Sport Story Magazine debuted in August 1923, with its first issue dated September 8. Selling for 15¢, the general interest sports pulp featured stories and articles about baseball, basketball, boxing, football, hockey, horse racing, polo, rowing, skiing, tennis, track, wrestling, and just about every other sport under the sun. Published by Street & Smith, Sport Story Magazine was the first specialized sports pulp magazine.
On Christmas day, a little more than a year after the introduction of Sport Story Magazine, Rod Serling was born in Syracuse, New York.
Growing up, Rod and his older brother, Robert, devoured Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, and Weird Tales. However, it is not known if the younger Serling ever read the Street & Smith sports pulp.
Regardless, Rod Serling enjoyed sports, taking in games of the local minor league baseball team and cheering on Joe Matesi, a local boxer who was a ranked heavyweight. As a sophomore, Serling tried out for quarterback of his high school football team. Five-foot-four and ten pounds too light, he didn’t stand a chance.
Later in life, while training as a paratrooper during World War II, Serling fought in seventeen boxing matches. One of his editors at Simon and Schuster recalled that, “No question about it, he had a boxer’s eyes — that way of looking at you that good boxers have.”
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2023 on Friday, August 4, at 10:35 pm for “The Sports Stories of Rod Serling,” featuring Nicholas Parisi, the author of Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination, and president of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Rod Serling’s legacy.
Nicholas will be sharing with us some of the writer’s excellent sports stories, from the award-winning Requiem for a Heavyweight — considered one of the best boxing movies ever made — to “A Game of Pool,” a Twilight Zone episode starring Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. It’s part of our salute to the centennial of Sport Story Magazine and the sports pulp genre.
Nicholas Parisi is a former staff writer and editor for Good Times magazine on Long Island. He has appeared on several television series, radio shows, and podcasts, including CBS’s Inside Edition and Coast to Coast AM. His biography and appreciation of Rod Serling’s tremendous output, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination, was published in 2018 by the University Press of Mississippi. A resident of New York State, Nicholas works as a Social Security disability and veterans representative. Nick presented “The Key of Imagination: Twilight Zone and the Pulps” at PulpFest 2019.
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Our featured image is excerpted from George Gross’ cover art for the Spring 1949 issue of Fight Stories. Published by Fiction House, Fight Stories was the first specialized sports pulp and only the second sports pulp magazine after Sport Story Magazine.
Our lead image was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from several images related to the CBS television series, The Twilight Zone. Created and developed by Rod Serling, it ran for five seasons from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964.
Requiem for a Heavyweight, based on a screenplay written by Rod Serling, is a 1962 American film directed by Ralph Nelson. Starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, and Julie Harris, the film is based on the Emmy Award-winning telecast that featuring Jack Palance in the title role. Broadcast in 1956 on Playhouse 90, Sterling’s teleplay won a Peabody Award and helped establish the writer’s reputation. The film poster above features artwork by Howard Terpning.
For more on Sport Story Magazine, please visit our YouTube Channel to view “Sport Story Magazine Celebrates Its 100th Birthday,” a video created by PulpFest‘s Craig McDonald. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to the PulpFest Channel.
