February 2025

Celebrating Three Decades

Memory might fail me, but I believe we retrieved the first printed issues of Sport Literate from a Kinko’s on Michigan Avenue around St. Patrick’s Day in 1995. With a cover stock a little greener than anticipated, I didn’t realize we were publishing a ‘zine back then. Why would we? From that Magnificent Mile birthplace, we had big dreams for the publication that sold for $2.50.

Fast forward what sometimes seems like 100 years (not merely three decades), and we’re still swinging away with this small press publication. Something more than my father, our first cover model, could not seemingly muster in a failed bunt attempt during his U.S. Army Air Corps days at the tail end of World War II.

To help celebrate our 30th anniversary, we’re inviting poets and writers to send us their honest reflections. No contest, no themes, we’re simply looking to honor our milestone in late spring or summer by publishing great work. The kind of work that has led to accolades in a couple Best American anthologies over the years.

Of course, we could always use readers to go along with our contributors. Our two-issue subscription remains a bargain at $20. If you’re unfamiliar with the pub, you can take a test run for $12.95. I’d say we’ve got more than a few hidden gems in our current issue, but it’s all a bit under the radar in an increasingly virtual world where 240 characters can move mountains and rename oceans.

If muscle memory serves me, I spent a lot of time in Chicago bars when the Bulls were all the rage. Though we’re not trying to recreate that, we are planning a gathering over the last weekend in May at a still-to-be-determined watering hole. So if you’re in the neighborhood, we’ll let you know which one.

William Meiners
Sport Literate, Founding Editor

SL Satire

Call it our own project 2025. Satire, by most any definition, holds up a mirror to society for the purpose of throwing eggs (overpriced and otherwise) at those who deserve a good egging. Since our politics have become the new bloodsport, we at Sport Literate see nothing wrong with a little mockery of the clumsy oligarchy. Remember, it’s satire. Please don’t sue, shoot, or lose your shit over it.

“F Troop” was, according to Wikipedia, “an American television Western sitcom about U.S. soldiers and American Indians in the Wild West during the 1860s.” That whacky premise could have paved the way for a sitcom in a German P.O.W. camp, starring Bob Crane, a wisecracking sex addict. “F. Trump,” for us, could mean many things, including the grade we’d give for the now two-time president.

Some of us have grown old in the Trump Era — now about a decade and counting. As exhausting as the news can be, we will not turn an Oath Keeper’s blind eye to the maniacal rule that threatens to send us back decades. When they’re citing President Andrew Jackson as the gold standard, we could all be effed.

It might be easier to poke fun at the absurdity reflecting back at us from a funhouse mirror. Certainly the late-night comedians often tell variations on the same joke. But we’re taking our own swing at it. If only for historical purposes and the possibilities of a child years down the road asking his mother, “What did Grandma and Grandpa do to resist Trump 2.0?”

In our first multimedia installment, we offer “Mourning in America,” a parody of the Ronald Reagan 1984 re-election commercial. Check it out here. Special thanks to Edward J. Dunn, from Dunn Productions, for his videomaking handiwork.