Interview With Marty Reisman

Marty: I succeeded in table tennis because of an accident of birth. My game improved without much hard work or training. It was fun all the way. All I did was to play countless money games with lots of people from the very worst to the very best and, presto, I became a world-class player. I learned very quickly what to do and what not to do while under pressure. Anybody can make great shots when the bankroll is not threatened. I have enjoyed some degree of fame because of the impact I have on the audience as well as on the media. The life I have led, the places I have been and the things I have done seem to make good copy for the press. I have had major publicity and, to some extent, transcended more than any other player, as a personality, the narrow and limited confines of table tennis.

My autobiography, The Money Player, was bid for by six publishers. William Morrow finally bought it. It has been under option for eight years and in various stages of development for a feature film. Three treatments and two screenplays were written. Over $100,000 was spent by the producers before the option was dropped. I expect to reinvigorate the film project as well as republishing the book.

I had ventured to very interesting places during very historical times and had the courage to do whatever was necessary in order to survive or achieve my goal. I went to war-torn Hanoi and Haiphong to indulge in black market for currency transactions, smuggled 21 kilos of gold bullion and, in between, played money matches against the best players in the Orient from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Phillipines. I lived for three years as a youngster in the Far East during Terry and the Pirates times.

I was entertained by Maharajah of Baroda, played a command performance for President Magsaysay in Manila, and charged a sugar baron $5000 to play a table tennis show on his plantation in Mindanao. The Governor of Cebu, Sergio Osmenia, and I played nightly money matches at his estate in Manila that sported a Jaques table. The world has changed dramatically. These times and circumstances are gone forever.

Marty: Within days after picking up a sandpaper paddle at age 12, I was cleaning all the kids out of their nickels, dimes and quarters in the various parks and settlement houses in my neighborhood. I discovered, early on, how to play faking a basket case in order to get a bet. Months later I ventured up to Lawrence’s on Broadway and 54th Street, the great mecca of American table tennis where many of the best players in the U.S. hung out – Dick Miles, Lou Pagliaro, Doug Cartland, Sol Schiff, Johnny Somael, et al. Almost immediately, I got into the swing of things, creating the action, excitement and drama, playing money matches four and five hours daily against anybody who cared to wager based on a carefully negotiated handicap for either myself or my opponent. The size of the bet ranged from $1 to $20. Ten dollars was a major win in those days, considering that a Coca Cola, coffee and the subway cost a nickel and it was only 65 cents to see Sinatra at the Paramount Theater along with a stage show and first run movie. However, a big portion of my winnings was lost to Dick Miles who, in the initial stages of my development, would spot me 10 points. I didn’t mind losing money to Dick because my main goal was to become a National Champion. Nobody even thought about the World Championships then. All of Europe was still occupied by Nazi Germany and the invasion of Europe by the Allies was just getting under way. Eventually, the war ended in both Europe and the Pacific and soon Lawrence’s, around 1945, was flooded with dozens of new players, fresh out of the military, some still in uniform, but all loaded with mustering-out pay. The economy at Lawrence’s flourished as never before.

From 1947 to 1952, four habitues from Lawrence’s, well seasoned and groomed from exposure under pressure in countless money matches, were soon recognized as being equal to the best players in the world. Miles, Pagliaro and I were all, at one time or another, World semifinalists. Doug Cartland and I were also semifinalists in the World’s doubles in 1951 in Bombay, the year I won the World’s consolation men’s singles title. Amazingly, this was accomplished without benefit of even one second of a USTTA coaching program. No such thing existed in those days.

Marty: Doug Cartland and I toured the world as the halftime star attraction with the Harlem Globetrotters from 1949 through 1951. It was mostly a great educational experience. I visited many of the great museums and saw the extraordinary historical and cultural wonders of the world. I became acquainted with a great variety of different ethnic foods and got to know great champagnes, vintage wines and superb liquors. I familiarized myself with the sartorial men’s fashions from England, France and Italy, and today am as knowledgeable as anyone on the subject. We played before famous heads of state, kings and presidents, and had a private audience with Pope Pius XII. Jesse Owens, the Olympic legend of track and field and a major attraction with the Globetrotters, and I became good friends. Doug and I once performed our act before 75,000 people in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, the largest live crowd to ever see a table tennis match. Our last year’s salary was $600 a week, today’s equivalent of $6000. We were the only table tennis act to develop a musical routine playing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Jingle Bells" with pots and pans. Doug and I were prohibited from using this routine in London’s Wembley Stadium because we were not members of the Musicians’ Union.

Marty: Bergmann, Bukiet, Miles, Fujii, Borges, Bellak, Schiff, Tannehill, Sakai, Braithwaite, Gusikoff, Neuberger, Tim, Scott and Eric Boggan, etc.

Marty: Andreadis, Bergmann, Leach, Barna, Sido, Hagenuer, Ammoretti, Stipek, Soos, Ehrlich, Flisberg, Kocsian, Fujii, Dolinar, Marinko, Miles, Tomita, Hayashi, Satoh, Sih Su Chu, Mai Van Wah, et al.

Marty: My most illustrious and meaningful victory was in beating Victor Barna, five-time World champion, in the finals of the 1949 British Open in Wembley Stadium before 10,000 spectators. (See segment in "Legends" video.) Earlier, I beat Dick Miles in the quarters and the stubborn Alex Ehrlich, three times a runner-up in the Worlds, in the semis. All of the matches were five bitterly contested games. One of my most memorable matches was defeating Ivan Andreadis, the dreaded Czech and that year’s favorite to win the World title, in the 1949 Stockholm World Championships. As we walked onto the court, the first point of a ladies match in an adjacent court was in progress with the ball just being pushed back and forth. I wiped out Andreadis three straight, very quickly with a devastating attack. As we left the court, that first point between the ladies had still not ended! I still have a vivid recollection of a third round men’s singles match in Wembley Stadium in the 1948 World’s against Richard Bergmann. He won the first, I won the second, he the third. Throughout the match, he had been crashing into the barriers in order to return my smashes. During the rest period, in a fit of anger, he started stomping down all the barriers surrounding the table and shouted, "I must have more room!" as he flung them aside. The tournament committee ruled that the barriers be reset and that the match must be played within its original confines. Bergmann beat me in five, and Vana in the finals. (The following year, the court was lengthened three feet and my attack was cited as the reason for doing so.)

Marty: Richard Bergmann, four-time World Champion. But paradoxically, he was the easiest to play against but the most difficult to beat. His touch and placement were uncanny. Most of all, his desire to win was frightening. As the game went on, he got stronger until it was impossible to hit through his defense or catch him on a drop shot. Alex Ehrlich, a three-time World singles finalist, who, incidentally, survived three years in a concentration camp only because he was spared by the guards who recognized him as the former German table tennis champion, even though he was Polish, once described Bergmann as an "animal." Such was his reputation for ferocity among his peers. Erlich also said that Bergmann was weak on the backhand side but, "I never saw him push a ball into the net or off the table." No player past or present has ever matched or come close to Richard’s astonishing record of incredible comeback victories in major tournaments from what seemed to be totally hopeless situations.