Sports in America

by James A. Michener

  Solitude. It is obvious that a man’s experience in sports can be divided into two types, as spectator and as participant, but it is not so obvious that the latter can also be divided into two categories, group games and solitary action. The latter is especially rewarding when it involves close contact with nature, and some of my best experiences have come in this form.

  As a young man I studied in Scotland, where walking across the moors was a constant temptation. This small and congenial country produces some great hikers, and I followed in their trail. On one heroic effort, which gained me some credit in my university crowd, I hiked across Scotland in one unbroken trip.

  I left Inverness, that crystal-clear city of the north, and walked westward along its loch, then cross-country to beautiful Glen Affric, then through the pass between Ben Attow and Scour Ouran and down the western slopes to Invershiel, a total of forty-eight miles. It was a journey I have never forgotten, the kind of thing a man should do when young, and one of the most rewarding things about it was that I did it alone, so that the full force of nature could impress me and give me strength as I hiked through the dark hours.

  It was this long walk that committed me to constant hiking, and for the past twenty-five years, whenever I have been at home, I have left my desk almost every afternoon to walk with our dogs through the woods that surround the small plot of ground on which we live. The taxes on these splendid woods are paid by others, but they belong to me.

  I walk every day, save in blizzards and cloudbursts, between two and three miles across open wheat fields and through cool, tall woods. I pursue the same path, year after year, and neither I nor the dogs ever tire of it. I watch the deer, and the fox, and the rabbits, and the squirrels, and the skunks, and especially the birds, and I have never seen the same scene twice. There are several small waterfalls whose white-plunging waters vary from real torrents to almost nothing; some trails border streams that carry fish in wet seasons, sand in dry.

  Within this short walk the infinite variety of nature is compressed. I must have traveled it more than a hundred and fifty times a year for a quarter of a century. When my writing goes poorly it is always because I have not walked enough, for it is on these uneventful and repetitious walks that I do my best thinking.

  But it isn’t all thinking. The dogs find such constant joy in these walks that through them I discover nature afresh each day. They love to chase squirrels, and course after rabbits which they seem never to catch, and dig for groundhogs, or track down moles with their radar, or leap wildly after deer. They have been invaluable to me, these dogs, because every afternoon, at about four o’clock, they come pestering me to take them out.

  They could go alone, but they need the presence of a human being to serve as a kind of checkpoint. They are like children in a swimming pool: ‘Hey, Mom! Watch! Mom, watch!’ We all require that fixed reference point, and they are mine as much as I am theirs, for I deplore walking in the country without them.

  They come tugging at my ankles as the day ends. ‘Come on, Mitch. It’s time to get down to serious work.’ I have walked with them and their predecessors about three hundred and fifty miles a year for twenty-five years, and to them, and the solitude into which they drag me, I owe much of my good health and the re-creation I find in nature.

  Power. Sometimes it is through the presence of overwhelming power that we attain an appreciation of terror and awe. The sheer power of Babe Ruth allured the baseball fan. The unmatched power of Taiho exhilarated the Japanese sumo crowd. Football fans reveled in the power of Dick Butkus. I found power in auto racing.

  On three occasions at the Pocono Raceway near my home I helped start Indianapolis-type races, and after standing with Tony Hillman twice as he intoned, ‘Gentlemen, start you-rrrrenennes!’ I became blasé. But the third time an accident in the pits behind us kept me trapped on the small starting platform, level with the track and only a few inches from it, I elected to stay there until the warm-up rounds were completed.

  The thirty-three powerful cars, their engines sputtering, their wheels twisting purposefully to roughen the rubber, jockeyed for position behind the lead car, and moved around the oval as a compact unit. Once, twice. The man with the green flag wanted them just a little better bunched, so he sent them around a third time. Perfect At the farthest turn the lead car accelerated to well over a hundred and left the track, roaring in behind me.

  Now the thirty-three monsters were alone. For a brief spell they hesitated. Then the starter waved his green flag and the moment of supreme power arrived. The cars leaped forward, accelerating explosively. All restraint gone, they rushed toward me at a speed I could barely conceive, hurtling cars, inches apart, rushing like a tornado at my little stand, roaring past at speeds of up to a hundred and forty, and all bound together in a violent power, each life dependent upon the cool judgment of the men in the other cars.

  It was the most power-filled moment I have ever known in sports, and when it passed, I was numb.

  Exquisite grace. But my most treasured experience with sports has been of a gentler kind, and I could wish no man or woman better luck than to share the fun I have had playing tennis with three zany companions.

  Our doubles foursome convened three or four times a week for a dozen years, and never once did we find the game dull or ordinary. I could go on playing for another dozen years with no fear of satiety. People have asked, ‘Doesn’t it get tiresome, playing with the same people week after week?’ And I have explained, ‘Those three are so ornery, so filled with tricks, that a lifetime of competing against them wouldn’t be monotonous.’

