MEMO from the publisher

Christmas and New Year's Day combine to close one year and start another. Spanning them in spirit and in fact, this Special Holiday Issue becomes a two-in-one edition.

Our next issue is two weeks away—and opens 1959 by looking back on 1958 and naming SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S Sportsman of the Year (who will be a guest of honor on the Ed Sullivan Show, Sunday, January 4). The issue will pay tribute also to the runners-up and to the choices of our staff members in their particular fields of sport.

Whoever he is, 1958's Sportsman will share with all sportsmen a quality less rare than wonderful: the talent to look back on his year and assess with good humor (or Just plain humor) situations which did not entirely go his way.

Here, looking back on 1958 for myself, are a few examples of what I mean, taken from "They Said It," our weekly box of quotations that appears in EVENTS & DISCOVERIES:

The Senators' Cookie Lavagetto, after Commissioner Frick reproved him for saying the Yankees would win by 15 games: "I wanted to get them overconfident so we could beat them."

Slater Martin, St. Louis Hawks' star: "The toughest part of guarding Bob Cousy is the temptation to stand back and admire him."

Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, attending the 75th birthday party of Ben Jones "I've seen Ben cut many's the cake around the race track. But this is the first time I've ever known him to let someone else have a piece of it."

Dudey Moore, noting a sellout crowd before his Duquesne five played Cincinnati and their All-America Oscar Robertson; "Everybody wants to see Robertson—that is, everybody but me."

Bobby Shantz, pondering his Yankee contract: "They may be rich, but they ain't careless."

Maryland U's Miler Burr Grim, who spent the winter chasing Ron Delany across the finish line: "Look at the opportunities I've had to study. I'm the world's greatest authority on Delany's heels."

Sam Auld, foreman of the crew that built Sceptre: "Next time we'll have to build a boat wi' the bucket up ott the water."

They said it—and now SPORTS ILLUSTRATED joins men and women of good will everywhere in saying:

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR