There's this ad for Baby Ruth candy bars on the radio that starts out: “This year is an important anniversary in baseball.” The first time I heard it, I thought, “The 50th anniversary of anabolic steroids?” Actually, it’s the 100th anniversary of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” So this morning the ad came on, and I put two and two together….
Shoot me up with some steroids
Shoot me up with some ‘roids
Buy me some Ripped Fuel and power drink
I don’t care if my testicles shrink
‘Cause I got a call from the Yankees
If they don’t sign, it’s a shame
‘Cause it’s one, two, three million bucks
In the old ball game
BASEBALL CAUSES CANCER!!!
HOCKEY MAKES YOU HOLY!!!
GO PENS!!!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
A Dead Horse in the Derby
Thoroughbred racing has reached a crisis.
This year’s Kentucky Derby gave us a serious Triple Crown threat in Big Brown, but few people are talking about him because the Derby gave us something else—a dead horse.
Horses have broken down in major stakes races before, but the death of Eight Belles is different because the Derby is different from other races. For many people who don’t know a furlong from a fetlock, it’s the only horse race they watch all year. There has been an idea among many racing fans that the Derby is somehow charmed—that there is some sort of Derby god who wards off tragedy and makes sure that the race is won by the people with the most heartwarming story.
History has borne this out. While Barbaro’s death affected many people, he sustained his fatal injury in the Preakness. Too many horses have died during the Breeders’ Cup championships. But you have to go back to 1974 for the last breakdown in the Derby. Flip Sal’s injury was relatively minor and he survived to stand stud.
Tragedy just doesn’t happen in the Derby—until now.
Eight Belles’ death horrified racing fans, scared off a lot of newbies, brought PETA out of the woodwork to compare horse racing to dog fighting, and left everyone concerned asking why.
Given the sport’s recent trends, the real question is why it took so long.
Since that awful day in 1990 when Go for Wand broke her leg in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, it seems as if a year doesn’t go by without a career- or life-ending injury in a major Thoroughbred stakes. The names mean little to anyone who’s not a racing fan, but they would have made for a pretty impressive feature event if they had all been entered in the same race. Holy Bull. Charismatic. Prairie Bayou. George Washington. Pine Island. Union City. Fanfair.
Then there was Barbaro. For two weeks, he captured the nation’s imagination with his impressive Derby win—and then, in an instant, his racing career was over and a nation awaited his recovery in vain.
In the aftermath of last week’s tragedy, a lot of revisionist history is being posted on message boards. Some people maintain that horse racing has always had a high casualty rate. They're calling it a cruel anachronism, not suitable for a more humane, politically correct era. At the same time, many horse racing supporters on these boards insist that nothing’s wrong, and that carting a dead horse off the track after every other televised race is somehow normal.
As a racing fan for over 35 years, I can tell you that the sport has changed. The horses that ran in the 2008 Kentucky Derby are not my grandfather's Thoroughbreds.
I grew up in the 1970s, a golden age for racing. The decade was highlighted by three Triple Crown winners and several near misses. Nobody had to give the competitors’ safety a second thought. Shooting a horse with a broken leg was a joke in my house because it happened so seldom. The only high-profile breakdown during the entire decade was Ruffian-and that occurred in an ill-conceived match race.
For about the last 20 years, it has been clear that the Thoroughbred is more fragile than it used to be. This is not nostalgia—this is fact. Seabiscuit raced 35 times as a 2-year-old alone. I will be surprised if any starter in this year’s Derby races 35 times in its career.
Racing needs to get its head out of its butt and do something. Synthetic tracks may reduce catastrophic injuries, but they are only a short-term solution. What needs to start now is a hard look at the breeding of the horses themselves. Are they being bred for the long-term good of the breed, or for short-term profit? Perhaps the industry has also become too dependent on drugs such as Bute and Lasix, which have allowed infirm horses to have successful racing careers and eventually enter the gene pool.
This is not about animal rights. This is about the survival of racing. The sport gained no new fans Saturday, and the old fans will not be able to close their eyes and think of Secretariat for much longer.
I will be rooting for Big Brown in the Preakness and Belmont—not to win the Triple Crown, but to make it around the track. And that’s not how racing was meant to be.
This year’s Kentucky Derby gave us a serious Triple Crown threat in Big Brown, but few people are talking about him because the Derby gave us something else—a dead horse.
