The Sporting News was essential to we baseball fans in the late 1970s. Before the internet, before Baseball Reference, back when we only got one baseball game on TV per week, it was THE place to get detailed baseball stats. Even though the numbers were slightly out of date when they arrived in your mailbox, we felt lucky to have such a tremendous resource.
Started reading the Sporting News in 1961; that's where I saw the APBA ad in the spring of 1962. Got my own subscription to it for my bar mitzvah in September '63. Loved the minor league box scores; I can still tell you that Felix Maldonado led off for the El Paso Sun Kings (the Giants double-A affiliate) in center field -- he turned up 30 or 40 years later as manager of the Cuban national team -- and Kim Sawrey played second base and hit second. (I'm pretty sure neither of them ever got to triple-A, let alone the majors.) Larry (Moose) Stubing played first base and batted third or fourth; when El Paso moved from the Giants' farm system to the Angels', he stayed there, eventually played briefly for the Angels and then spent more than a decade in SoCal with them as a base coach. I'm pretty sure Arlo Engel, another outfielder, was the other hitter in the 3-4 batting spots; I think the closest he got to the bigs was a photo in spring training where one of the Giant sluggers was swinging five or six bats and the one closest to the camera had Engel's signature. Eventually I was able to buy the Guide and Register every year too; I think there was a package deal with a subscription renewal.
I subscribed to the Sporting News from the late '70s to 1990. It really was essential to me as a die-hard baseball fan to keep informed of all the goings on back then. Definitely missed today. And don't forget the Baseball Guides and Baseball Handbooks were a great way to have all the statistical information about a past season you could want.
Good point illustrated with, well, illustrations. The detailing was so fine, I still can't read the height of the center-left field fence. The Sporting News was the first publication I paid to subscribe to. Even as late as the 70's, it was essential reading.
The Sporting News was essential to we baseball fans in the late 1970s. Before the internet, before Baseball Reference, back when we only got one baseball game on TV per week, it was THE place to get detailed baseball stats. Even though the numbers were slightly out of date when they arrived in your mailbox, we felt lucky to have such a tremendous resource.
Started reading the Sporting News in 1961; that's where I saw the APBA ad in the spring of 1962. Got my own subscription to it for my bar mitzvah in September '63. Loved the minor league box scores; I can still tell you that Felix Maldonado led off for the El Paso Sun Kings (the Giants double-A affiliate) in center field -- he turned up 30 or 40 years later as manager of the Cuban national team -- and Kim Sawrey played second base and hit second. (I'm pretty sure neither of them ever got to triple-A, let alone the majors.) Larry (Moose) Stubing played first base and batted third or fourth; when El Paso moved from the Giants' farm system to the Angels', he stayed there, eventually played briefly for the Angels and then spent more than a decade in SoCal with them as a base coach. I'm pretty sure Arlo Engel, another outfielder, was the other hitter in the 3-4 batting spots; I think the closest he got to the bigs was a photo in spring training where one of the Giant sluggers was swinging five or six bats and the one closest to the camera had Engel's signature. Eventually I was able to buy the Guide and Register every year too; I think there was a package deal with a subscription renewal.
I subscribed to the Sporting News from the late '70s to 1990. It really was essential to me as a die-hard baseball fan to keep informed of all the goings on back then. Definitely missed today. And don't forget the Baseball Guides and Baseball Handbooks were a great way to have all the statistical information about a past season you could want.
Good point illustrated with, well, illustrations. The detailing was so fine, I still can't read the height of the center-left field fence. The Sporting News was the first publication I paid to subscribe to. Even as late as the 70's, it was essential reading.
My Dad and I would read the Sporting News from cover to cover every week