  Ed Swann was the Madison Avenue public relations man who coined the immortal ‘Let’s run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.’ He also launched the best good-news-bad-news joke, one with a sporting angle: ‘This Roman galley was plying the Mediterranean when the hortator stopped banging his drum to inform the slaves, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that for lunch the captain has ordered an extra ration of wine.” A feeble cheer rose from the benches. “The bad news is that after lunch he wants to water-ski again.” For some years Ed served as whipping boy for one of the cruelest of the tobacco magnates, kowtowing to the monster and saving his money until that glorious day when he was able to say, ‘Don’t call me. I’ll call you.’ He was invariably my opponent, a man without mercy, a man so filled with guile and drop shots as to break the heart of any honorable competitor.

  His partner was a remarkable woman, Sue Carnwath, who had not played tennis before the age of forty. After a few lessons she was proficient. She could run tirelessly and with astonishing bursts of speed. It was almost impossible to put a ball out of her reach, but her delight was to rush madly at the net, catch a low bouncing ball, and drive it with full force at a spot right between the eyes of whoever was playing net on the opposing team. She also had a very dirty chuckle when scoring on such a play. I played against her interminably, and she would test me again and again at the net. I would put away some of her best shots, but then she would catch me between the eyes, and her day was made. (On the few occasions when Sue and I played together, we beat everyone, but we were destined to be lifelong opponents.)

  My partner was one of the most delightful women ever to walk on a tennis court. Mary Place, wife of the cartoon animator, did not look like an athlete. Short and round, with never an orthodox shot, she deceived newcomers into believing that here was a patsy. But she had instantaneous reflexes and she could stand in one spot and with amazing dispositions of her racket get back everything hit within her orbit. She had a flick shot that drove opponents crazy, and a sneaking return of service that dumped the ball about six inches from the net. In defending her half of the court she was remorseless.

  Well, this foursome took the court weekly throughout the year. In winter we played at eighteen degrees, with snow piled high around us. We dressed in ski suits and heavy gloves until Mary Place came up with a sensational invention. She knitted what might be te
rmed ‘blizzard gloves,’ woolen tubes about a foot long, small at one end, larger at the other. Around each opening she sewed tight elastic, and the rest was simple. We slipped the small end over the handle of the racket, bringing it to rest down where the handle joins the curved rim of the racket. Into the larger opening we slipped our right hand, allowing the elastic to grip our wrist snugly.

  Now we could play with our hand in contact with the racket handle, yet protected from the wind. Just the other day I had a fine game with the thermometer at twenty, and we have played that way for the past dozen winters.

  Our games were brutal. No one of us had real put-away shots, nor screaming drives down the sidelines. But we could all place the ball, and it was not unusual for a single point to last two or three minutes before someone was able to smack the ball out of reach.

  A famous tennis expert came upon us one Sunday morning when the score was 11–12 and deuce in the critical twenty-fourth game. He saw us knocking the ball from side to side, utilizing slices and smashes and lunging recoveries. He covered his face with his hands and said, ‘This is too painful to watch.’ He was accustomed to games in which a man served a rocket, ran to the net, and put the ball away. To watch us straining for points through twenty and thirty exchanges, each more cliff-hanging than the preceding, was too enervating.

  Sometimes, in the excitement of such a game, I would catch the true meaning of tennis: the lovely, shifting figures; the poetic flight of the ball now here, now there; the unexpected drop shot, the arching lob; and always the relation of one player to the other, the figures changing, moving, falling into postures of delicate grace. And I would experience such an overwhelming sense of kinesthesia that when the play finally ended I and the others would cry, ‘What a great point!’ regardless of who had won.

  Then, at the far end of the court, from a grove of pine trees a herd of sixteen or seventeen deer would slowly appear, rather close to us and watching us as if we were irresponsible intruders into their world, and we would halt the game and watch them as they watched us, and very slowly they would come closer, the wild things that shared our country world with us, and they would feel secure, and when we resumed our game they would remain there, staring at us with their unblinking eyes, and after a long while one of us would shout at some outrageous act on our court, and the deer would flick their white tails and leap away, as beautiful in their motion as the tennis game had been in its.

  It is such experiences—the sea, the woods, the excitement of watching an honest game, the dance of life—that have kept me interested in sports. I want our country to protect, and augment, and make available such experiences to others. For it is this enlarging of the human adventure that sports are all about.

  Author’s Note

  The writing of this book was aided considerably by the research help provided by Joseph Avenick. A former sportswriter for various newspapers, he has an affection for games, a familiarity with the players, a knowledge of their records, and an acquaintance with the literature about them. He also has strong verbal preferences and insists that students never graduated; they were graduated by their schools. Working with him was both instructive and enjoyable.