Horses have broken down in major stakes races before, but the death of Eight Belles is different because the Derby is different from other races. For many people who don’t know a furlong from a fetlock, it’s the only horse race they watch all year. There has been an idea among many racing fans that the Derby is somehow charmed—that there is some sort of Derby god who wards off tragedy and makes sure that the race is won by the people with the most heartwarming story.
History has borne this out. While Barbaro’s death affected many people, he sustained his fatal injury in the Preakness. Too many horses have died during the Breeders’ Cup championships. But you have to go back to 1974 for the last breakdown in the Derby. Flip Sal’s injury was relatively minor and he survived to stand stud.
Tragedy just doesn’t happen in the Derby—until now.
Eight Belles’ death horrified racing fans, scared off a lot of newbies, brought PETA out of the woodwork to compare horse racing to dog fighting, and left everyone concerned asking why.
Given the sport’s recent trends, the real question is why it took so long.
Since that awful day in 1990 when Go for Wand broke her leg in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, it seems as if a year doesn’t go by without a career- or life-ending injury in a major Thoroughbred stakes. The names mean little to anyone who’s not a racing fan, but they would have made for a pretty impressive feature event if they had all been entered in the same race. Holy Bull. Charismatic. Prairie Bayou. George Washington. Pine Island. Union City. Fanfair.
Then there was Barbaro. For two weeks, he captured the nation’s imagination with his impressive Derby win—and then, in an instant, his racing career was over and a nation awaited his recovery in vain.
In the aftermath of last week’s tragedy, a lot of revisionist history is being posted on message boards. Some people maintain that horse racing has always had a high casualty rate. They're calling it a cruel anachronism, not suitable for a more humane, politically correct era. At the same time, many horse racing supporters on these boards insist that nothing’s wrong, and that carting a dead horse off the track after every other televised race is somehow normal.
As a racing fan for over 35 years, I can tell you that the sport has changed. The horses that ran in the 2008 Kentucky Derby are not my grandfather's Thoroughbreds.
I grew up in the 1970s, a golden age for racing. The decade was highlighted by three Triple Crown winners and several near misses. Nobody had to give the competitors’ safety a second thought. Shooting a horse with a broken leg was a joke in my house because it happened so seldom. The only high-profile breakdown during the entire decade was Ruffian-and that occurred in an ill-conceived match race.
For about the last 20 years, it has been clear that the Thoroughbred is more fragile than it used to be. This is not nostalgia—this is fact. Seabiscuit raced 35 times as a 2-year-old alone. I will be surprised if any starter in this year’s Derby races 35 times in its career.
Racing needs to get its head out of its butt and do something. Synthetic tracks may reduce catastrophic injuries, but they are only a short-term solution. What needs to start now is a hard look at the breeding of the horses themselves. Are they being bred for the long-term good of the breed, or for short-term profit? Perhaps the industry has also become too dependent on drugs such as Bute and Lasix, which have allowed infirm horses to have successful racing careers and eventually enter the gene pool.
This is not about animal rights. This is about the survival of racing. The sport gained no new fans Saturday, and the old fans will not be able to close their eyes and think of Secretariat for much longer.
I will be rooting for Big Brown in the Preakness and Belmont—not to win the Triple Crown, but to make it around the track. And that’s not how racing was meant to be.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Damnedest Thing I've Ever Seen?
This is the week when I officially go crazy.
This is the week when I spend hours analyzing a handful of horse races, watch the replays of those races repeatedly, and scour horse racing websites for any clue that might help me make a bet on a two-minute race.
This is the week that I dig books and old Racing Forms out of the basement, not only to find patterns in races from past years, but to relive a lot of great memories as well.
This is the week that climaxes with me in a crowded OTB, getting misty-eyed at the playing of the official song of a state where I’ve never lived.
This is the week that I actually like Dan Fogelberg.
This is Kentucky Derby Week.
It means little to most sports fans, and probably less to most racing fans than it does to me. But it was an obsession in my house when I was growing up.
The first Derby I remember watching was 1972, when I was six. I remember my brothers studying the Racing Form and talking about the race, with the name of one horse standing out—Riva Ridge. It just sounded like a winner to me. He was not the best Derby winner ever, though—or even the best from his own stable. That would happen the next year.
