The Life of Reilly

Much to my wife's IMMENSE pleasure (and much to her husband's deplorable chagrin), my most recent subscription to Sports Illustrated ended well before the Cubbies were knocked out of playoff contention in 2007. My college buddies always quipped that my wife (who was my girlfriend, at the time) could openly offer her body and I would voluntarily put things on hold once the Jack Macullum article was finished. I simply adored SI THAT much.

The magazine was out of my life for a plethora of reasons (finances, the birth of my son, time constraints, etc.), but the move to a new residence did its part to solve a part of the problem. Upon changing addresses, I found that the United States Postal Service was offering tremendous deals on various magazine subscriptions, including Sports Illustrated, which would cost a mere $39 a year (a FAR cry from the ludicrous $86 annual fee I was used to paying).

Unfortunately, the magazine underwent some drastic alterations since I last picked up a copy that was subscribed to me:

• For one, Steve Rushin, author of an outstanding column entitled Air and Space, is no longer part of the SI staff. His weekly contribution to the magazine was incredibly heart-warming, as it shined light on the sometimes very ugly world of sports.



• Dan Patrick has changed gigs, moving from the Sportscenter desk to the radio booth to the back column of SI, a space once designated for the great Rick Reilly, who has since moved on to ESPN the Magazine.
  

Of the two changes in command, Rick Reilly's absence perturbs me the most. It's not often that, when picking up a magazine, you turn to the back page first, as I did with every weekly offering of the SI archive. Reilly's articles were comical, poignant, enlightening, and altogether well-written. He was one of the few journalists that put Sammy Sosa on the spot amid the whole steroid brouhaha in baseball, suggesting that Sosa prove himself innocent by having his urine voluntarily tested. Reilly conveyed his knowledge of what Super Bowl XXXIX MVP Deion Branch did immediately after the Patriot win over the Eagles: he personally thanked EVERY coach that had a part in his football success, from the Pee Wee leagues on through the pros. Reilly singlehandedly made sports worth following, especially behind the scenes, where the human-interest stories he crafted were second to none. His work is so spectacular, I shared a copy of his acclaimed book Who's Your Caddy? with my father in-law, who is a golf fanatic. The book follows Reilly as he caddies for various golfers of all makes and models, including scoundrel John Daly and finance mogul Donald Trump. The book had both of us in stitches, as it offered a perspective on golf that even a purist would find disabusing. Personally, it only helps Reilly's cause that he is a rabid Barry Bonds hater.


For those of you not familiar with Reilly's work, you soon will be when the film Leatherheads hits theaters in April of this year. Credit him for the majority of moments in the film that you'll find humorous and insightful. After all, screenwriting is his next field of the craft to master. Luckily for me, in just a few weeks, I will welcome the Sports Illustrated subscription back into my home, but not without 'genuflecting' first over the loss of Reilly to the SI staff.