Once a cover boy, always a cover boy.
Nearly thirty years after he graced the front of Sports Illustrated, Rockies manager Clint Hurdle is still paying the price for instant fame.
“It was brought to my attention that there were 40 or 50 copies floating around here the other day,” Hurdle said with a chuckle Sunday at Coors Field. “Somebody had told (Todd) Helton. He doesn’t need anymore ammo to make my life any more challenging. He thought it was quite humorous.”
Hurdle was a 20-year-old rookie with the Kansas City Royals when he made the March 20, 1978 cover of SI with the headline, “This Year’s Phenom.” Since, not a year goes by without many people asking him to autograph the cover. By Hurdle’s calculations, he’s signed at least three dozen a year the past 29 years. That adds up to more than 1,000.
“They’re like boomerangs,” Hurdle joked, “You throw one and they come back.”
Though Hurdle said he doesn’t own a copy anymore, his friends and families do. Rookie Troy Tulowitzki even has the cover shot pinned above his locker.
As a player, Hurdle never lived up to the SI hype, but he’s certainly open to being on the magazine again if the Rockies win the World Series.
“We might revisit that,” he said.
