January 1961: The Sporting News hits newsstands with its annual “Men of the Year” issue, featuring a striking cover illustration by Dee, the magazine’s acclaimed cartoonist. This was sports journalism at a turning point—hand-drawn covers still mattered, and readers anticipated these year-end issues with the fervor we now reserve for social media.
1961 was shaping up to be historic in baseball. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were in the midst of their season-long home run race that would captivate the nation, with Maris eventually breaking Babe Ruth’s 60-homer record that October. The Sporting News, founded in 1886 and revered as “The Bible of Baseball,” was at peak cultural influence—before television began its slow takeover of sports coverage.
Dee’s cover art anchors this issue. His cartoons defined The Sporting News’ visual identity, capturing athletes’ personalities in economical, expressive lines. Early 1960s issues are prized by collectors for this artwork and for documenting a specific moment: when professional sports were transitioning from regional obsessions to genuine national fever, when athletes still felt somehow more intimate to their audience.
A snapshot of how sports fandom looked when it was still, fundamentally, a newspaper habit.
