History of U.S. Table Tennis VOLUME VII
INTRODUCTION
Beginning in 1970 as Editor of the USTTA magazine, and then in 1972 as President of the Association, I, Tim, encouraged both our players and our Topics readership to reach out to the “real” world of overseas table tennis. It’s fair to say I worked hard at it. Here, lauding my efforts, is former USTTA Vice-President Fred Herbst, whom I wouldn’t always see eye to eye with (TTT, July-Aug., 1973, 13):
“Letter to the Editor:
Seems you just can’t believe your eyes anymore. I’m sitting here looking at the latest issue of Topics jam-packed with 60 pages of fascinating print and pictures. But it’s obviously a mirage! It’s patently impossible to gather, write-edit, collate, type, linotype, print, and mail that [tabloid] size of a publication in the few weeks since Yugoslavia….
Having labored four years as a working newspaperman during my checkered career, I can testify to the impossibility of one man doing this job, much less doing it as a part-time effort.
Then again, it might be conceivable if the text was random, dull, tract-like stuff. But the completeness of results; news from all corners of the country; fascinating descriptions, stories, and sidelights of the World’s; interesting columnists with humor and originality; plans, programs, and suggestions; feature articles, etc. make the accomplishment all the more incredible. The photos, too, excellently enhanced the stories.
Maybe you’d better print Topics in Braille, Tim, my eyes are playing tricks on me.”
Ah, very nice, very encouraging. But I’m quite mortal. Beside that Letter was another—complaining that there wasn’t any write-up of the 1973 U.S. Open. Although I gave very detailed results of every event and had quite a few supporting photos, I just didn’t have time or energy to do a story—should have had someone else do it.
Now, so many years later, as Historian I again in this Volume, as in the last, want to emphasize that significant outward movement of the USTTA toward International Table Tennis. We get off to a good start with a 1973 U.S. Team at the First World University Championships in Hannover, Germany. Then follow in the spring of ’74 with our U.S. players winning a Junior Team tournament in Flensburg, Germany. Add another success when in the fall our U.S. Team takes the Kingston, Jamaica International tournament over Caribbean, Canadian and English players.
Thanks then to more and more U.S. play abroad, particularly to Danny Seemiller’s play, and to extensive coverage in Topics of tournaments all over the world, U.S. players and interested readers were becoming increasingly aware of how we compared competitively with country after country. This will be the more apparent as we follow the progress of play through the 1970’s, for suddenly many world-class competitors will be coming to our once rather isolated shores, will join with us to engage—so that everyone will now have to agree: we belong.
With Rufford Harrison as head of the ITTF Equipment Committee, John Read as a member of the ITTF Classification Committee, Tim Boggan as a member of the ITTF Junior Commission and USTTA Delegate to the Nagoya and Sarajevo World’s (assisted by George Buben and Mort Zakarin), the U.S. is being kept aware of ever-changing Federation rules that affect world-wide play. For instance at Sarajevo, we learn (TTT, May-June, 1973, 60):
“…An emergency suspension may not be granted for the breaking of a racket, as a player is required to have a spare available at the playing area….
In addition to the five-minute rest period, any player or pair may request a one-minute interval after each game….
A player may receive advice from anyone during any authorized interval or suspension of play….A player may not receive advice from anyone during a game, such as during a pause for toweling, or at the change of ends in the last possible game of a match….
A blue card may be used by the umpire to give formal notification to a player of questionable service….A yellow card…[for] unsportsmanlike or offensive behavior, and a red card to give formal notification that he is to be disqualified for persistent behavior of this type….”
Harrison (TTT, Mar.-Apr., 1974, 10) is always at the forefront of up-to-date controversial discussions about equipment. With regard to the rubber on one’s racket, he raises the two-color question long before the ITTF will make the red/black colors, one on one side, one on the other, mandatory:
“…Some players use antispin on one side and a more conventional rubber on the other. On some rackets the colors of these two are identical. A player with such a racket can use the indistinguishability of the two sides to advantage, and, looked at one way, of course he should. However, if the two sides are truly indistinguishable, then the player has an advantage to which the opponent has no answer and this is hardly what we want. It would shorten the rallies, which is probably undesirable. And it would be unintelligible to the spectators, who could well think the unwitting receiver a poor player—again, an undesirable situation.
