"Dad . . . I’ve got a chance to win a new computer!!" With those words, my then 10-year old son suddenly and completely shatters my concentration.
It’s a rainy April evening, and my living room is a hubbub of activity. My beloved Boston Red Sox are off to a fast start this baseball season, and I’m trying to focus in on our local cable TV sports network to find out who’s pitching in tonight’s game. At the front door, my wife is busily engaged in a lively conversation with her close friend from across the street. Their dialog is punctuated with much laughter; as the decibels in my living room increase, my irritation rises exponentially.
"Dad . . . I’m in a magazine selling contest at school. Would you like to buy a magazine so I can win the computer?"
"Yeah, yeah," I grumble absent-mindedly, with an attitude that says to my son, "C'mon, gimme a break, willya!" I take the order form anyway and glance at it. Just then, an ad comes on TV for ESPN magazine.
"Aha!" I think. "The perfect solution!" Then: confirmation of my brilliant choice. I now see that a print ad for ESPN magazine is practically shouting at me from the cover of my son’s magazine catalog. So, to complete this transaction quickly and painlessly, I check the appropriate box on the order form, give my son the last 15 bucks in my wallet, and send him on his way. Life is Good. Pedro Martinez is pitching tonight. I don’t give another thought to ESPN.
Fast-forward with me now to 4:15 p.m., July 6, 2000. I open my mailbox and find it stuffed with a myriad of letters, "You’re pre-approved!!!!" credit card ads, two boxes of checks we recently ordered from our bank, department store flyers, and whatever else didn’t get delivered over the July 4th holiday weekend. And, oh yes, at the bottom of this gargantuan clump of mostly useless mail: my first issue of ESPN – large and glossy, but all wrinkled (presumably by our mail carrier). On the cover is a photo of pitchers Randy Johnson and the aforementioned Pedro Martinez. Their faces are set in grim determination as they rear back to deliver aspirin tablet-sized baseballs to hopeful but ultimately hapless hitters.
"Hmmmm," I think. "I forgot about this." But, the mag looks pretty good, so I take it in and begin perusing it.
I found myself quickly disappointed. I read it through twice, and I didn’t like it. Three more issues have now graced my mailbox (two on the same day last week,) and I've read them cover-to-cover, hoping against hope that my first impressions would change. Nope. I still don’t like it. Not one bit.
For me, ESPN is nothing more than puerile Pablum for the post-baby boom generation. The magazine simply lacks depth and maturity. Now, I have a deep and abiding passion for sports. I take great pleasure in reading superbly written, well thought out editorials and articles about my favorite and not-so-favorite teams and athletes. I especially welcome insightful analyses and incisive commentaries on the state of professional and amateur sports and the people that play them. Unfortunately, ESPN magazine meets very few of my expectations.
Instead of beefy, hard-hitting sports journalism, what you get is lightweight sports coverage at its most vapid. Cover stories, while for the most part well written, are short, lack depth, and border on being misleading. For example, the cover of the aforementioned Johnson/Martinez issue led me to believe I would read an in-depth article comparing and contrasting these two pitching superstars – their skills, their styles, their philosophies, their personalities, how they prepare to succeed every 5th day. What I got instead was a fairly short article that scratched at the surface of these things, but left me knowing little more about these great athletes than when I began the article.
Here’s another example: Tiger Woods graces the cover of the issue which appeared immediately after he so convincingly won the 2000 U.S. Open. Did the cover story talk about Tiger’s victory, or extol his phenomenal golf skills? Did it record his post-tournament reaction, or attempt to describe the feelings of those other golfers whom Tiger so thoroughly dominated at Pebble Beach that weekend? No. Instead, the article blathered on about how Tiger stands to earn an estimated 6.5 billion dollars over the course of his career. Nice article, guys, but don’t you think it might’ve missed the mark just a little?!
Even those attributes of ESPN which have been highly praised and should be the source of its greatest strengths leave me cold. The magazine is slick and attractive looking, yes; however, I find that many page layouts often have a confused, disorganized appearance to them. Sidebars, columns, and other regular features are frequently placed in hard to find spots. The print is small and hard to read. Photography is average at best; certainly below the quality of those sports magazines most renowned for their high quality. There are only a few good "action" shots per issue, and many of those photos seem postage stamp sized.
For those sports aficionados who, like myself, prefer a robust, meaty periodical to keep them up to date on the games people play, stick to the tried and true Sports Illustrated or Sport magazine. ESPN simply doesn’t deliver.
And son . . . next year, I promise, I’ll once again do my best to help you win that computer.
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