Dispatches from the Sporting Life (32 page)

The wives, alimonied but abandoned, had known the early struggling years with their husbands, the self-doubts, the humiliations, the rejections, the cold-water flats, and the blacklist, but they had always remained loyal. They hadn’t altered, their husbands had.

Each marriage had shattered in the eye of its own self-made hurricane, but essentially the men felt, as Ziggy Alter had once put it so succinctly at the poker table, “Right, wrong, don’t be silly, it’s really a question of who wants to grow old with Anna Pauker when there are so many juicy little things we can now afford.”

So there they were, out on the grass chasing fly balls on a Sunday morning, short men, overpaid and unprincipled, all well within the coronary and lung cancer belt, allowing themselves to look ridiculous in the hope of pleasing their new young wives and girlfriends. There was Ziggy Alter, who had once
written a play “with content” for the Group Theater. Here was Al Levine, who had used to throw marbles under horses’ legs at demonstrations and now raced two horses of his own at Epsom. On the pitcher’s mound stood Gordie Kaufman, who had once carried a banner that read
No Pasarán
through the streets of Manhattan and now employed a man especially to keep Spaniards off the beach at his villa on Mallorca. And sweating under a catcher’s mask there was Moey Hanover, who had studied at a yeshiva, stood up to the committee, and was now on a sabbatical from Desilu.

Usually the husbands were able to avoid their used-up wives. They didn’t see them in the gaming rooms at the White Elephant or in the Mirabelle or Les Ambassadeurs. But come Brecht to Shaftesbury Avenue and without looking up from the second row centre they could feel them squatting in their cotton bloomers in the second balcony, burning holes in their necks.

And count on them to turn up on a Sunday morning in summer on Hampstead Heath just to ruin a game of fun baseball. Even homering, as Al Levine did, was no answer to the crones.

“It’s nice for him, I suppose,” a voice behind Levine on the bench observed, “that on the playing field, with an audience, if you know what I mean, he actually appears virile.”

The game dragged on. In the eighth inning Jack Monroe had to retire to his Mercedes-Benz for his
insulin injection and Jake Hersh, until now an embarrassed sub, finally trotted onto the field. Hersh, thirty-three, one-time relief pitcher for Room 41, Fletcher’s Field High (2–7), moved into right field, mindful of his disc condition and hoping he would not be called on to make a tricksy catch. He assumed a loose-limbed stance on the grass, waving at his wife, grinning at his children, when without warning a sizzling line drive came right at him. Jake, startled, did the only sensible thing: he ducked. Outraged shouts and moans from the bench reminded Jake where he was, in a softball game, and he started after the ball.

“Fishfingers.”

“Putz!”

Runners on first and third started for home as Jake, breathless, finally caught up with the ball. It had rolled to a stop under a bench where a nanny sat watching over an elegant perambulator.

“Excuse me,” Jake said.

“Americans,” the nurse said.

“I’m a Canadian,” Jake protested automatically, fishing the ball out from under the bench.

Three runs scored. Jake caught a glimpse of Nancy, unable to contain her laughter. The children looked ashamed of him.

In the ninth inning with the score tied again, 11-11, Sol Peters, another sub, stepped cautiously to the plate for Lou Caplan’s Bunch. The go-ahead run was on second and there was only one out. Gordie
Kaufman, trying to prevent a bunt, threw right at him and Sol, forgetting he was wearing his contact lenses, held the bat in front of him to protect his glasses. The ball hit the bat and rebounded for a perfectly laid down bunt.

“Run, you shmock.”

“Go, man.”

Sol, terrified, ran, carrying the bat with him.

Monty Talman phoned home.

“Who won?” his wife asked.

“We did, 13–12. But that’s not the point. We had lots of fun.”

“How many you bringing back for lunch?”

“Eight.”

“Eight?”

“I couldn’t get out of inviting Johnny Roper. He knows Jack Monroe is coming.”

“I see.”

“A little warning. Don’t, for Chrissake, ask Cy how Marsha is. They’re separating. And I’m afraid Manny Gordon is coming with a girl. I want you to be nice to her.”

