Sports Illustrated April 2024

PERHAPS THE most well-worn cliché in baseball is that you have to take the game a day at a time. It’s a long season; the people around it like to break it down into manageable chunks. So you can imagine executives’ surprise this winter upon learning that when it comes to the regional sports network, which is lurching toward extinction, a day can be a lifetime. It’s the most important plotline in baseball—perhaps in sports—and yet no one can quite explain what is happening, and certainly not what might come next. How fans watch games, the economics undergirding the whole industry—the future of it all is unclear. And the present isn’t much clearer. This is how fast things can flip: On Jan. 16, officials at Major League Baseball believed…

HARVEY MARTIN is aware of the irony. The Giants’ human performance coach saw his own baseball career end in the minors due a case of the yips. The pitcher who had 91 strikeouts and seven walks in his last college season suddenly couldn’t find the zone. In a roundabout way, though, his loss of confidence led him to the big leagues in one of the game’s most interesting roles: breathing specialist. Martin, who says he’s “always been a bit of an intellectual,” started meditating when he was in college. He later took a sports psychology class while in grad school at Minnesota State. After the Brewers released him in 2015, Martin started to use those tools to work on his anxiety. He added Wim Hof breathing techniques and cold…

RONALD ACUÑA JR. was asked to do what he always does: crush baseballs. But instead of launching them into the Truist Park seats, this time he was launching balls into a soundstage’s makeshift batting cage on a rainy January afternoon. Acuña is the cover athlete for 2024 Topps Series 1 Baseball, which arrived on Feb. 14 with a neon glow design, rookie cards for stars like the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz and the Yankees’ Jasson Domínguez, and surprises like cameos from comedian Kevin Hart. As the star of the “Let It Rip” campaign supporting the set’s release, Acuña has been a centerpiece to a strategy that aims to put the sports card hobby in front of more potential collectors. Campaigns like “Let It Rip” haven’t been the norm…

JIM NANTZ is fond of reminding viewers that the Masters is a “tradition unlike any other.” Augusta is unique for photographers as well. The Masters is one of, if not the only, tournament that doesn’t allow shooters inside the ropes. “You’ve got to compete with the crowd,” says photographer Simon Bruty. “That’s really the tough part of working the Masters.” Sometimes, however, the patrons can enhance a picture. In 2004, Phil Mickelson was making a thrilling backnine charge in his battle with Ernie Els en route to his first green jacket. As Mickelson lined a up a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 16, Bruty knew he had no chance of getting an unobstructed shot. “I was trying to stand on stuff,” he recalls. “I knew if he made the…

IN THE 13 years since he suffered a spinal cord injury while making a tackle on a kickoff in a game against Army, former Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand has fought to regain movement (he’s paralyzed from the chest down) and to overcome stigmas associated with using a wheelchair. That includes something as simple as going out for a cocktail. “I’ve traveled all over the country, the world, and when people see me have a cocktail, a lot of times they’re surprised because I’m in a wheelchair,” he says. So in 2020 LeGrand approached his friend and business partner, Brian Axelrod, with an idea. He’d launch his own brand of bourbon. Axelrod, who has a background in the liquor industry, connected with a distiller in Bardstown, Ky., and three…

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’ve been a Sunderland fan for 25 years. (Don’t ask.) I was also born to parents who were Cleveland Browns season ticket holders, so I know sports dysfunction and misery. It’s like Sunderland picked me. The parallels between the two clubs are striking: They’re both located in northern coastal industrial cities with shipbuilding ties, now fighting to stave off a seemingly inevitable blue-collar decline; their football teams, which dominated generations ago, struggle to remain competitive for a rabid fan base. That backdrop made the first two seasons of Sunderland ’Til I Die on Netflix so great. The bond between the club and its fans was strong enough to endure whatever harshness the team encountered. And there was plenty of harshness, in the form of incompetent management and…