COMMENTARY : Latest Swimsuit Issue Sees Rather Tame

Musings while wondering if Ivana Trump would be my valentine ...

The sports world is turned upside down these days. There’s hardly anything left to count on.

We thought baseball spring training would begin soon. It won’t.

We thought Mike Tyson would be the heavyweight champion forever. He isn’t.

We thought Dave Meggett could get a date for free. He can’t.

But the one thing we can always depend on is that, come February, the Lakers will be in first place and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue will hit the stands, inciting the 12-year-old in all men to rush out and buy a copy. And the great thing about it is, you don’t have to hide it under your bed.

This is sports, right?

I mean, what self-respecting sports magazine doesn’t have a foldout? This one has a four-page edition, long enough for Magic Johnson to run a fast break on, and -- how’s this for class? -- not a single staple, or navel, in sight. It does have someone named Ashley Richardson, obviously a great athlete, in a shiny, gold, one-piece swimsuit lying on a piece of driftwood on an island in the Caribbean. Richardson takes up two pages; the driftwood requires four. And you thought they were selling sex. It’s botany.

The issue is big news every year. It makes all the papers. It makes the late-night TV shows. One of the semi-respectable late-night TV tabloid shows offered a sneak preview. And why not? This is sweeps month.

Somebody said that 40 million people would read -- well, look at -- the swimsuit issue, which is 226 pages long, or about three times the size of most issues of SI . By my count, 36 pages were devoted to swimsuits and, as it happens, the young women they cover, although, in some cases, just barely.

I have a friend -- you know the kind, always wants to know the why of things, such as why people watch pro wrestling -- who doesn’t understand the swimsuit-issue craze. Forget the sexism, he says. Forget that feminists should be jumping up and down like Michael Jordan on instant replay, he says. But if you want to look at semi-naked women, he wonders, why don’t you simply buy any of the magazines that are on the rack every month, every week, every day, that specialize in this kind of thing?

He doesn’t get it, poor guy. He thinks that it’s like when you were 13 and you couldn’t wait for each issue of National Geographic to arrive in the mail. This is entirely different. This is more like when you’re 13 and you get the Sears catalog so you can pretend you’re looking at baseball gloves when you’re actually sneaking glances at the lingerie.

You can stare as long as you like at the pictures in SI . It’s legal. It’s acceptable. It’s sports. And the magazine doesn’t come wrapped in brown paper either. When you buy one at the drugstore, you don’t have to whisper. Just shout it out: “One copy of SI for me and another for my dad.”

And when you get home, be sure to tell dad to check out Rachel Hunter. She’s wearing a matador’s jacket for a top, and, like all matador jackets, if you’ve read your Hemingway, it’s open. In other words, it’s not the kind of thing you expect to see your mother wear.

The SI issue, now its 26th year, has spawned many copycats, none of which sell nearly as well, probably because they don’t have the “Scorecard.” And SI spares no expense. In its publisher’s note, it explains all the equipment required to put the issue together, including a leaf blower, a ladder and a trampoline. They also apparently brought along some T-shirts for the obligatory wet T-shirt shot.

And, of course, the concept behind the issue is exploring fashion for those interested in beach sportswear. For instance, there’s a picture of a woman in a one-piece outfit with one strap, requiring the strategic placement of her arm to keep the magazine rated PG. Is that a useful fashion tip, or am I totally off base?

In any case, the swimsuit cognoscente have informed me that this is a pretty tame issue. No Cheryl Tiegs, for instance. And so many pictures of swimsuits, if not models, you might actually see on a beach at Ocean City, Md., this summer.

On the cover is a model named Judit Masco, who’s wearing a two-piece suit, but it’s not at all skimpy. Surely, this is fashion. Only a real prude would object. And if Masco has an undeniably come-hither look in her eyes staring up at you from the drugstore newsstand rack, I’m sure it’s only so you’ll buy the magazine and read that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar piece inside. I told you, it’s sports.