MEMO from the publisher

The importance of names in sport is so obvious that ordinarily we hardly give it a second thought. One man who has lately done just that is the Chicago White Sox president, Bill Veeck. The result is a refreshing innovation by which such old familiar names as Aparicio, Wynn, Kluszewski, Pierce and Fox are more than ever with us because those who own them wear them on their backs for all to see. Names like these are at the very heart of sport, and the story of sport cannot be told without them. But their mention suggests what, in its way, I think, is no less an innovation than the White Sox shirts.

Traditionally, the coverage of sport has involved a company of actors as consistent as a repertory theater cast; the names you see in the box score are the names you see in the story. But the cast you are likely to meet in an average issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED includes a surprisingly diverse array of performers. If each week we were to alphabetize their names all in one place they would fill a whole page with pretty fine print. They would also fill many other things, from a concert stage to a political office, with other seemingly nonsporting stations in between. Perhaps it simply proves how pervasive a part of contemporary life sport has become. Anyway, for fun we counted the names in the May 23 issue. Excluding bylines, masthead and such regular fixtures, there were 396, including these:

ANDERSON, JUDITH
BETTINA
BONNET, GERARD
BOGART, HUMPHREY
BURNS, GEORGE
COUVE DE MURVILLE, MAURICE
CROSBY, BING
DUDLEY, EARL OF
EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D.
EUGENIE, EMPRESS
FIELD, MARSHALL, JR.
FLYNN, ERROL
FONTAINE, JOAN
FORD, HENRY
GORDON, MACK
GRACE, PRINCESS
GRAINGER, PERCY
GRUENTHER, ALFRED M.
HARDING, WARREN G.
HAYWORTH, RITA
HERTER, CHRISTIAN
JOYCE, FATHER EDMUND
KAUFMAN, GEORGE S.
KEFAUVER, ESTES
KENNEDY, JOHN
LITVINOFF, MAXIM
LLOYD, SELWYN
LUCE, CLARE BOOTHE
MARLBOROUGH, DUKE OF
MARX, THE BROTHERS
MAUGHAM, SOMERSET
MELBA, NELLIE
MENZIES, ROBERT GORDON
MERCHANT, LIVINGSTON T.
MINEO, SAL
NAPOLEON III
PADEREWSKI, IGNACE
RAFT, GEORGE
RITCHARD, CYRIL
STONE, LEWIS
VINSON, FRED
WINDSOR, DUKE AND DUCHESS OF
WOOD, GRANT
YOUNG, ROBERT R.

Reading this issue, you might enjoy making a similar list of your own.