sports illustrated

I love it. I turn on the large lamp in the corner of my living room, also grabbing the little one on top of the coffee table neighboring my gray, vertically-striped recliner. The room fully illuminated, I plop into that recliner, a 40-some year-old relic manipulated for decades by my now-deceased grandfather. never fully comfortable. My friends leave it vacant over a missing spring. I think it's just right.

These moments are rare. Though I love to read, have a bookshelf full of books and a subscription to Sports Illustrated, I rarely get to (for fun, at least...). That's why it's so special. But perhaps it goes deeper than that. Reading SI beckons to my inner self, a person who loves sports and loves journalism. Articles about sports I don't consider sports (e.g. NASCAR and golf), articles about sports I hate to play (e.g. soccer) and articles about sports which I don't really follow (e.g. NHL, NBA, tennis) draw me in.

The past few issues have been especially intriguing:

The May 23 issue featured articles about:

• How the Tuscaloosa affected athletes at the University of Alabama
• The MLS rivalry between the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers
• Novak Djokovic, tennis' new number 1 phenom, a player I'd never heard of...

Yes, please.

The June 6 issue featured articles about:

• The Jim Tressel/Ohio State football issues and "How Deep It Went"
• The Dallas Mavericks' hunt for an NBA Title, led by an unlikely and aging point guard, Jason Kidd
• Luis Salazar, a minor league manager for the Braves organization who lost his left eye in a freak foul ball incident during Spring Training
• The Boston Bruins in the quest for the 2011 Stanley Cup and a comparison to Boston hockey lore

I read the entire issues. About tennis. I don't care about professional tennis. Just ask Aaron Poole. About soccer. I detest the sport. I'm fat and slow. About hockey. I'm not from Canada...

Great subjects. Great writing. Great magazine. 

Now I may actually have time to get caught up on back issues...