The ‘70s were a golden age for the Derby, with three Triple Crown winners and several near misses. The major prep races were telecast on ABC, and I spent all spring waiting for the buildup to the big day—as did everybody else in my house.
Then I got the chance to see three Derbies in person in the 1980s. The Kentucky Derby should be on anybody’s “Bucket List.” I will never forget my first glimpse of Churchill Downs. I’d seen it on TV many times, but that does not do it justice, if only due to the size of the grandstand. My idea of a racetrack was Beulah Park. I was not prepared to see the Twin Spires.
Through the years, through my career in horse racing, as well as my present incarnation outside the sport, everything has stopped for the Derby. My family is scattered across the country, but at around 6 p.m. this Saturday, I will know exactly what they’re doing.
The Derby is not only the peak of the Thoroughbred racing season, but the ultimate handicapping challenge because it is unlike any other race. No other race in North America has a field of up to 20 horses—all separate betting interests for bigger payoffs. No race features 3-year-olds racing farther than they have before. No race is run with a crowd of over 100,000—many of them partying in the infield.
I write this, I have given Saturday’s Derby past performances a quick look. This edition’s field has more question marks than a Spanish phrasebook. It looks like the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
But I say that every year.
This is the week when I spend hours analyzing a handful of horse races, watch the replays of those races repeatedly, and scour horse racing websites for any clue that might help me make a bet on a two-minute race.
This is the week that I dig books and old Racing Forms out of the basement, not only to find patterns in races from past years, but to relive a lot of great memories as well.
This is the week that climaxes with me in a crowded OTB, getting misty-eyed at the playing of the official song of a state where I’ve never lived.
This is the week that I actually like Dan Fogelberg.
This is Kentucky Derby Week.
It means little to most sports fans, and probably less to most racing fans than it does to me. But it was an obsession in my house when I was growing up.
The first Derby I remember watching was 1972, when I was six. I remember my brothers studying the Racing Form and talking about the race, with the name of one horse standing out—Riva Ridge. It just sounded like a winner to me. He was not the best Derby winner ever, though—or even the best from his own stable. That would happen the next year.
The ‘70s were a golden age for the Derby, with three Triple Crown winners and several near misses. The major prep races were telecast on ABC, and I spent all spring waiting for the buildup to the big day—as did everybody else in my house.
Then I got the chance to see three Derbies in person in the 1980s. The Kentucky Derby should be on anybody’s “Bucket List.” I will never forget my first glimpse of Churchill Downs. I’d seen it on TV many times, but that does not do it justice, if only due to the size of the grandstand. My idea of a racetrack was Beulah Park. I was not prepared to see the Twin Spires.
Through the years, through my career in horse racing, as well as my present incarnation outside the sport, everything has stopped for the Derby. My family is scattered across the country, but at around 6 p.m. this Saturday, I will know exactly what they’re doing.
The Derby is not only the peak of the Thoroughbred racing season, but the ultimate handicapping challenge because it is unlike any other race. No other race in North America has a field of up to 20 horses—all separate betting interests for bigger payoffs. No race features 3-year-olds racing farther than they have before. No race is run with a crowd of over 100,000—many of them partying in the infield.
I write this, I have given Saturday’s Derby past performances a quick look. This edition’s field has more question marks than a Spanish phrasebook. It looks like the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
But I say that every year.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Pittsburgh Penguins: A Complete Team
The Pittsburgh Penguins will win the 2008 Stanley Cup.
This will probably sound to most of you like the empty brag of a townie. And it’s always asking for trouble to make guarantees. But, with everyone on the team healthy as the playoffs begin, it’s hard to hold out against that judgment.
Injuries subdued the team at certain points in the season, which is the main reason why the Pens are the #2 seed in the East instead of #1. You don’t have your team captain and your starting goalie out for any length of time and win the Presidents' Trophy.
Judging from Wednesday night’s 4-0 drubbing of Ottawa in the first playoff game, the team is now at full strength and should be unstoppable.
Much has been said over the past three seasons about Sidney Crosby, who has already amassed an amazing number of NHL records for someone who can’t buy beer yet. But the high ankle sprains (a phrase that is fast becoming hockey’s equivalent to “walk-off home run”) to him and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury proved to be blessings in disguise, as this season has seen the Penguins evolve into a complete team.
