Or something rotten in Schnecksville. Flipping through a stack of recent issues of Sports Illustrated I came across an item that indicates highly suspicious activity on the part of SI, or, less likely, a police officer from Schnecksville, PA named Ricky Thurman.
Specifically, I came across this letter to the editor that ran in the March 16, 2009 issue (the one with Pujols on the cover):
“I am a police officer, and on a recent Wednesday afternoon I pulled over a speeding teenager. He explained, ‘Sorry, sir. I was trying to beat my dad to our mailbox. The Swimsuit Issue comes out today!’ I let him off with a warning.”– Ricky Thurman, Schnecksville, Pa.
Really? What are the odds that this could have actually happened? Whatever they are, they’re at least as bad as the odds that someone at SI made this letter up to justify the relevance of their yearly fashion foray in a world where the men of Schnecksville have an exponentially easier time getting their hands on pictures of undressed women than they did in the Swimsuit Issue’s more relevant days.
And a thorough Google search reveals no evidence that a police officer (or anyone) named Ricky, Rick, or Richard Thurman lives anywhere in Pennsylvania. I’ll call the Whitehall Township and Allentown, PA Police Departments* later this afternoon to dig further, and also call for SI to at least come forth with some evidence that Officer Thurman exists, and/or for Officer Thurman himself to stand and be counted.
UPDATE: Suspicion confirmed. Covering the area around Schnecksville, I reached representatives of the following police departments: Allentown, Whitehall Township, South Whitehall, Lehigh, Berks Lehigh, Borough of Coplay, Borough of Northhampton, Slatington, and the Pennsylvania State Police. A representative of each of these places, all of whom were really kind, confirmed that there is no Officer Thurman on their respective forces.
I have a request in at Sports Illustrated for them to provide proof that an Officer Thurman actually wrote this letter, but have only been able to contact them through their website. Will try to find a better way to get a hold of them until we hear anything back.
UPDATE: SI (sort of) responds. We’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE: “SI Swimsuit Letter Mystery Solved: Officer Ricky Thurman Still at Large”
*Schnecksville doesn’t seem to have its own police department. It’s not really a City, or a Township. Rather, it “is a census-designated place (CDP) in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Schnecksville is a suburb of Allentown. . . . Schnecksville was first settled in 1756 by Adam Schneck, who owned a tract of land in the area. His log home is still standing at the time of this writing, although relocated across the street.”