On the other hand, if the spectators can tell from the color of the racket which side is being used, they will be particularly interested in knowing how the other player handles each type of rubber. I think it ought to add to the interest….”
Players in general want to become more aware of the technological developments going on in the Game—and their interest will certainly please Equipment Chair Rufford and the manufacturers. Here’s a fellow—Dave Nicolette from Tallahassee, FL—writing in to Topics wanting someone to explain to him “the characteristics of various types of commercially available table tennis rubber.” He wants specifications for the brands listed below:
“height of pips (tall-medium-short, density of distribution of pips (dense-medium-sparse), coefficient of friction of the playing surface, hardness of sponge (hard-medium-soft), thicknesses available (in millimeters)…for Butterfly Super-Sriver, Sriver-L, Sriver, Tempest D-13, Plous, Allround D-13, Allround C4 (pips out), Yasaka Mark V “Soft,” Mark V “Backside,” Hi Original, Cobra***, Cobra*** (pips out), Hock (all types), YSP (all types), TSP (all types), and anti-topspin.”
Topics gives him an answering article.
Another player writes in wanting to know more about what kind of rackets the top players in the world use. “Information on the type of wood, wood ply, wood thickness, brand of blade, brand of rubber, type of rubber, and any modifications made would be very helpful and interesting.” Topics starts him on his studious way by providing a half-page chart on 30 top players, both shakehands and penholders, and the kind of racket each used for their particular style of play at the Sarajevo World’s.
However, one enthusiast—Marty Grogan from Cedar Rapids who teaches t.t. at Kirkwood College—hasn’t as yet gotten an answer to his question posed in a Mar.-Apr., 1974 Topics letter (36). As an engineer who’s had “considerable experience with kinematic analysis—i.e., force dynamics, ballistics, aerodynamics, etc.,”—he’s aware that the “analytical aspects of table tennis have not been discussed in Topics.” Therefore he asks, “Is there any interest in a description of the ‘Optimum Racket Trajectory and Deflection to Minimize the Effect of Unknown Spins’?”
As the decade unfolds, Topics will mirror what our USTTA’s organizational strengths and shortcomings are. As you’ll ingloriously see, the 1973 Long Island U.S. Open Team Championships quickly tailspinned into disaster; but the 1974 Oklahoma City U.S. Open at the new Myriad Arena heralded a U.S. table-tennis-is-lookin’-up, much admired, if not perfect success. Here, in the Presidential Greeting that appeared in that 1974 Okie U.S. Open Program, is the upbeat point of view I wanted to project, believe in, had to project, believe in:
“…Sometimes, as in a dream, History comes to you all in a rush—like with those 1889 Sooners who first raced their wagons into the Territory.
Now, 85 years later, another kind of wide-Open is happening for the first time in Oklahoma. With its record-breaking 850 or so all-eager-at-the-start entries, this U.S. National’s too becomes a landmark—one of those recognizable times where, in the very special sphere of our fast-moving, fast-growing sport, History is in the making.
Four hundred years ago, the Spanish explorer Coronado looked up at his never-before-seen Oklahoma night, at the myriad lights around him, and dreamed of golden stars.
Now, sharing this same spirit of Imagination and Hope, you players and spectators—you player-spectators, at whatever level, of a Game played by over 30,000,000 people in this country—have come to Oklahoma, many of you, to look at a strange sky.
Out there amid those Myriad lights, there will be a galaxy of international stars. And as you watch and wonder, it may be that you, too, will very privately dream—of spinning a serve return like World Champion Bengtsson, or, like his equally world-famous counterpart Hasegawa, lobbing a ball to the heavens.
