Truly one of the important inaugural sports magazines in American publishing history the first issue of "Sports Illustrated" carries the considerable added cachet of featuring a spectacular centerfold of 27 cards (front and back) from that year's Topps Baseball card issue. The cover features a very young Eddie Mathews at Milwaukee County Stadium as the new magazine took note of another newcomer as the Braves roared through Year No. 2 in the great Midwest. The magazine is in super condition presenting perhaps Excellent jarred only by a couple of small creases on the cover corners and a bit of paper loss near the center spine. The center foldout of baseball cards - including the likes of Mays Ted Williams Jackie Robinson Eddie Mathews Duke Snider Ted Kluszewski Gil Hodges Richie Ashburn and Larry Doby to name a few - is nothing short of perfect absolutely Nr-Mt to Mt with blazing bright colors on the fronts and the crisp red and green printing highlights on the back. There's also a swell article inside that talks about the hobby itself and more specifically about the wrangling over player contracts between Topps and Bowman but this truly was an instance where we bought it for the prurient qualities of the centerfold rather than the literary gems that accompanied it. It is also worth noting that while the first issue of Sports Illustrated from 1954 was rather loudly reprinted and extensively distributed via a bookstore gift box arrangement it is still relatively easy to tell the genuine first issue from the reprinted one via paper characteristics and close examination of color and black-and-white dot patterns. Offered here is the genuine first issue without any glimmer of doubt.