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At its launch in 1946, SPORT magazine was America's first significant general interest sports magazine. By the time of its closing 54 years later, SPORT was an American institution. Fondly remembered today as pure Americana, SPORT was the brainchild of a small New York publisher, MacFadden Publications Inc, and became a triumph from the day its first issue hit the street with a color image of Joe DiMaggio and his son Joe, Jr. on the cover. That inaugural edition included eight full color plates – unheard of at the time – and almost immediately SPORT rose to over a million in circulation and became half bible, half guru to a generation of men coming of age in post-war America. MacFadden seized an unappreciated subject like sports and took it mainstream. The formula was simple: combine terrific editorial features written by the greatest writers of the time with generous presentations of photography, particularly full-page Rockwell-like color imagery. It was born as a novel idea and grew into a cultural icon. In its early years, SPORT had the market for magazine-style sports journalism virtually to itself and, under founding editor Ernest Heyn, pioneered a brand of behind-the-scenes glimpses of the heroes of the day not previously attempted. The emphasis was not on the games or the teams, but on the elements of human drama that lay beneath. SPORT was an icon in the league of Life and Look and the Saturday Evening Post. Insightful essays as long as 5,000 words focused on the personalities and human drama of sport. Each month SPORT was filled with evocative writing from its own stable of staff writers, plus submissions from the likes of Grantland Rice, Jimmy Breslin, David Halberstam, William F. Buckley and Dick Schaap. But it was SPORT's groundbreaking use of color photography, particularly during its first 30 years, which captivated a generation of sports fans, many of whom wallpapered their bedrooms with the exquisite full-page photos that were the magazine's signature item. SPORT used many of the nation's top shooters of the post-war era, combining work from staffers such as Martin Blumenthal, George Heyer and Kevin Fitzgerald with that of incomparable freelancers such as Ozzie Sweet, Hy Peskin and Neil Leifer. If imitation is indeed the greatest form of flattery, then SPORT received the ultimate compliment with the birth of Sports Illustrated in 1954. Time Incorporated had tried to purchase the name SPORT, but its final offer of $200,000 was $50,000 less than McFadden was willing to accept. Undaunted, Time launched Sports Illustrated, borrowing liberally from SPORT's successful formula. Representative of SPORT's superiority, in the hearts and minds of the reading public, but also of the men who ran the leagues and teams across North America, was the magazine's success in establishing the SPORT Award in 1955 for the most valuable player in the World Series. The concept was expanded over the years until a SPORT magazine award was presented to the outstanding post-season performer in all four major team sports, as sanctioned by the leagues.