“Anything else?”

“If Gershon phones from Rome while the guys are there, please remember I’m taking the call upstairs. And please don’t start collecting glasses and emptying ashtrays at four o’clock. It’s embarrassing. Bloody Jake Hersh is coming and it’s just the sort of incident he’d pick on and joke about for months.”

“I never coll—”

“All right, all right. Oh, shit, something else. Tom Hunt is coming.”

“The actor?”

“Yeah. Now listen, he’s very touchy, so will you please put away Sheila’s doll.”

“Sheila’s doll?”

“If she comes in carrying that bloody golliwog I’ll die. Hide it. Burn it. Hunt gets script approval these days, you know.”

“All right, dear.”

“See you soon.”

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for the permission to reprint previously published material:

The quotation
here
, and the second quotation
here
is from
St. Urbain’s Horseman
by Mordecai Richler. Copyright © 1966, 1967, 1971 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The first quotation
here
is from
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
by Mordecai Richler. Copyright © 1959 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The essay “An Incompleat Angler’s Journal” first appeared in GQ, August, 1991. Copyright © 1991 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of GQ, a division of Condé Nast Publications.

The essay “Jews in Sports” first appeared in
Book Week.
Copyright © 1966 by Mordecai Richler.

The essay “A Real Canadian Success Story” appeared in
Home Sweet Home.
Copyright © 1984 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The essay “With the Trail Smoke Eaters in Stockholm” first appeared in
Maclean’s.
Copyright © 1962 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
Maclean’s.

The essay “Safari” first appeared in
Signature
magazine, February 1983, under the title, “Africa the Great Adventure.” Copyright © 1983 by Mordecai Richler.

The essay “You Know Me, Ring” first appeared in
GQ,
September 1986. Copyright © 1986 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
GQ,
a division of Condé Nast Publications.

The essay “Writers and Sports” copyright © by Mordecai Richler.

The essay “Gretzky in Eighty-five” first appeared in
The New York Times Sport Magazine,
September 29, 1985. Copyright © 1985 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of The New York Times Company.

The essay “From Satchel, through Hank Greenberg, to El Divino Loco” first appeared in
GQ,
July 1989. Copyright © 1989 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
GQ,
a division of Condé Nast Publications.

The essay “Eddie Quinn” first appeared in
Maclean’s,
November 19, 1960. Copyright © 1960 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
Maclean’s.

The essay “Cheap Skates” first appeared in
GQ,
January 1986. Copyright © 1986 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
GQ,
a divisions of Conté Nast Publications.

The essay “Maxie” first appeared in
On Snooker
by Mordecai Richler. Copyright © 2001 by Mordecai Richler Productions Limited. Reprinted by permission of Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited.

The essay “Paper Lion” first appeared in
The New York Review of
Books, February 23, 1967. Copyright © 1967 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
The New York Review of Books.

The essay “Gordie” first appeared in
Inside Sports
magazine, November 30, 1980, under the title, “Howe Incredible”. Copyright © 1980 by Mordecai Richler.

The essay “Pete Rose” first appeared in
The New York Times Sports Magazine,
March 31, 1985. Copyright © 1985 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of The New York Times Company.

The essay “Kiss the Ump” first appeared in
GQ,
June 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
GQ,
a divisions of Conté Nast Publications.

The essay “Soul on Ice” first appeared in
GQ,
November 1983. Copyright © 1983 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of
GQ,
a division of Conté Nast Publications.

The essay “From Gladu…” appeared in
Home Sweet Home.
Copyright © 1984 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The essay “The Fall of the Montreal Canadiens” appeared in
Home Sweet Home.
Copyright © 1984 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The excerpt on pages 275 to 290 is from
St. Urbain’s Horseman.
Copyright © 1966, 1967, 1971 by Mordecai Richler. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an inadvertent omission or error, please notify the publisher.

M
ordecai Richler wrote ten novels and numerous screenplays, essays, children’s books and several works of non-fiction, most recently
On Snooker.
During his career, he was the recipient of dozens of literary awards, including two Governor General’s Awards, the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada a few months before his death on July 3, 2001.