The End of "El Gráfico": A Perspective

Yes, I know what you're going to say, but honestly, I don't understand all this collective hysteria that has arisen in people and on social media because a magazine, "El Gráfico," has come to an end. It's not that I'm disrespectful, but I always found it to be an exaggerated analogy to baptize it as 'the bible of sports'. And it's not that I haven't read it frequently, or that I haven't been moved by several of its articles, or that I don't recognize its historical value (after all, no other medium has reached a century), but let's agree that they appealed too much to the heart and habitually lost the so-called objectivity of serious journalists. Furthermore, let's say it clearly, just as they were rigorous in their research and covered all aspects of sports, they also manufactured idols who didn't measure up.

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For example, once led by Hugo Maradona, Diego's brother, the young Argentineans won a U15 South American Championship, and on the cover next to the team photo, they titled it: "Blessed be, kids." an unacceptable exaggeration.

One person who has been affected by the magazine's closure is my father. He still remembers learning to read as a child so he could understand what was written there. My grandfather always bought it. The edition would arrive in Lima a week late, and my dad, enthralled, would look at the black and white photos of a Boca player named Mastrángelo back in the seventies. Since he couldn't read yet, he had to ask his older siblings to decipher the enigma for him. Over time, and tired of telling him what was written beneath those impressive photos, in which the top scorer proclaimed his spirit on the fields, his siblings told him it was about time he did it himself. That's how he learned to read.

And speaking of photos, there's one in particular that I always remember. It's the best one that the magazine has ever published. One that, even now, whenever I see it, sends shivers down my spine. In it, a limbless fan approaches and hugs two players who have just become world champions. How did he do it? I don't know, but for some inexplicable reason, he embraced them with a part of his body he didn't have. They called it "the embrace of the soul". Guided only by his artistic intuition, the photographer captured the epiphany of that moment. A genius.

In another thing my father is right about is that "El Gráfico" had a fabulous creative heterodoxy. It was a literary magazine that focused on sports and not the other way around, as commonly believed. Countless reporters who were capable of delving into sports tragedies as well as being enthralled by the miracles that football, boxing, tennis, etc. occasionally give us, passed through its editorial team. "El Gráfico" had no nationality. It belonged to the reader who made every published story their own. There were Ardizzone, Juvenal, 'El Negro' Fontanarrosa, Cherquis Bialo, El Veco, Barraza, etc. All storytellers linked to sports, all capable of giving meaning to what appears to be only games and competitions.

"'El Gráfico' will never close," Peredo wrote on Twitter. He's right. The magazine, even if it's no longer printed, will continue to be "El Gráfico". That's what sports memory and the shelves where collectible magazines are kept are for. I'm starting to understand why I don't feel so bad about it.