Ozzie Sweet

There was a time when photographer Ozzie Sweet didn't know much about sports. Almost 50 years ago, he took little interest in attending sporting events. He had developed a solid reputation for photographing subjects for Newsweek covers, more than 50 in all. His subjects included Ingmar Bergman and Jimmy Durante (with a butterfly on his schnoz). In 1947, one of those subjects also was a Cleveland Indians pitcher named Bob Feller. He became Sweet's first sports subject. About the time he was going to leave Newsweek to begin a career as a freelancer, Sweet received a phone call from Ed Fitzgerald, editor of Sport magazine. Fitzgerald asked him to take assignments for the barely two-year-old publication. After working with Sport assignments for a year, Sweet asked Fitzgerald just why his publication used him? He reminded his editor that he knew little about sports. "That's the reason we use you," Sweet said, recalling Fitzgerald. "We don't want the usual sports cover." Sweet's main contribution to the sports cover genre is his "simulated action" shots. Remember, these were the days of slow film, slow shutters and single use flash bulbs. Action was staged. In all, he shot about 150 covers for Sport, including one for every year of Mickey Mantle's Hall of Fame career. His portraiture also made the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time and The Saturday Evening Post. Selections of his work are part of a new coffee-table book called Legends of the Field (Viking, $40).

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