our first story, Paul O'Neil's account of Dr. Roger Bannister and John Landy racing in the Vancouver Mile, is still an awfully good piece of writing, the lead of which we republish on page 27. O'Neil concluded his story as follows, revealing the poet in the athlete:

" 'I tried to pull away from him in the backstretch of the last lap,' said Landy after he ceased to gasp for breath. 'I had hoped that the pace would be so fast that he would crack at that point. He didn't. When you get a man in that sort of a situation and he doesn't crack, you do. From then on I knew it was only a question of time. I looked over my left shoulder to see where he was on the turn, and when I looked back he was ahead of me.' He paused, grinned, shook his head and added, 'I've had it.' "

From the same Empire Games in Vancouver, we recorded on film the agony and confusion of a marathoner named Jim Peters, who entered the stadium in the lead, collapsed in pain, struggled to his feet, collapsed again and ultimately passed out after lurching for the wrong finish line. In that first issue you also can find the fossils of creatures that exist to this day. PAT ON THE BACK evolved into FACES IN THE CROWD, SOUNDTRACK into SCORECARD and SCOREBOARD into FOR THE RECORD.

One of the delights of going through back issues is coming across mentions of athletes who would go on to bigger and better things. That first SCOREBOARD noted that 19-year-old light heavyweight Floyd Patterson won an eight-rounder in Brooklyn, that 13-year-old Earl Buchholz won the National Junior Chamber of Commerce tennis tournament in Springfield, Ohio, that Arnold Palmer won the amateur division of the Tam O' Shanter golf tournament in Chicago and that Allen Geiberger reached the finals of the U.S. Golf Association junior amateur championship in Los Angeles. The one athlete who has remained at the top of his sport throughout most of our history is in there, too. Jockey Willie Shoemaker was cited for riding three winners at Del Mar, Calif., giving him 22 victories in nine days.