Nobody writes like Steve Rushin. Nobody uses words like he does; nobody sees things the way he does. You can't say, as you can with most great writers, that he writes like so-and-so, or his style is reminiscent of such-and-such. Rushin is truly unique. He embodies what a professor of mine calls presticogitation--sleight of mind, or thinking that is so swift and impressive that it baffles the observer. An SI editor I showed my college clips to said I was ruining myself by trying to write like Rushin, and he was right. Still, if there's one other writer I'd want to be reincarnated as other than G.K. Chesterton, it would be Rushin. And despite the SI editor's comments, I was innappropriately proud of how Rushinian I thought this piece of mine this summer turned out:
http://metromix.com/top/1,1419,M-Metromix-Home-X!ArticleDetail-18015,00.html

All of which is an introduction to saying that CNNSI.com finally has a link up to Rushin's columns:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/archives/steve_rushin/

I was about to re-subscribe to SI with Rushin in mind; now I don't have to. Still, I feel the same way about this as I do about Catherine Zeta-Jones doing cell phone commercials--it's like filet mignon being served at Wendy's. A higher form of something in a cheapening context. Zeta-Jones ruins any semblance of big screen mystigue by having her image splattered over TV screens. Rushin's words have an aesthetic transcendence when affixed to the glossy page--now, he's one of 4,971,342 Americans writing on the Web about sports. Still, I'm thrilled.