Today's requiem

 I wrote my obit for Sports Illustrated almost two-and-a-half years ago now, on account of the magazine I grew up reading and that steered me into 38 years of writing about our games was long gone by then. Great writing and photography and by-God journalism had surrendered to the omnipotence of The Brand by then, and I mourned appropriately.

Here's what I wrote, if you're interested. Or, you know, not.

Anyway, I'm back on the subject today because SI jettisoned another crop of its writers yesterday, because writers don't matter there anymore. Hell, the bosses can just get AI to do the writing, right? And in some cases (I can hardly say this without throwing up in mouth a little), they have.

I can imagine Dan Jenkins throwing a young scotch against the wall up there in the celestial press box, hearing that. Or Frank Deford or Gary Smith or Rick Reilly or any of the other authors who made Sports Illustrated such a glorious festival of words, images and, again, by-God journalism.

Know what I don't have to imagine?

What another SI alum, Jeff Pearlman, thinks about it. Needless to say, he ain't too happy, either.

Here's how he put it on what can only be described as a seething TikTok video yesterday, and re-posted by the website Awful Announcing:

As a guy who wrote for Sports Illustrated for a long long time and a guy who loves Sports Illustrated, like loves, loves, loves ... this stuff carves me up. And it's one thing that they get rid of writers, they lay people off. What I hate the most is that these corporate douchebags who have taken over the magazine view it just as a name now ...

I do want to remind people, because I think it's important, and I know this makes me a dinosaur. To me, Sports Illustrated is Gary Smith, it's Rick Reilly, it's Grant Wahl, it's Ron Fimrite, it's Frank Deford, Dan Jenkins, Jon Wertheim, Phil Taylor. It's the great, great, great writing and reporting, where once upon a time they put money and pride into bringing you the absolute best in sports ... every Tuesday or Wednesday, you'd open you mailbox and there would be this bible every week  of what's going on in sports.

As someone who actually opened that mailbox every week as a kid, I say this: Amen, Jeff Pearlman. Amen.