Chapter 15: Some Immortals Three of the immortals of my time were Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial. The first of the next three columns deals with Williams and Musial as hitters. I am the vocal member of the Ebbets Field Right Field Wall Club badgering Musial in the first piece. Vince Lombardi was a hero to many. Not to me or my pal, Leonard Shecter who fractured me one day when he said, "Anybody can kick a man when he's up. It takes character to kick one when he is down." Lombardi was always "up" and he and his fans didn't like a tough piece on him by Shecter in Esquire. I often question whether we have any impact when we criticize people so I was surpised when I read a biography of Lombardi by David Mariness (sp?) which detailed the hurtful reaction of Lombardi to the Esquire piece. Lombardi was pleased that Esquire sent a writer out to Green Bay to see him and noted proudly to the locals that Shecter was a real New Yorker because he knew how to fold a broadsheet paper when reading it; New Yorkers accustomed to reading papers in the crowded subways fold it so as to minimize it spreading over to a fellow passenger. Beneath that tough Lombardi exterior there was a sensitive, vulnerable man. Who would have believed? John Newcombe and Tony Roche were good guys. It seemed that all the Australian tennis players were good guys. And when we made a trip to Australia in 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, it seemed that every Australian we met was a good guy or gal.
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Doubles isn't tennis. |