No more than Coronado of course will you likely ever be able to realize in this arena of a world your golden dream. And yet, as History is sure to tell us, because of you, you player-spectators, your indefatigable interest, table tennis in this country will one day soon perhaps finally be staked out, a claim made for it as a major sport.
On behalf of the United States Table Tennis Association, I want both to thank Ron Shirley and the other promoters of this tournament, those men and women with vision who have helped to make the Oklahoma of today, and to welcome you and yours to this once-only-dreamed-of Open, to matches I am sure will be replayed again and again in your imagination long after they are heard no more.
Tim Boggan
President
U.S. Table Tennis Association”
After the success of this 1974 U.S. Open, many players and officials urged that we return to Oklahoma City for the 1975 U.S. Open. But I urged, rightly or wrongly, we give the Houston Astrodome/Astrohall Stadium group a try because they were interested in holding the 1979 World Championships there—and this I thought we had to go for. Meanwhile, the Trials to determine the 1975 U.S. Team to the Calcutta World’s produced prolonged chaos, and yet that Men’s Team came within one match of advancing to the World Championship Division. In such an action era as this, some things are gonna work, some aren’t—but there’s always controversy, vitality, always movement.
U.S. players were becoming far more critical and demanding of those running tournaments, and in some ways were hurting their own cause, for such volunteer workers wanted to be praised for their selfless work, not chastised. The Minneapolis player/promoter Charlie Disney, for one, felt tensions rising between those who put on tournaments and those who played in them.
Our popular circuit-goer, the New York-based Jamaican Fuarnado Roberts, began (prophetically, as it would turn out) talking about (TTT, Mar.-Apr., 1974, 12) a U.S. Closed. With the USTTA’s blessing, he said, he would run it; otherwise, if the E.C. isn’t receptive, “the players would simply have to form a Player’s Association”—for we need not only a U.S. Open Champion but a bona fide U.S. Closed Champion. Robbie takes liberties, is not always careful and accurate in what he says, and his actions don’t always match his dreams, but he’s certainly right-minded in asking the Association to put more effort into running events with proper facilities and good conditions. Case in point: the near-disastrous Trials for the 1975 U.S. World Team. I must say, though, that usually tournament workers accepting responsibility are committed, come what may, to some personal vision, large or small, and their helpers to a place with them, that gives them all a confirmed table tennis identity.
In addition to our new International Chair, Bob Kaminsky, whose dedication we saw in Sarajevo, others taking on Chair jobs were proving equally determined to make a difference. Junior Development Chair Fred Danner, for example, had set up a non-profit National Junior Table Tennis Foundation (compare the Little League Baseball one), and began figuring out how to raise money for it (for example, by diverting 10% of all U.S. World Team Fighting Fund fees from Junior events into this Foundation). Since boys and girls needed decent places to play, Fred’s #1 objective was to get Table Tennis into the Public School System. If knowledgeable people could take responsible leadership and convince the schools to start buying tables—then after-school leagues, evening programs for adults, and weekend tournaments could gradually follow.
As you’ll see, players in various parts of the country are interested in following Fred’s USTTA Vision—his repeated Guidelines for organized High School play. Five of these (TTT, Mar.-Apr., 1974, 14; 20) might be summarized as follows: (1) It’s absolutely essential “to find two or three teachers, physical education people, and/or students who are willing to provide leadership. (2) Form 8-10 teams, and play during the winter (have to compete with basketball, wrestling, but avoids conflicts with “outdoor soccer, football, marching band activities, baseball and both boys and girls tennis”). (3) “A recommended group for a school match would be 6 boys and 3 girls competing, with 2 boys and 2 girls selected as alternates.” Boys and girls should be coached and drilled together. Team members should try to help each other.
Also, (4) every school “should have a minimum of 4 tables (preferably 6) available [at least one afternoon in the school gym] for practices and home matches.” A coach or, since qualified coaches are hard to come by, a Moderator is indispensable. Fred lists his/her 13 duties—keeps roster and complete match-result sheets; monitors equipment; arranges transportation to away matches; etc. (5) Tie sheets similar to those used at the USOTC’s, with the playing format clearly explained, would be helpful.