First, there is Evgeni Malkin. Malkin was the second pick in the 2004 NHL Draft, but until this season, he was more famous for the controversy surrounding his signing with the Penguins than anything he’d done on the ice. His play showed flashes of brilliance (he did score a goal in each of his first six NHL games), but could be inconsistent. With Crosby sidelined for several weeks, Malkin emerged as a team leader.
Fleury’s injury created a void at starting goalie. When Dany Sabourin couldn’t show consistency, the Penguins recalled Ty Conklin from Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Conklin’s career before that point defined “journeyman,” as he has played for four NHL teams and countless minor and German professional league teams. No one was ready for his contribution. He won his first nine starts and ended the regular season with the second-best save percentage in the NHL. Not bad for a backup.
To complete a team, trades are often necessary, and this was the case with the Penguins, too. The season’s blockbuster trade with the Atlanta Thrashers brought Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis to Pittsburgh in exchange for Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito and a draft pick. This trade gave the Pens the scoring power they needed on the front line in addition to Crosby and Malkin. The trade was criticized because Armstrong and Christensen had made their share of contributions to the team, while Esposito, a first-round pick, was seen by some as a future franchise player. Time will tell if the Pens gave up too much for a serious Stanley Cup run, especially if they aren’t able to re-sign Hossa for next year.
For now, all the important spots are being filled, and the Penguins have emerged as the NHL’s most complete team.
This will probably sound to most of you like the empty brag of a townie. And it’s always asking for trouble to make guarantees. But, with everyone on the team healthy as the playoffs begin, it’s hard to hold out against that judgment.
Injuries subdued the team at certain points in the season, which is the main reason why the Pens are the #2 seed in the East instead of #1. You don’t have your team captain and your starting goalie out for any length of time and win the Presidents' Trophy.
Judging from Wednesday night’s 4-0 drubbing of Ottawa in the first playoff game, the team is now at full strength and should be unstoppable.
Much has been said over the past three seasons about Sidney Crosby, who has already amassed an amazing number of NHL records for someone who can’t buy beer yet. But the high ankle sprains (a phrase that is fast becoming hockey’s equivalent to “walk-off home run”) to him and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury proved to be blessings in disguise, as this season has seen the Penguins evolve into a complete team.
First, there is Evgeni Malkin. Malkin was the second pick in the 2004 NHL Draft, but until this season, he was more famous for the controversy surrounding his signing with the Penguins than anything he’d done on the ice. His play showed flashes of brilliance (he did score a goal in each of his first six NHL games), but could be inconsistent. With Crosby sidelined for several weeks, Malkin emerged as a team leader.
Fleury’s injury created a void at starting goalie. When Dany Sabourin couldn’t show consistency, the Penguins recalled Ty Conklin from Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Conklin’s career before that point defined “journeyman,” as he has played for four NHL teams and countless minor and German professional league teams. No one was ready for his contribution. He won his first nine starts and ended the regular season with the second-best save percentage in the NHL. Not bad for a backup.
To complete a team, trades are often necessary, and this was the case with the Penguins, too. The season’s blockbuster trade with the Atlanta Thrashers brought Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis to Pittsburgh in exchange for Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito and a draft pick. This trade gave the Pens the scoring power they needed on the front line in addition to Crosby and Malkin. The trade was criticized because Armstrong and Christensen had made their share of contributions to the team, while Esposito, a first-round pick, was seen by some as a future franchise player. Time will tell if the Pens gave up too much for a serious Stanley Cup run, especially if they aren’t able to re-sign Hossa for next year.
For now, all the important spots are being filled, and the Penguins have emerged as the NHL’s most complete team.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
March Madness
This is the weekend in which people who can’t tell a zone defense from a pick and roll suddenly become interested in college basketball.
Selections have been made for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, also known (and even officially trademarked) as “March Madness.”
While college basketball has its share of fans during its regular season, it’s not until this weekend that nearly everybody in the country starts to care about it. There will be office pools, betting (legal or not), TV remotes hard-wired to CBS, and thousands of heads looking up at the screen whenever the distinctive, eight-note March Madness jingle is played, in order to check the score of a game in which most people couldn’t name one player.
Why do people who can’t locate Gonzaga on a map suddenly start rooting for them?
Because March Madness is one of the most democratic sporting events—up to a point.
