Mainers should boycott SI

Let’s start a boycott of Sports Illustrated magazine here in Maine.

And – surprise – this boycott would have nothing to do with the much-celebrated swimsuit issue, the magazine’s annual rite of parading portraits of nearly naked and outright naked models, and wryly labeling this as “sport.” Yes, the magazine seems to relish the anguish and outrage the issue engenders. Not to mention the money it brings in. But, of course, it’s almost pass? to threaten boycotting one’s subscription over this issue. We’re really left nothing to do but, forgive the pun, grin and bear it.

We in Maine, however, should consider boycotting the magazine because of something that actually has to do with sports.

Sports Illustrated has shown tremendous disrespect to the legacies of Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis, by ignoring his place in history and omitting him completely from its “50 Greatest Athletes from the State of Maine” in 1999. Sockalexis inspired the nickname the Cleveland baseball franchise continues to carry when he became the first American Indian to play major league baseball and endured a Jackie Robinson-like experience, too little appreciated to this very day. He paved the way for the next generation of American Indian players, including John Meyers, Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Charlie Bender, and Jim Thorpe, unquestionably the greatest known American Indian athlete of all-time.

Further, the magazine left his second cousin, Andrew Sockalexis off the same “50 greatest athletes” from Maine list as well. Andrew Sockalexis finished second in the Boston Marathon in both 1912 and 1913, and was the fourth-place place finisher in the marathon in the Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm.

When the magazine celebrated its 50th year celebration, in 2004, it reprinted the same list, compounding this sorrowful omission.

First women’s Olympic marathon winner Joan Benoit Samuelson was the obvious first-place choice, but I would argue that either of the Sockalexis cousins rivals any of the choices, certainly from the number two pick right through to the 50th selection. I will not denigrate the lives and careers of any of these choices by focusing on any particular individual by name…but I’ll bet anyone who is familiar with Maine sports will be left shaking his or her head when left to compare selection after selection with the feats of the Sockalexis cousins.

In stark contrast, for instance, when the Bangor Daily News, celebrating 100 years of history, published a special edition looking at all facets of its coverage over the 20th century, it found only three athletes worthy of notation and celebration in that entire time: Benoit-Samuelson, Louis Sockalexis and Andrew Sockalexis. Frankly, if we’re looking for athletes from our state who have made not only a regional name for themselves, but also a national and even an international name, the BDN probably has it right.

So how does Sports Illustrated come to miss the mark so completely?

Is it guilty of racism? It might earnestly seem so to any enlightened Maine sports fans, when this national publication leaves out two great American Indian athletes while mentioning a white kid who fired up the luckiest of half-court shots to win a high school state championship game, or elevating the individual who invented waterproof boots to “athlete” status. Or are we just being mocked here in Maine?

I have tried, several times actually, to get Sports Illustrated to apologize. The magazine, to date, has now added silence and arrogance to disrespect. It merely has mentioned to me that it has “covered” Louis Sockalexis in the past and sees no reason to make any further mention of him.

Pretty curious. The only two articles I am familiar with that Sports Illustrated has done is a column, back in 1973, that was riddled with more errors than just about any journalistic piece on Sockalexis I’ve ever encountered (and the candidates for “champion” in this category are bountiful!). And the second was complete fantasy, offering what-might-have-been views on the lives of several athletes who had “star-crossed” careers. No, Sports Illustrated, you haven’t come close to getting this story right. Ever.

I’m very aware that Sports Illustrated has used “a stringer,” a designated source living here in Maine to keep the magazine apprised of any newsworthy people or events that the editors might consider for future publication. I strongly suspect it was this individual who put together the magazine’s Maine list; anyone who could come up with the extraordinarily obscure names contained in this list had to know about the Sockalexis cousins. So, at the very least, I’d like this individual made to explain and, hopefully, apologize for this serious slight to Maine history.

I mean how can anyone familiar with the many, many obscure names on this list NOT be familiar with the name “Sockalexis”? This smacks of serious racism to me, unless there is another excuse; one that is equally bad: Ignorance.

College English teacher and journalist Ed Rice of Orono is the author of the book “Baseball’s First Indian, Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian.” He has a Web site at www.sockalexis.info.