As Fred well knows, success in the schools doesn’t come without a struggle. After 3 years of effort promoting junior table tennis on Long Island, Fred and friends were invited by the Huntington High athletic director to teach 3 consecutive Phys. Ed. classes. The periods were 30 minutes, and Fred had prepared 5-minute segments: intro, including sketching the world t.t. scene; explaining misconceptions about the Game’s rules; demonstrating (with class volunteers) spin serves; stressing physical conditioning (class participates in warm-up exercises); playing very brief challenge matches; and ending with two good players engaging in an exhibition.
However, on the January, 1974 day in question, Fred’s plans quickly went awry. “Everyone was late for first period….The roads were full of snow and ice. The tables were not set up. The gym wall divider was stuck so that the class location was moved across the gym. The regular instructor didn’t come, and class actually started at 8:45 a.m. instead of 8:20….[We eliminated] the spin serves and physical conditioning, and played the exhibition just as the sun came out, reflecting off the table and blinding one of the players. [Further,] a lot of continuity was lost when there was no one to comment on what the players were doing during the match [Fred was where, doing what?]. Fortunately, however, the next two periods went pretty much as scripted.”
Meanwhile, USTTA National Coaching Chair Jeff Smart and his Regional Chairs continue to do everything they can to try to get Clubs and Coaches to work together. If a club guarantees an interest (provides 25 participants), the USTTA, with $5,000 at its disposal for this purpose, will send a coach to conduct a club clinic at no cost to the club. Jeff’s close friend, Bill Lesner (TTT, Mar.-Apr., 1974, 9), adds that at the 1974 U.S. Open, where 10 seminars will be held, the Clubs and Coaches will be expected to work together in the following manner:
“…Each club will be asked to pay the way of its local coach [to Oklahoma City]….In return, each coach will be requested to watch the major seminars [“held during the junior and women’s matches”] and write a report on the new concepts which he learned, which will be submitted to both the sponsoring club and the regional coach. Also, each coach upon his return will be expected to give a minimum of a one-day coaching clinic to his respective club.”
With the rise of prize money tournaments and players and coaches being paid, those who take volunteer USTTA jobs want to be paid too, especially if those jobs are time-consuming—and with the increase in membership (starting in ’73 we’re up to an uninflated 5,000) they’ve become more so. Boggan as Editor of Topics is paid, Marv Shaffer as Membership Chair is paid, Danner as Junior Development Chair is paid, Dick Feuerstein as Affiliates Chair is paid. Jeff Smart quickly seeks a coaching job for himself, and money for a meaningful USTTA Coaching Program. No sooner does Neil Fox take over the Ratings Chair nation-wide than he realizes the enormity of the job. Clearly the players themselves need to pay for this service—which means tournament organizers have to charge a bit more on their entry fees specifically for Ratings.
Money, money, money. President Boggan’s interests in surrounding himself with people who do good work, in expanding Topics, and moving the U.S. into International play prove expensive—and so draw criticism. Here’s Corresponding Secretary Fred Danner:
“…It is time that the members of the E.C. who want to broaden the base of table tennis in the U.S., and get the average player out, start to assert some leadership. Our money priorities are out of whack—with 2/3 of the USTTA expenses going to foreign commitments and to the newspaper. This is what kills most good ideas for US-type activities….[We need to] favor shifts in the emphasis of our national policies and start to put the U.S. first.”
Good ideas are being killed? Like what? I sure don’t think so. I have my passions, my priorities, but I’m approachable. Advances are made by individuals who know what they want, and go for it. I think the USTTA has made plenty of advances in my Presidency—and Danner’s one of those who’s helped me the most.
