AN ILLUSTRIOUS PASTIME

Just as baseball is America's pastime, the weekly Saturday Evening Post was once America's magazine, its arrival anticipated by subscribers as keenly as the start of the baseball season. Through world wars and the Depression, the Post informed its readers of global events, entertained them with cliff-hanging stories that ran in serial form, and moved or amused them with evocative, sometimes sentimental, covers. In its 72 years (1897-1969) as a weekly magazine, the Post ran more than 300 sports covers; 58 of them had a baseball theme, the first one appearing on June 6, 1908, the last on April 29, 1961. All of those baseball covers were commissioned artwork, and SI is pleased to present a dozen of them (accompanied by the names of the artists), to help remind you of the way we were—and in some ways, still are.

PHOTO

DOUGLAS CROCKWELL

PHOTO

NORMAN ROCKWELL

PHOTO

LONIE BEE

PHOTO

STEVAN DOHANOS

PHOTO

STEVAN DOHANOS

PHOTO

NORMAN ROCKWELL

PHOTO

NORMAN ROCKWELL

PHOTO

DICK SARGENT

PHOTO

JOHN CLYMER

PHOTO

JOHN FALTER

PHOTO

STANLEY EKMAN

PHOTO

EARL MAYAN