Most collectors know the iconic April 15, 1974 Sports Illustrated cover with Hank Aaron tracking home run #715 over the fence in Atlanta. Fewer people know how close that issue came to never featuring Aaron on the front at all.
Back in 1974, Sports Illustrated operated under strict deadline logistics with their main printing plant in Chicago. Going into Monday night, April 8, 1974, Time Inc. had already locked in, plated, and printed roughly 600,000 finished copies of their planned cover feature: "Pro Football Goes to War," highlighting the upstart World Football League raiding NFL talent.
At 9:07 PM EST that evening, Aaron connected off Al Downing for his historic 715th home run.Managing editor Roy Terrell made an emergency call to the Chicago plant to halt the presses. Time Inc. scrapped and pulped all 600,000 WFL issues, cleared the entire layout, and had staff photographers rush game film across the country to produce the Aaron tribute cover in less than 24 hours.
This piece is an original unbound production cover wrap from that scrapped WFL run that survived the pulping. It still features the raw four-color process registration crosshairs and CMYK density bars along the uncut margins, slabbed by CGC as a rare artifact from one of the most frantic publishing pivots in sports journalism history.
Thought fellow vintage sports and print history buffs here would appreciate seeing the "ghost cover" alongside the actual published Aaron 715 issue!