The attempt to earn money through table tennis is a burgeoning phenomenon in these years. Lou Bochenski will have his Paddle Palace, Milla Boczar her struggling Hollywood Club, John Stillions his Cedar Rapids Nissen Club, Charlie Disney his Magoo’s (with Don Larson as full-time Manager—Don ever eager, for a fee, to offer his services as a Professional Club Consultant), Sweeris his Woodland Club (where, for his numerous Coaching Clinics, Training Camps, Tournaments, and Equipment Sales, Dell’s formed Table Tennis Promotions, Inc.), and Fujii his Newgarden-sponsored Miami Club that will morph, with Fujii’s departure, into “Newgy’s.”
And of course, though Bobby Gusikoff is no longer running the deteriorating dungeon of the Riverside Plaza Club (former tennis pro Morris Pollack will manage it for a while), there’s Marty Reisman’s cramped Broadway ping-pong parlor. If he, with his varied clientele and “character” hangers-on,* can make a go of it, why can’t others, particularly if they set up leagues and cater to family play? Enthusiastic promoters either quit their jobs or put them on hold—with sometimes unexpected results: Stillions’ suicide a tragic example.
Even a Club member can get in on the action. The headline of an article in Topics (May-June, 1973, 7; 20) reads, “U.S.T.T.A. Membership Drive (Earn A % Fee For Yourself—Prizes Too!).” Another boldly announces a “20% Finder’s Fee” to anyone bringing in a new Topics ad. Ah, what promises money makes. Here’s Sweeris, a former Barna Award winner for his contributions to table tennis, talking to Steve Marcus, a reporter for the Long Island paper Newsday (Nov. 26, 1973, 73):
“My [table tennis] business has unlimited potential….I’m making new contacts all the time. Financially, the banks are behind me. They know I’ve got a good career. As an accountant, I was leading a double life…trying to be a player and an accountant. Now I can play and make a living at the same time.”
But making a living as a table tennis pro isn’t easy. Magoo’s Don Larson (TTT, Jan-Feb., 1974, 17) says a pro “must create a warm, friendly atmosphere”—which means he must deal skillfully “with club members who dislike him, and vice-versa.” Don says he works 7 days a week from 9 a.m. to midnight. “There are leagues to start, schedules to keep running, companies to call on, equipment to buy and sell, letters and articles to write, employees to hire and fire, business accounts to check on, schools, colleges, and recreation centers to visit, tournaments to run, coaching clinics to set up, lessons to give—all of which sure doesn’t leave much time for the pro to improve his own game. “Failure to cope,” he says, “can result in disintegration—mental, physical, emotional, causing a breakdown in the pro’s business operations and in his own personal life.”
Which leads me to still feel the 1974 bombshell-shock of my impetuous fall resignation from both the Association Presidency and Editorship of Topics—too much pressure…on my wife Sally. After we’d both cried for two weeks, we worked out a compromise—I’d keep Topics, Charlie Disney would be the USTTA President. But then, still feeling responsible for the players, I fund-raised for, and Captained, the U.S. Team to Calcutta. Play Table Tennis and see the world, eh? As I’ve indicated in this volume, India was a very different place from what our players were used to.
Different, too, were the tenor and tenure of these years of my, Boggan’s, Presidency. How, as you read, will you assess them? I hazard a start-off point. Read as much irony as you want in the voice of Eric Calveley (TTT, July-Aug., 1975, 7) who for a dozen issues or so edited the British Columbia TTA Newsletter (called LeTTers):
“To the Editor:
…[It] becomes apparent that Canada is much more successful at achieving its goals than the US, as was seen at the recent World Championships. Despite a valiant struggle the American team failed in its bid to enter Group A of the men’s competition, whereas the Canadians were considered by more than one esteemed observer…as absolutely the very best behaved team in the whole competition!
Again, we read with amusement in Canada of your National Trials (and tribulations) and applaud the more sophisticated Canadian method of selection. Our Executive and Selection Committees simply meet once and quietly name the players and officials with a minimum of fuss and to the satisfaction of (almost) everyone concerned. This system is cheap, quick, and convenient and nearly perfect except for the occasional ignorant outsider trying to push his way into the group for the sake of a free trip.
