Even in a bad year for the azaleas, the Masters is a beautiful, though enigmatic, event. At least that's what the author discovered on his first trip to Augusta to observe this annual rite of spring

My father stands, and my daughter, too. People around us rise to applaud. Nine Cleveland Indians in a row have reached base during the seventh inning, and eight have scored. More fans at Municipal...

COLLEGE BASKETBALL—LOUISVILLE defeated Duke to win the NCAA men's championship, in Dallas (page 28).

KIM AUSTINWILSON, N.C.Kim, a 5'6", 130-pound senior at Beddingfield High, set a U.S. high school indoor best with a triple jump of 39'1¾", 10¼" beyond the mark established last year by Andie Kopf...

HOOP HOTBEDSSir:Here in the Boston area, we have known of basketball coach Kevin Mackey since 1971, when he was turning out great schoolboy teams at Don Bosco High. His success at Cleveland State,...

On the night of Feb. 4, 1982, Steven Callahan's 22-foot sloop Napoleon Solo was sunk in mid-Atlantic by what he thinks was a collision with a whale. Callahan, a naval architect and blue-water...

We were at Camp Hazard, a rocky outcropping 11,000 feel up Mt. Rainier's south side, when Rick Ridgeway returned from a scouting trip. He had been looking over the route we would follow to the...

"What's so difficult about dropping a cannonball and missing your toes?" a smart-aleck writer once asked.

What is so rare as a day in June? If you're a hard-core Indy 500 fan, the answer is easy: detailed information about what's going on at the Speedway in May. For the methanol and tire-dust junkies,...

EXPLANATIONS

•Senator Bill Bradley, former New York Knick: "My staffers joke that if I ever go to Russia and meet with Gorbachev, the news stories will start with, 'Bill Bradley, former New York Knick....' "

Center Pervis Ellison lifted Louisville to the NCAA championship

Mr. Up And Down, they called him. Up—as in the fundamentally polished, most acclaimed high school senior of 1982, more famous even than Kenny Walker or Wayman Tisdale. Down—as in the...

John Mahaffey gained four shots in eight holes to beat Larry Mize

For one fairy-tale year, Mark Fidrych was king of baseball, but the reign ended far too soon

For writers Curry Kirkpatrick and Alexander Wolff, coverage of the Final Four actually began last summer with their work on SI's special college basketball issue for 1985-86. While visiting Duke...

Master of the theatrical fall, Detroit's Bill Laimbeer is one of the NBA's most disliked players—and its top rebounder

Over the years the ancient sport of mountaineering has inspired an outpouring of books—more than 10,000 in English alone. Working out of his spacious Manhattan apartment, Michael Chessler selects...

A.J. Foyt's Rare Brick survived a speed duel to win the Rebel Stakes

Venezuela's Amleto Monacelli is a striking figure on the PBA lanes

Surprising Michigan State beat Harvard to win the NCAA championship

Texas wound up a perfect season, beating USC for the NCAA crown

Everyone has seen the tournament on television—the golfers and the galleries, the floral finery. In these pages Brian Lanker has brought a fresh perspective to "that glorious piece of real estate"...