60th Anniversary, a time to reflect on the life of Baseball Digest - Warm Up Tosses - Editorial

Baseball Digest, August, 2002 by John Kuenster

WITH THIS ISSUE, BASEBALL DIGEST MARKS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS existence, having been first published in August 1942 when major league games were confined to the eastern and midwestern regions of the country.

Teams traveled by train then. Their schedules consisted of 154 games, and when the regular season ended, winners in each league didn't have to face a double tier of playoffs before battling for top honors in the World Series.

Many of our readers had yet to make their debut in this imperfect, often maddening world of ours when that first issue hit the newsstands for the sumptuous price of 15 cents.

Our readership today, however, includes just as many old-time fans who were alive and breathing during that long ago summer when the nation's attention was fixed on our participation in World War II.

In recent decades, one of the most popular parts of the magazine has been "The Fans Speak Out" section. Month after month, letters continually pour in, with the writers asking questions or expressing opinions about the game and its players. Email messages have greatly expanded the number of letters received, but quite a few cannot be published because the senders forget to include their name and address.

It seems that every month, a reader poses a question that has never been answered in the magazine and sends us rummaging through record books or summoning the aid of research people at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

These letters, even the critical ones, are always welcome, and we're sorry we can't print all of them due to space limitations, particularly those that seek a box score of years past when the reader was introduced to the game at a major league park by a father or uncle.

For this anniversary issue, we'll extract one letter from "The Fans Speak Out" box and use it here because it gives us an opportunity to review some Baseball Digest history.

The letter is from Ellis H. Martina of Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, who asks: "Throughout the existence of Baseball Digest, what players have appeared the most times on the magazine's cover?"

With a few taps on computer keys, the answer presents itself:

Elmer Valo, a Czech-born outfielder with the old Philadelphia Athletics, was on the first cover in August 1942, and since then the players who have appeared on the cover the most times (7) are Mickey Mantle, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, Nolan Ryan and Mark McGwire.

Behind them are Stan Musial, Cal Ripken, Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver and Jose Canseco who were each on six covers, while Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson and Tony Gwynn are next with five cover treatments.

In view of the advance time needed to prepare each issue of the magazine, choosing a cover subject sometimes can be compared to rolling dice. You win some, you lose some.

A player who might be a hero today, might be a disgrace in six weeks. He might break a leg, pull a hamstring or even quit the game unexpectedly as Mike Schmidt did early in the season in 1989.

If you're committed to him as a cover subject between the time the magazine starts its press run and finally reaches subscribers, you've got to live with your commitment.

In any event, Baseball Digest has been quite fortunate through the years in producing timely covers of dozens of future Hall of Famers and of players who receive little recognition from other national media sources for their contributions to the game.

An example of the latter case in point is Lance Berkman, the Houston Astros' young switch-hitter who graces the current August cover.

During its lifetime, Baseball Digest has originally published or reprinted articles by such distinguished sportswriters as Jim Murray, Red Smith, Milt Richman, John P. Carmichael, Warren Brown, Dan Daniel, Shirley Povich, Dick Young, Bob Broeg, Allen Lewis, Joe McGuff, Earl Lawson, Jack Lang, Jerome Holtzman, Leonard Koppett, Joe Falls, George Vass, John Steadman and Furman Bisher, most of whom have been honored at the baseball shrine in Cooperstown.

Their stories have provided a varied repast for readers, touching on the history, human interest aspect, and the light side of the game. One of the best of the last category was Furman Bisher's yarn in the September 1990 issue, entitled "Remembering the Tree That Played Center Field" at Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta years ago.

Home of the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association, the park, which no longer exists, featured a large magnolia tree in center field on a terrace rising just above the playing level. And, believe it or not, the tree was in play. Bisher recalled that Eddie Mathews as a 19-year-old kid hit a ball into the tree, the only player he could confirm who did so.

In mentioning Elmer Valo at the start of this essay, it might be added that at that time he was one of only a few, active major leaguers who were born outside the United States. In contrast, the Opening Day rosters for the 2002 season consisted of 222 players born outside the U.S., representing 15 foreign countries and Puerto Rico. The Dominican Republic led all other countries with 74 players.