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THREE MEN WHO HELPED ME UNDERSTAND AMERICAN SPORTS

  ED PISZEK,

  owner of the Philadelphia Firebirds hockey team

  JOE ROBBIE,

  managing director of the Miami Dolphins football team

  ROBIN ROBERTS,

  of baseball’s Hall of Fame

  BY JAMES A. MICHENER

  Tales of the South Pacific

  The Fires of Spring

  Return to Paradise

  The Voice of Asia

  The Bridges at Toko-Ri

  Sayonara

  The Floating World

  The Bridge at Andau

  Hawaii

  Report of the Country Chairman

  Caravans

  The Source

  Iberia

  Presidential Lottery

  The Quality of Life

  Kent State: What Happened and Why

  The Drifters

  A Michener Miscellany: 1950–1970

  Centennial

  Sports in America

  Chesapeake

  The Covenant

  Space

  Poland

  Texas

  Legacy

  Alaska

  Journey

  Caribbean

  The Eagle and the Raven

  Pilgrimage

  The Novel

  James A. Michener’s Writer’s Handbook

  Mexico

  Creatures of the Kingdom

  Recessional

  Miracle in Seville

  This Noble Land: My Vision for America

  The World Is My Home

  with A. Grove Day

  Rascals in Paradise

  with John Kings

  Six Days in Havana

  About the Author

  James A. Michener, one of the world’s most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the best-selling novels Hawaii, Texas, Chesapeake, The Covenant, and Alaska, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Centennial

  A Novel

  by James A. Michener

  Available from Dial Press Trade Paperbacks

  ONLY ANOTHER WRITER, SOMEONE WHO had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door.

  ‘New York’s trying to get you,’ he said with some excitement. ‘If I got the name right, it’s one of the editors of US.’

  ‘The magazine?’

  ‘I could be wrong. They’re holding in my office.’

  As we hurried along the corridor he said, with obvious good will, ‘This could prove quite rewarding, Lewis.’

  ‘More likely they want to verify some fact in American history.’

  ‘You mean, they’d telephone from New York?’

  ‘They pride themselves on being accurate.’ I took perverse pleasure in posing as one familiar with publishing. After all, the editors of Time had called me once. Checking on the early settlements in Virginia.

  Any sophistication I might have felt deserted me when I reached the telephone. Indeed, my hands were starting to sweat. The years had been long and fruitless, and a telephone call from editors in New York was agitating.

  ‘This Dr. Lewis Vernor?’ a no-nonsense voice asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Author of Virginia Genesis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Had to be sure. Didn’t want to embarrass either of us.’ The voice dropped slightly, as if that part of the discussion were ended. Then with crisp authority it said, ‘Dr. Vernor, I’m James Ringold, managing editor here at US. Problem is simple. Can you catch a plane from Atlanta this afternoon and report at my office tomorrow morning at nine?’ Before I could even gasp, he added, ‘We cover expenses, of course.’ Then, when I hesitated because of my surprise, he said, ‘I think we may have something that would interest you … considerably.’ I grew more confused, which gave him time to add, ‘And before you leave for the airport, will you discuss schedules with your wife and your college? We shall very probably want to preempt your time from the end of semester right through Christmas.’

  I placed my hand over the mouthpiece and made some meaningless gesture toward Dean Rivers. ‘Can I fly to New York on the late plane?’

  ‘Of course! Of course!’ he
whispered with an enthusiasm as great as mine. ‘Something big?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. Then into the phone I said, ‘What was your name again?’ When he replied, I told him, ‘I’ll be there.’

  In the next hour I called my wife, arranged for Professor Hisken to take my classes and then reported to the president’s office, where Dean Rivers had prepared the way with President Rexford by telling him that it sounded like the chance of a century for me and that he, Rivers, recommended that I be given the necessary leave.

  Rexford, a tall southern gentleman who had accomplished wonders collecting funds for a college that badly needed them, was always pleased when one of his faculty received outside attention, because in subsequent meetings with businessmen he could allude to the fact that ‘we’re becoming better known all the time, something of a national force.’ He greeted me warmly and asked, ‘What’s this I hear about US wanting to borrow our finest history man for the autumn term?’

  ‘I really know nothing about it, sir,’ I replied honestly. ‘They want to interview me tomorrow morning, and if I pass muster, they want to offer me a job from term-end to Christmas.’

  ‘When’s your next sabbatical?’

  ‘I was planning to spend next spring quarter in the Oregon libraries.’

  ‘I remember. Settlement of the northwest. Mmmmm?’

  ‘I thought that having started in Virginia and then done my study on the Great Lakes, it might be natural for me to—’

  ‘Complete the cycle? Yes. Yes. You do that and you’ll be a very valuable man to us, Vernor. A lot of foundations are going to be looking for projects dealing with the American past, and if we could offer you as a man who has done his homework, Virginia to Oregon … well, I don’t have to tell you that I could generate a lot of interest in a man like that.’