Sports Illustrated

That great harbinger of summer, the swimsuit issue, has arrived at last. No! No! Not Sports Illustrated. The L.L. Bean Swimwear Guide, which we visited this year on the Internet (at www.llbean.com). Sculptured bodies with generous displays of flesh do not appear in the Bean bag. No teen-aged boys are going to grab the catalog before you get a chance to review it. The models are relentlessly wholesome. They look like moms, or big sisters. Swimsuit choices are sensible, not sensual. Bean offers no bikinis, let alone a thong -- unthinkable in Freeport, Maine.

NBA center Jason Collins says he has gotten "incredible" support since revealing in Sports Illustrated that he is gay and thus becoming the first openly gay male athlete in one of the major team sports in this country. As that support includes congratulations from a current and former president and some of the biggest stars in his sport, perhaps that's even an understatement. What Mr. Collins has done is significant, of course, and he deserves all the good will and public support he can get. Pro basketball, baseball, football and hockey seem to be the last bastions of the "don't ask, don't tell" approach to the sexuality of their employees, if not outright hostility toward gays.

Joe Flacco and Ray Rice are on this week's regional cover of Sports Illustrated, which is on newsstands Wednesday. The Ravens' cover is available in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. It is the fifth time the Ravens have been on the SI cover. The most recent was the Nov. 13, 2006 cover with Ray Lewis. Jets quarterback Marc Sanchez made SI's national cover, his third with the Jets and fourth overall.

Maybe you yawned when you heard the news. Or maybe you just shrugged when you heard about Jason Collins and said: "What's the big deal?" But it's a very big deal. First active male player in a major team sport to declare he's gay? In the macho world of the NBA, where a player like Tim Hardaway once hissed "I hate gay people" before the ensuing backlash had him backpedaling like a fighter trying to avoid another haymaker? Oh, it's a very big deal. Now Collins, a 34-year-old journeyman center for six teams over 12 seasons, comes out of the closet and makes history.

The world made a shocking discovery last week.Sports Illustrated, it was found, is by and large a men's magazine. Chauvinistically, too.This significant discovery was made in Toronto at the office of Young & Rubicam, which was under contract with adidas Canada Ltd. to produce an advertisement.The ad featured 11 members of the Richmond Hill Kick, a soccer team that plays in the National Soccer League there and is sponsored by adidas. They were photographed sporting adidas soccer shoes.And smiles.

Top Secret Talents I've been building model cars since I was 15. I still have the Camaro that I built when I was a kid. Ken Griffey Jr. Centerfielder, Seattle Mariners Building model cars HERE ARE SOME FUNNY SPORTS CARDS FROM KIDS Michael D., 11 Massapequa, New York Matt S., 11 Cheshire, Connecticut VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.SIKIDS.COM Pub Date: 05/05/99

Neet Eric Lindros; Just for kids; Sports Illustrated for Kids 0) WeeklyEric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers is as rugged as a monster truck! He is big (6-foot-4, 236 pounds) and fast. He plays the game with a tough, physical edge."Eric is stronger than any human being has a right to be," sayRon Hextall, the Flyers goalie. Eric is also a gifted scorer and passer. He was the league's MVP in 1994-95.Eric's hobbies are golf, freshwater fishing and waterskiing. Halso has a secret talent: He can juggle!

Sammi Cowan, a third-grader at Fulton Elementary School, said she likes living in Howard County because it offers so many things to do. "You can be a country mouse or a city mouse and still live in Howard County," she recited with remarkable poise, as she stood on the stage of Ten Oaks Ballroom in Clarksville and County Executive James N. Robey held a microphone for her. Sammi isn't the only one who has noticed that Howard County is a nice place for...

Annapolis runner Hale Bullen earned a spot in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the Feb. 18 issue of Sports Illustrated. The magazine talks about how the Navy-bound senior set a record while winning the 3,200 meters at the Anne Arundel County championships last month. His time of 9:18.01 easily beat former Broadneck standout Matt Centrowitz's previous mark of 9:40.8. Bullen also won the Class 3A Central Region meet on Feb. 8, and he will compete in the Class 4A-3A state championship next week.

For what seems like the 17th or 18th week in a row, the Ravens will be on the cover of Sports Illustrated when it hits newsstands and mailboxes later this week. But this time, the Ravens don't have to worry about any jinxes. This week's cover commemorates the Ravens as Super Bowl XLVII champions after they beat the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31, on Sunday night. The image is Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones returning the opening kickoff of the second half 108 yards for a touchdown.

In a story that includes the phrase "he asks between squirts of deer antler," Sports Illustrated brings the fascinating story of two men aggressively marketing a line of health care supplements -- hologram stickers, the aforementioned deer antler spray, powders, underwear drenched in liquid (seriously) -- to college and pro athletes. The company's name explains the concept: S.W.A.T.S., which stands for Sports with Alternatives to Steroids. At the center of the story is none other than Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who is in New Orleans preparing to play the final game of his NFL career on Sunday.

If anyone still needs confirmation that baseball in Baltimore is back and that this wild and wonderful season is for real, know this: the Orioles are on a regional cover of the Oct. 1 edition of Sports Illustrated. Pictured under a headline that reads “Washington/Baltimore: The Unlikely Sports Capital” are outfielders Endy Chavez, Adam Jones and Nick Markakis doing a joyous post-game victory leap-and-bump. Yes, it's not a new photo. Markakis' broken thumb is in a cast now and his playing -- and leaping -- days are over for the moment.

  Orioles top prospect Dylan Bundy will be featured in a segment on the premiere episode of Sports Illustrated's new television series, which debuts Tuesday night on NBC Sports Network. The 19-year-old right-hander is also the subject of a story by SI's Tom Verducci in the upcoming issue of the magazine. The television series -- which seems a bit like ESPN's E:60 -- airs at 9 p.m. According to an email from an SI spokesman, "The show will take Sports Illustrated's renowned editorial pieces and play them out through feature segments with original reporting from SI journalists.

The speculation and apocrypha surrounding "cover curses" in sports go back at least as far as the " Sports Illustrated cover jinx . " In the age of video games, the " Madden Curse " has taken up the mantle as the most hotly-debated superstition in sports marketing. Close behind "Madden" in the curse department is "NHL," which has had rumblings about a curse since the late 1990s. Sports Illustrated themselves even devoted a gallery to it . It's important to note that "curses" are empirically bunk, especially in sports.