Lineup
SPECIAL DOUBLE ISSUE
The Great American Sports
98 Hall of Fame Members
102 200 Wins, 300 HRs
104 Where Pros Come From
106 The NFL by Position
110 Teams on the Move
115 Altered States
121 What Fans Watch
122 College Champs
124 Olympic Athletes
126 Where the Courses Are
130 Where Stars Are Born
Departments
6 Leading Off
SI's photo gallery of champions who thrilled sports fans in 2004
23 Contributors
24 Letters
27 Air and Space •
To all the doofuses who did things in 2004 that I couldn't make up by Steve Rushin
34 Scorecard
• Best sports books of the year
• Roddick's magical mystery tour
• Johnson beats Tarver in tight fight
44 Faces in the Crowd
49 Players
136 The Life of Reilly
Want to learn something about life? Be a Santa by Rick Reilly
Inside ...
61 The NFL
• How will Eagles do without TO?
65 College Basketball
• Creighton senior's comeback
69 Baseball
• A's, Braves, Yanks shuffle aces
70 The NBA
• Kings' two stars not aligned
72 College Football
• Utah QB is SI's Player of the Year
74
Farewell
Even as new stars were born in 2004--welcome, Michael Phelps, Ben Roethlisberger, Maria Sharapova, Smarty Jones--others, such as Pat Tillman (right), went dark. Each of the athletes, coaches and innovators who died left a mark: some great, some small, all indelible
86
Who Would Pros Pay to See?
In the ultimate peer review SI polled more than 600 players from the Big Three pro sports to find out which athletes they admire most. Some names, like Tiger Woods (right), were expected. Other choices--and choice comments--were not
By Jack McCallum
Cover
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER GREGOIRE
INSET PHOTOS: Preston Mack/US Presswire (Manning); Fernando Medina/WireImage.com (Clemens); Rick Stewart/Getty Images (Abdul-Jabbar)
SI Extra
To sign up for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's free subscriber-only e-mail newsletter, go to sicustomerservice.com/siextra.
To Our Readers Please note that this is a double issue. The next SI will be dated Jan. 10, 2005. For news and scores, go to si.com.
Revisit more of the top stories, memorable moments and compelling images of 2004, and check out sport-by-sport story lines for 2005 from SI's experts on each beat, at si.com/scorecard.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION
ILLUSTRATION BY ZOHAR LAZAR (RUSHIN)
COLOR PHOTO
VIKTOR KOEN (COMPASS)
THREE COLOR PHOTOS
INTERNATIONAL MAPPING (MAPS)
COLOR PHOTO
STEALTH MEDIA SOLUTIONS/REUTERS (TILLMAN)
COLOR PHOTO
ROBERT BECK (WOODS)