Preview of The Ping Pong Hustler

An Exclusive by Tyra Parkins

Having been a long-time fan of Marty Reisman, I had heard that his new book The Ping Pong Hustler is close to completion.  Since previously interviewing him for this magazine, my curiousity was again peaked about this man of endless surprises when I learned that this new memoir goes beyond his original autobiography, The Money Player, in content and literary quality.  I prevailed upon Marty to read a chapter of his book to me on the phone and realized that, once again, The Legend is on the verge of making an exceptional literary contribution to our world of table tennis.

I further learned that the most influential source in publishing and media is involved in the promotion of Marty’s new and exciting memoirs.  Marty has promised to give me the scoop on this for the forthcoming USA Table Tennis magazine  

I asked him to share some excerpts from his literary work with our readership.  He was at first reluctant, stating, “Anything not having to do with sponge, glue and looping seems to be of no interest to the table tennis world.  So why bother? I have written this book for the general market.” Eventually he relented. This never-before published chapter from The Ping Pong Hustler is an advance peek at the best action-packed table tennis book since The Money Player.  

But before we get to the preview,  we first bring you this incredible  photo sequence (by Scott Gordon,  copyright 2002) of Marty doing  his famous "cigarette trick."  He's been doing it for over fifty  years. Note the cigarette in the  first photo (circled in red). And see  it break in two in photo four  (circled in red)! Click on photo 4  for larger version!

The 1948 World Championships
Wembley Stadium, London

The year that I first represented the U.S. at the 1948 World Championship in London’s Wembley Stadium, Dick Miles, Doug Cartland and I created the action, drama and excitement with money matches against the best players in the world in the backroom practice tables in the arena. Nothing like this had ever been seen before in Wembley. The atmosphere was like a wild Friday night tournament at Lawrence’s, only better. The best players in the world, all gamblers, together with eager spectators, were crammed into a space accommodating only six warm-up tables.

Throughout the event, many of the best matches were the money games being played on the backroom practice tables.  Doug Cartland, Dick Miles and I each monopolized a table and were taking on the world’s best for money. Bergmann, Leach, Koczian, Sido, Marinko, Stipek et al., each one a master of a particular aspect of the game.  Bergmann, for his stubborn defense. Leach for his uncanny steadiness. Koczian, for his bulldog tenacity for latching on and never letting go.  Sido, whose sledgehammer backhand and forehands terrorized his opponents. Marinko’s oversized paddle was like playing against a garbage can lid, and the disturbingly deceptive Stipek was known for pouncing upon his opponent when least expected. 

But the quiet and enigmatic Bohimul Vana, twice world champion, and this year’s favorite, was not there nor could he be found anywhere in the main arena.  I took a moment out to search for him in his lair. Vana was known to often lurk high in the stands from where, with eagle eyes and predatory instinct he would zero in on his next opponent, trying to spot the vulnerability into which he would hammer home a never-ending fusillade of forehand drives. I was convinced, had he been born a leopard, he would have terrorized the Serengeti.

Vana had a reputation for being the most electrifying of any player to ever step on a nine by five.   Sooner or later our paths were bound to cross and l made it my business to learn more about this mysterious competitor who barely weighed 120 pounds.  My persistence to find him was soon rewarded.  From nearby I could see that his gaze was fixed in the direction of the Swedish team warming up for their scheduled Swathling Cup encounter against the Czechs.  Unbeknown at the time to any of the Swedes, each was being singled out for destruction. My suspicions were confirmed. I wandered back to the practice area thinking, “This man is very dangerous.”  And I had not yet seen him play.      

Many spectators, hearing there was action on the practice tables, filtered down from the stands and crowded into the backroom to watch and even bet among themselves on these hotly contested money games.  The betting was infectious.  Each encounter, being played for respectable stakes, was packed with tension and drama.  There was no shortage of money nor the slightest unwillingness of any of the players not to back up, with big stakes, their belief in their abilities.  The action was fast and furious among a band of courageous competitors, many of whom had survived a terribly bitter and cruel war, and didn’t tremble at the thought of betting their last buck against the cocky American team. Several times the officials shut down the practice room as the betting escalated and the crowds dramatically increased.  Each time the practice room was reopened, the betting resumed and the spectators from the stands regathered to watch this unstoppable action.

Currencies of every description were being bet and the conversion rates were all pegged to the dollar and I soon learned how to calculate, at lightening speed, the various currencies as they related to each other at the unofficial rate of exchange known, more accurately, as the black market rate. This early familiarization with currency values would, later on, enable me to easily recognize  aberrations in exchange rates and profit handsomely through a variety of financial manipulations

Apart from money, all sorts of interesting goods in short supply were also wagered.  One of the players even bet a Polish salami, an item greatly in demand in post-war England, where even milk was still rationed and fresh fruit was only occasionally available. It had been three years since the war had ended, and London, devastated by the Luftwaffe, had still not been rebuilt. Europe was even worse.  Entire cities still remained totally flattened.               

My bankroll consisted of cash as well as a huge supply of nylon stockings, hundreds of ballpoint pens, boxes of Hershey bars and cartons of cigarettes.  It was like a Middle Eastern bazaar.  If you were not on the tables playing for money, you were engaged either in negotiating a match, bartering, buying, selling, signing autographs or flirting. But, this backroom drama persisted throughout the event and the officials never succeeded in damping this eruption of nine years of pent-up competitive excitement that was never again to be reenacted among the world’s best table tennis players with such frenzy.

This was my first trip overseas and l had been advised before leaving the United States to bring over plenty of nylon stockings, ballpoint pens and cartons of cigarettes.  I then realized that having a supply of merchandise, which was in demand, was better than having cash.  Ballpoint pens that cost 50 cents in the United States sold briskly for $5.00 apiece in England and nylon stockings also made you ten times your investment.  A carton of American cigarettes, costing a dollar, sold for ten bucks.  But, quite honestly, smuggling never bothered me. 

Prices were so inflated in those days for merchandise greatly in demand that cigarettes went for 100 bucks a carton in Berlin right after the war.  But above all, the most sought after product was ordinary cooking fat.  Very few people in position to profit from the basic principals of the law of supply and demand could resist the temptation.  Many high-ranking American military officers, majors and colonels who, even while the war was raging in Europe, were involved in outright nefarious operations that requisitioned, among other things, jeeps and trucks to sell on the black market.  In point of fact, it was widely reported in the media during the war that an entire train loaded with goods was actually sidetracked by a group of armed American soldiers who absconded with all sorts of merchandise, including beer, whiskey cigarettes clothing, vehicles, etc.  Hijacking trains was far from my specialty, but I didn’t see any harm in indulging in good old-fashioned American entrepreneurialism to tide me over as, totally unsubsidized, I went to do battle for my country’s honor.