Vic Ziegel, a columnist for the Daily News, is a character and a friend. I sometimes wonder if he is a friend because he is a character or he is a character because he is a friend. November 13: A Target at 8 Sewers--Kill! Kill! Kill! They laughed when Vic Ziegel went off into the north woods to go big-time hunting. Vic Ziegel, the jolly fat guy from the Bronx…He doesn't drive a car, he's afraid of dogs, small dogs, and the only animal that probably ever had any meaning to him is the beaver. The City College beaver. Vic Ziegel in the woods? With a gun? Hilarious. The editors of Sport Magazine had this idea of sending a reporter to go hunting with Yankees Steve Hamilton and Mel Stottlemyre, two crack shots, for an article in the February issue. They could have sent any one of a number of knowledgeable outdoor writers who would appreciate the skills of ardent outdoorsmen Hamilton and Stottlemyre. But they chose Ziegel, the kid from the city who gets nervous anytime he can't call a cab to take him to the nearest bar or egg-cream parlor.
The players know Ziegel because he has been covering the Yankees for the New York Post. "Vic Ziegel!" said Hamilton, and laughed. "Vic Ziegel!" said Stottlemyre, and laughed. Off they went in a private plane. Not exactly to the north woods, but to a ranch in Colorado in the great, great outdoors where there were mountain peaks all around, all around. Good luck, Vic, Deadeye Vic. Just don't get hurt. Bring us back one of those elk heads for a hat rack. Tee hee. Four days later Zegel returned. He flew all the way home to the boys at their Greenwich Vuillage hangout. "Just call me Big Time Buck Ziegel," he said. Why, why? "I got me a buck. One shot and he went down." You shot a buck? You actually shot a gun? "I dedicated him to peace and non-violence." How? "He was standing in a meadow. Hamilton told me to put the sight on him. I looked through it and he was like a bubble gum card picture at the end of my gun. He was right in the cross-hairs. I just pulled the trigger and he went down." You didn't? "I did. He was a 10-point buck. I spotted him four points and pressed the trigger." How far away were you? "I would say about 200 yards-or eight sewers." Is it unusual to bring a buck down with one shot? "Maybe it is for other people, but it wasn't for me. I just took my one shot and that was it. I won't ever have to shoot again. On the way back from the airport, though, I kicked a dog." Did you enjoy shooting? "Well, I wouldn't want it to get around or anything, but I sort of liked bringing the big guy down. Other that that, it was a lot of boredom. You drive around looking for them. I slept a lot. I preferred sitting around at night drinking Pouilly Fuisse and eating the good meat the hosts provided. When I told our driver I had shot the buck, he said, "You couldn't shoot the buck; you sleep all the time." Ziegel's friends were thrilled for him. Bob Alderman said, "We all agreed his feat of shooting a buck is the most epic thing anybody from the Grand Concourse had ever done. Some of us are writers and some have written books, but nobody ever shot a buck. That's epic. We figured it must have been a crippled buck who couldn't get out of the way." "An overconfident buck, maybe," said Ziegel, "but not sick. I hit him right in the liver." For his feat Ziegel will get the rack (the mounted horns of the beast) and a plaque attesting to his marksmanship. He ordered a half-dozen venison steaks to be cooked for the boys at the bar. When Ziegel shoots a buck, everybody eats. Verification was sought from Hamilton at his home in Morehead, Ky. Say, Steve, did Ziegel really shoot a buck? "He did, he did," Hamilton said. With one shot? "Yes, yes. With one shot, in falling light and with a strange gun." Vic Ziegel? "Yes, the fat kid from the Bronx. He slept in the car most of the first few days. Then when we were returning to the lodge for the last time, there were six or seven bucks in the meadow. I urged Vic to shoot. The first time he looked through the sight with the wrong eye. Then he put the gun on the car trunk, steadied just like a real shooter and fired. Vic wasn't nervous at first, but after he realized he actually killed the buck, he got real excited. He went around shouting, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" "I guess I was a bit surprised," Ziegel said. "Like, if you told me at the beginning of this year that the Mets would win the World Series and I would shoot a buck this year, I would have answered, "I'm going to shoot a buck?"
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Getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go and hunt a rabbit is the same thing as getting up at 7 o'clock in the morning to be the first one on the ski lift. |
Donald Davidson: A Tale of Three Cities 
