Bringing Back the Sports Illustration...

by Mlnsports

Last month we did something pretty cool at MLN: We revived the old school art of the sports illustration that used to appear in newspapers across America. I have always thought that illustrations like these were a very cool kind of memorabilia:

Illustrations became a vanishing art form by the 1960s. So I asked Toms River, New Jersey artist Ken Jones to bring it back to the digital age. Our first one debuted in July at MLN Sports Zone, and we'll have one a month appearing in the magazine. Matt Garza, the Minnesota Twins' pitching prospect, was our first selection.

The second one, of Mike Coolbaugh, the coach struck down by the line drive, is also great. If you want to see them, go to the illustrations section at SZ. You can click on them and see them at full size.

I'm really proud of the work that Ken has done on these. Baseball has lost a lot of the magic. We're trying to put it back into the minors.