Lately, we have been given a more substantial reason for appreciating the Canadian organization. At the recent semi-AGM [Annual General Meeting] of the CTTA a motion was passed giving our Executive Committee the right of censorship over letters and articles submitted to the national magazine. So whilst Topics continues to be coarse, contentious and controversial, the CTTA News will become even more pleasant and nice to read than it has been until now. I confess it was a submission of mine that made this action necessary and I am sincerely thankful that the EC was alert enough to stop the letter and save me making a fool of myself spreading dirty facts.
For many years Canadian officials have shown great wisdom in setting definite boundaries on the distribution of information and opportunity, thus greatly facilitating decision-making and increasing efficiency. The USTTA, on the other hand, gets bogged down with a load of cumbersome principles like justice, and the quest for open debate and democratic action. When it gets rid of these self-defeating notions it may anticipate the sort of cheerful complacency we experience in Canada….”
Ah, well….For sure, after my shake-up of a Presidency, there’s going to be an assessment, a summing-up of my trial-and-error run—but of course I’m saving that for Vol. VIII. Meanwhile, in this volume, I continue to tell the story of a struggle USTTA players, promoters, and officials all endured, for if we were to try to make the Sport better in the U.S. we had to make changes. Changes wanted by some, unwanted by others. Changes that brought about, and will continue to bring about, failures and frustrations, but also admirable successes. In short, we felt we had to act—and did.
SELECTED NOTES
*I, Tim, not a New Yorker, was living in my native Ohio when, according to Marty Reisman, Joe Greene, alias “The Phantom,” first appeared at Herwald Lawrence’s fabled Broadway Club. He arrived one bright mid-summer day in a mackinaw, wearing galoshes and carrying a black umbrella on his left wrist. Seeing him just standing around, occasionally someone would try to talk to him, but back then he didn’t have much to say, just “I am The Greatest.” Which generally intimidated people so much that they stayed away from him. Especially since he smelled of beer.
When in 1973 I saw him in person at Marty’s Club, he was wearing a large winter mitten, just one (to hide, as I later found out, ‘a defective finger’ on his non-playing hand); had on a sweater with thirty or forty safety pins visibly attached to it; and carried an unlit, burnt-down cigar which he’d repeatedly set aside whenever he felt the need to eat from his open can of sardines. I knew right then I had to interview him. That is, if he’d deign to talk to me. Fortunately Reisman had given him the run of the place and I guess Joe felt obligated to honor Marty’s request that he join us, and tell me a little about himself so I’d get to see how he became legendary.
“‘He who thinks he knows many actually knows no one’—like that one?,” said “The Phantom” on meeting me. Then he got into the nitty-gritty: “It looks easy when I get out there to play, but I had to work hard in the Army to learn the Game. I was in the war four years before I got this special discharge. In the beginning, in order to get into the Army I had to pass a very high I.Q. test. That was many years ago, and when I got over to Folkestone in England, people at the PXs couldn’t believe how I played. ‘There are many but few worth knowing in this world’—like that one?”
“When I got out of the Army hospital—I had a disorder—I started playing at Lawrence’s. I knew Leah Neuberger. I played Cartland and Reisman. Ty Neuberger once bet a $1,000 on me. And I won, too, back in ’51. Then I quit for almost 15 years. Had cancer in 1954. Played some softball in Central Park, bowled a little. Just mostly tended to my job as doorman—I been at this place over 20 years now—but it’s hard lots of times standing on marble all day. And I’ve got to watch what I eat, nothing greasy, no fried food. Sometimes I think, ‘How am I gonna work 5 more years?’”
“There! You wouldn’t think I could kick that high, would you? And touch my toes. Well, you can never tell a book by its cover. You wouldn’t think I’m about 60, would you? Anyway, now I’ve been making a comeback.”
“A comeback—that’s great,” I said by way of encouragement. “You saw the start of this comeback?” I asked Reisman. “Saw how ‘The Phantom’ got to these heights again?”