The tournament is one of the few sporting events where David has a realistic chance of beating Goliath. Basketball’s nature makes it more amenable to upsets than other sports. A college football team needs to recruit scores of players and spend thousands on equipment. A college basketball team needs five good players and a ball. Some of this year’s first-round matchups would be inconceivable in college football, except as an early-season, 59-3 blowout. Kansas vs. Portland State? Tennessee vs. American? Washington State vs. Winthrop? Winthrop? Wasn’t that Ron Howard's character in The Music Man?
Another factor contributing to the unpredictability is the ungodly amount of money to be made in the NBA. A truly superior player won’t stick around for four years of college when he can make millions. This has served to level the playing field—or should I say the court?—in the college game.
So, on this weekend, the unlikely is likely to happen. There are always a few upsets in the opening round. While no #16 seed has ever beaten a #1, four #15 seeds have beaten #2. The #9 has actually beaten #8 54 percent of the time.
Eventually, reality sets in for most of the underdogs. The tournament’s length tends to ensure that favorites will be there at the finish. For a Belmont or Cal State Fullerton to pull off one upset would be quite a feat. To do the same thing six times in a row? Well…you can never say never.
Still, that’s why we watch—to celebrate the underdog in all of us.
Just don’t bet the rent on Coppin State.
Selections have been made for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, also known (and even officially trademarked) as “March Madness.”
While college basketball has its share of fans during its regular season, it’s not until this weekend that nearly everybody in the country starts to care about it. There will be office pools, betting (legal or not), TV remotes hard-wired to CBS, and thousands of heads looking up at the screen whenever the distinctive, eight-note March Madness jingle is played, in order to check the score of a game in which most people couldn’t name one player.
Why do people who can’t locate Gonzaga on a map suddenly start rooting for them?
Because March Madness is one of the most democratic sporting events—up to a point.
The tournament is one of the few sporting events where David has a realistic chance of beating Goliath. Basketball’s nature makes it more amenable to upsets than other sports. A college football team needs to recruit scores of players and spend thousands on equipment. A college basketball team needs five good players and a ball. Some of this year’s first-round matchups would be inconceivable in college football, except as an early-season, 59-3 blowout. Kansas vs. Portland State? Tennessee vs. American? Washington State vs. Winthrop? Winthrop? Wasn’t that Ron Howard's character in The Music Man?
Another factor contributing to the unpredictability is the ungodly amount of money to be made in the NBA. A truly superior player won’t stick around for four years of college when he can make millions. This has served to level the playing field—or should I say the court?—in the college game.
So, on this weekend, the unlikely is likely to happen. There are always a few upsets in the opening round. While no #16 seed has ever beaten a #1, four #15 seeds have beaten #2. The #9 has actually beaten #8 54 percent of the time.
Eventually, reality sets in for most of the underdogs. The tournament’s length tends to ensure that favorites will be there at the finish. For a Belmont or Cal State Fullerton to pull off one upset would be quite a feat. To do the same thing six times in a row? Well…you can never say never.
Still, that’s why we watch—to celebrate the underdog in all of us.
Just don’t bet the rent on Coppin State.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Myron Cope 1929-2008
A piece of Pittsburgh died this week.
As I write this, people are gathering in downtown Pittsburgh to pay tribute to Myron Cope with a ceremonial wave of the Terrible Towel he invented. Newspapers, TV stations, and blogs are loaded with tributes to Cope, who died Wednesday from respiratory failure at 79.
These tributes are the most I’ve ever seen for a sportscaster. Nobody mourned Howard Cosell this way.
In the relatively brief time that I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, I can see that the tributes are justified.
Soon after I moved here in 2002, it became apparent to me that Cope was more than a sportscaster. One of the first things Jamie did to introduce me to the area was play a Steelers radio broadcast. I had never heard an announcer quite like him. His nasal voice, with a heavy Pittsburgh accent, came across like Cosell without the pretentiousness. His catch phrases, such as “um-hah,” “yoi,” and “okle-dokle,” became part of the local vocabulary, as did his nicknames for opposing teams—the “Cleve Brownies,” the “Cincinnati Bungles,” and the “Baltimore Birdies.” He made Steelermania instantly accessible to me. For the uninitiated, this site has a good collection of Myron’s sound bites.
