MEMO from the publisher

July claims fame for its Fourth and the All-Star Baseball Game, but also this year, as I suppose everyone must know by now, for being National Hot Dog Month. In honor of that and in overdue recognition of the hot dog's place in sport, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED next week presents a hot dog portrait—with words and a most realistic photograph, which will help anybody who doesn't know one when he sees one.

As for the All-Star Game, it's on the cover, which leads off the PREVIEW by showing four of the top stars in each league. Then there is a pictorial review of the contest's high points since it began in Chicago a quarter century ago. Plus a SCOUTING REPORT and a few words for the unwise who in this year of 1958 may be watching not only the All-Stars but baseball players for the first time.

Like the All-Star Game, the Tennessee Valley Authority is celebrating its silver anniversary this year. Twenty-five years ago the U.S. created TVA to produce power, aid navigation and control floods. Without ever removing itself entirely from the maelstrom of controversy which surrounded its birth, TVA has done what it was designed to do. It has also, more-or less with its left hand, brought into being an incomparable playground. It has turned a wilderness of water, forest and mountains into a wonderland of lakes, streams and trails, with items as diverse as baby-sitting facilities and world record fish—and people who enjoy telling the visitor honestly where he is most likely to locate both.

For vacationers the Tennessee Valley hits its zenith in summer. Next week Virginia Kraft, repatriated from her African safari (SI, March 10), writes a comprehensive guide to the valley, half of it for those who go by land and car, half for those who go by water and boat and all of it for those who may doubt the advantages of seeing America first.

When the Fourth comes and the All-Star Game comes and thousands upon thousands go to the Tennessee Valley, it's midsummer. So next week's issue says it again in six color pages called Midwest Midsummer. They're what Photographer Richard Meek found when he was just wandering from Ohio to Nebraska with a camera. They are as American as the hot dog and, I guess we'll have to admit it, visually more rewarding.

Unless, of course, it's the last of the seventh and you're very hungry.

ILLUSTRATION