“It all began on a very dull night in the Club,” said Marty. “We were all sitting around, watching Joe sip his beer, when all of a sudden someone got the lively idea of setting up a $50 one-game match between Joe and Doug Cartland. At first Joe demurred, for Cartland hadn’t been a world-class player for maybe twenty years, and the mere 15-point spot Doug was asking for was something of an insult—surely the man needed at least 18 to make a match of it. But Joe was game, played along, and finally won, 38-36. Of course, since it was a private wager and ours a family-type club, no payment was made openly.”
“Ever since, we’ve had a lot of money matches around here with Joe. Sometimes a stranger pops in, and we talk to him, fix him up with Joe, warn him that he’s about to play the celebrated ‘Phantom,’ but he doesn’t always understand what he’s getting into. Once we had the U.S. Junior Champion in here for a best two out of three with Joe, and after the kid had started out strong, had won the first with unchallenged ease, I had to go out and whisper a few words of warning to him—this while inspecting his racket. After all, we didn’t want any controversy, anyone upset in our Club. But his racket was o.k., so it was a freak first-game loss for Joe—that or he’d been playing possum. But naturally he came back to win the next two, 25-23, 25-23.
At this point, Joe, having put on a smug grin, abruptly broke in to say, “I played Reisman this year. On Easter Sunday. Was down 18-7, but I finally won it, 42-40.
Marty, as if wanting to make more of this game, turned to The Phantom and said, “Joe, face it, you’re a total fraud. I created you. Without me, you’d be nothing. You wouldn’t exist.”
The Phantom’s response? He looked at Marty in astonishment. “You must be insane,” he said. And then he went on. “I’ve never lost to Reisman. Once he had me 12-0, but I came back and beat him 23-21. What do you think of that? Just born in me, I guess. Still it wasn’t always easy for me. When I was four-years-old I had scarlet fever—was paralyzed from the hips on down.”
“Really?” I said, sympathetically.
“When I was eight and a half and an orphan, I was put out to work. Yessir, I left the nuns at Mount Loretta on Staten Island and went to Beaumont, Texas—to a cotton plantation, where there were rattlesnakes and copperheads, hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes. I was in them all—but, knock down wood, God spared me. The family had six children and I had to study Polish to make myself understood. It almost killed me. I don’t see how they could have put me in a place like that. I had malnutrition. When I was fourteen and came to Medina, New York, I weighed seventy-two pounds, then I went on a diet.”
“Wouldn’t you like to hit a few with Joe?” Marty said. “You’ll find he’s a lot stronger player than he looks.”
Marty asked if I wanted to bet on myself. Sight unseen Joe would give me 10. “He plays with sponge now,” Marty said. “But in the old days, in the late 1940’s, when our teams went to Europe, the first thing the Europeans—Vana, Bergmann, Andreadis, Leach—would always ask when they first saw me, or Miles or Cartland, was, ‘Is Joe Greene with you?’ And when one of us would casually respond, ‘Oh no, Joe’s still much too good to play in the World’s,’ they were obviously relieved.”
Of course I agreed to a small five-dollar bet with Marty. But I knew I couldn’t win. Joe had a Seemiller-style grip…before Seemiller. Against me he didn’t have to move a bit, just stood there, moving his racket window-wiper-like, keeping the ball in play.
“Strange how these things work out,” he said, shaking my hand with his mittenless one. (One game with me had been enough. What was the point? He could give me 12, 15, 18—the result would be the same.) “You see me play and you can’t believe I’m real. They call me ‘The Phantom.’ Now you see me, now you don’t. Then it’s all over and I’ve won. It’s like I’m from Mars or someplace. You know how I do it? Through dreams. It’s like a writer. He wakes up and writes down what he dreams.”
At this point Marty interrupted, said he wanted to set Joe up for another match. So I thanked them both for the interview. As they walked away, it was clear to me that what “The Phantom” said was true—a writer dreams and writes. But then I thought, People of any occupation, or preoccupation, dream—mix fact and fiction. Even when they’re awake they feel the need to embellish, to pretend. Reason’s no match for the Imagination.