Two of his most recent games stand out in my mind. One was the last game of the 2004 season. The Steelers had clinched a playoff berth and started many second-stringers against the Buffalo Bills, but beat them anyway. Myron marveled at the performance of the “Steelers Scrubs” and riffed on it throughout the game. He even joked that he would have T-shirts made reading “Steelers Scrubs.”
Another game, that same year, was a fairly decisive win against the arch-rival Cincinnati Bengals, in which he came up with the line, “We’re putting the lox on those Cincinnati Bagels!”
His legacy goes beyond the broadcast booth. He once joked that his epitaph would read, “Creator of Towel Dead,” and many people know him best as the creator of the Terrible Towel. The Towel, invented prior to a 1975 playoff game, has set the standard for sports team symbols. Cope was also an excellent print journalist. He and George Plimpton are the only two writers ever given the title of Special Correspondent for Sports Illustrated.
As I write this, people are gathering in downtown Pittsburgh to pay tribute to Myron Cope with a ceremonial wave of the Terrible Towel he invented. Newspapers, TV stations, and blogs are loaded with tributes to Cope, who died Wednesday from respiratory failure at 79.
These tributes are the most I’ve ever seen for a sportscaster. Nobody mourned Howard Cosell this way.
In the relatively brief time that I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, I can see that the tributes are justified.
Soon after I moved here in 2002, it became apparent to me that Cope was more than a sportscaster. One of the first things Jamie did to introduce me to the area was play a Steelers radio broadcast. I had never heard an announcer quite like him. His nasal voice, with a heavy Pittsburgh accent, came across like Cosell without the pretentiousness. His catch phrases, such as “um-hah,” “yoi,” and “okle-dokle,” became part of the local vocabulary, as did his nicknames for opposing teams—the “Cleve Brownies,” the “Cincinnati Bungles,” and the “Baltimore Birdies.” He made Steelermania instantly accessible to me. For the uninitiated, this site has a good collection of Myron’s sound bites.
Two of his most recent games stand out in my mind. One was the last game of the 2004 season. The Steelers had clinched a playoff berth and started many second-stringers against the Buffalo Bills, but beat them anyway. Myron marveled at the performance of the “Steelers Scrubs” and riffed on it throughout the game. He even joked that he would have T-shirts made reading “Steelers Scrubs.”
Another game, that same year, was a fairly decisive win against the arch-rival Cincinnati Bengals, in which he came up with the line, “We’re putting the lox on those Cincinnati Bagels!”
His legacy goes beyond the broadcast booth. He once joked that his epitaph would read, “Creator of Towel Dead,” and many people know him best as the creator of the Terrible Towel. The Towel, invented prior to a 1975 playoff game, has set the standard for sports team symbols. Cope was also an excellent print journalist. He and George Plimpton are the only two writers ever given the title of Special Correspondent for Sports Illustrated.
Until Myron's retirement, it was a tradition in our house to watch the Steelers game with the TV sound turned down and the radio playing in the background. I will never forget that moment before each game when the stadium music boomed in the background as the Steelers ran onto the field. Myron would sputter, raise his voice higher than usual, and generally break every rule of sportscasting, but, at that moment, he said everything you needed to know. It’s telling that, with all due respect to Tunch and Bill, we now listen to the radio broadcast only when the TV announcers really suck.
Thank you, Myron, for welcoming me to Pittsburgh.
Bye now!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
We can all stop searching now
In my intro to this site, I said that I’d blog on chess if I thought anybody was interested.
I never thought I’d get the opportunity so soon.
Bobby Fischer passed away last month in Reykjavik, Iceland, the town where his legend reached its peak. It may sound strange to call him a sports legend, or to even call chess a sport, nowadays—but for a brief period in the 1970s, both were true.
It goes without saying that Fischer was to chess what Babe Ruth was to baseball, or Michael Jordan to basketball—but he may have been even more important, as chess was made and broken by his place in the spotlight. Interest in baseball did not plummet the day the Babe retired, but when Fischer was stripped of his chess title in 1975 in a dispute over issues that wouldn’t have made Terrell Owens blink, people, at least in the U.S., stopped trumpeting chess as “the sport of the mind,” and it returned to what it was before Fischer won the title—a pastime for high school nerds.
