1985

Rock Hudson dies, heightening awareness of AIDS. Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power, portending sweeping change in Eastern Europe. Pete Rose passes Ty Cobb on the hit parade. Trophies for the Royals, Bears, Lakers, Edmonton and, in the colleges, Oklahoma in football and Villanova in basketball.

AND INTRODUCING...
Cus D'Amato died last week.... Cus's latest prodigy was 19-year-old heavyweight Mike Tyson, who has a record of 11-0, all knockouts.
—SI, Nov. 18

IN SI'S WORDS
THE BALL PETE HIT
On the morning Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's hit record in Cincinnati, I was already sitting in my box at Riverfront Stadium. A cardboard box, that is. It was last Wednesday. Sept. 11, for you historians, and I was stacked in a storage closet. Suddenly, in mid-afternoon, I was rushed down to the umpires' room, where an attendant rubbed me up with Delaware River mud (a bit roughly, I might add) and tossed me in a canvas bag with five dozen other balls. Just like that I was on the cutting edge of history. . . While I waited in the dugout with the other 59 balls, we talked anxiously about the prospect of being hit No. 4,192.
—CRAIG NEFF

See the Edsel (page 56).

The long (7'7" Manute Bol), the short (5'7" Spud Webb) and the wide (310-pound Refrigerator Perry) of it.

Libby Riddles is the first woman to win the Iditarod.

FASHION PLATE: Anne White

Billy Martin is fired.

Grambling's Eddie Robinson wins No. 324.

Ah, to be Dwight Gooden, barely 20 and already a 24-game winner.

Bo Jackson, a .401 hitter, wins the Heisman.

Ah, to be Boris Becker, not yet 18 and already Wimbledon champ.

TEN PHOTOS

"He looks like he went to the blood bank and forgot to say when."
—PAT WILLIAMS, PHILADELPHIA 76ER GENERAL MANAGER, ON BOL (LEFT)