It was the chess world’s misfortune that its destiny laid in the hands of a stark, raving loon. This was borne out by the obituary story done by ESPN on "SportsCenter." While the story did show a montage of Fischer’s extraordinary rise to the top, the most lasting images were a sound bite from a Filipino radio station in which Fischer praised the 9/11 attacks, and an anti-Semitic rant at a news conference in which Fischer vehemently denied his own Jewish lineage.
Not that Fischer was the first chess champion to suffer from mental illness. Paul Morphy, the first American chess champion, stopped playing in his twenties and became a recluse who passed his time arranging women’s shoes on the floor and dancing around them. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion, once challenged God to a game—and offered him a pawn. Steinitz eventually died in a mental hospital.
Does the intense concentration and need to anticipate an opponent’s moves at such a high level lead to mental illness, or does the game’s nature attract the unstable? A lot of bandwidth could be eaten making chicken-or-egg arguments about that question.
Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games opens with an epigram from champion Dr. Emanuel Lasker that speaks to the game’s enduring appeal:
“On the chess board lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite."
Other games have some element of chance, such as dice or cards. Even in Scrabble™, you have to draw the letters before you can play them. But not chess. In chess, it’s just you and your ability. That’s why many have considered it an ultimate test of intellect, if there is such a thing.
But what happens when the intellect fails—when a player reaches an opponent or position that just can’t be beaten? What does that say about a player? Maybe it wasn’t mere hyperbole when Pravda published news reports after the Fischer-Spassky match saying that Boris Spassky “would never recover” from losing the match, as if he had contracted some terminal illness. (Although Spassky has not only continued to play topflight chess for many years, but has now outlived Fischer.)
Maybe that’s why so many chess grandmasters fall apart.
Or, at the very least, maybe that’s why I don’t play chess much anymore.
I never thought I’d get the opportunity so soon.
Bobby Fischer passed away last month in Reykjavik, Iceland, the town where his legend reached its peak. It may sound strange to call him a sports legend, or to even call chess a sport, nowadays—but for a brief period in the 1970s, both were true.
It goes without saying that Fischer was to chess what Babe Ruth was to baseball, or Michael Jordan to basketball—but he may have been even more important, as chess was made and broken by his place in the spotlight. Interest in baseball did not plummet the day the Babe retired, but when Fischer was stripped of his chess title in 1975 in a dispute over issues that wouldn’t have made Terrell Owens blink, people, at least in the U.S., stopped trumpeting chess as “the sport of the mind,” and it returned to what it was before Fischer won the title—a pastime for high school nerds.
It was the chess world’s misfortune that its destiny laid in the hands of a stark, raving loon. This was borne out by the obituary story done by ESPN on "SportsCenter." While the story did show a montage of Fischer’s extraordinary rise to the top, the most lasting images were a sound bite from a Filipino radio station in which Fischer praised the 9/11 attacks, and an anti-Semitic rant at a news conference in which Fischer vehemently denied his own Jewish lineage.
Not that Fischer was the first chess champion to suffer from mental illness. Paul Morphy, the first American chess champion, stopped playing in his twenties and became a recluse who passed his time arranging women’s shoes on the floor and dancing around them. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion, once challenged God to a game—and offered him a pawn. Steinitz eventually died in a mental hospital.
Does the intense concentration and need to anticipate an opponent’s moves at such a high level lead to mental illness, or does the game’s nature attract the unstable? A lot of bandwidth could be eaten making chicken-or-egg arguments about that question.
Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games opens with an epigram from champion Dr. Emanuel Lasker that speaks to the game’s enduring appeal:
“On the chess board lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite."
Other games have some element of chance, such as dice or cards. Even in Scrabble™, you have to draw the letters before you can play them. But not chess. In chess, it’s just you and your ability. That’s why many have considered it an ultimate test of intellect, if there is such a thing.
But what happens when the intellect fails—when a player reaches an opponent or position that just can’t be beaten? What does that say about a player? Maybe it wasn’t mere hyperbole when Pravda published news reports after the Fischer-Spassky match saying that Boris Spassky “would never recover” from losing the match, as if he had contracted some terminal illness. (Although Spassky has not only continued to play topflight chess for many years, but has now outlived Fischer.)
Maybe that’s why so many chess grandmasters fall apart.
Or, at the very least, maybe that’s why I don’t play chess much anymore.
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