by Studs Terkel
“When I first. started playing in the Southern Association in 1960, they didn’t even allow black players. We were lily-white. Now the relationship is pretty good, but I couldn’t say there’s no racism. I had a player take me out to the field this year and say, ”Now there’s a real nigger.“ It appalled me. I felt bad afterwards that I didn’t say anything to him. I just walked away. I’m as guilty as he was.”
With some guys, winning is everything. It’s the whole ball of wax. If you don’t win, it’s a waste. I do my best, but if you judge your life on winning, you’re hurtin’. I know we play for money. These guys say, “If I don’t win, I don’t make any money.” But if I go out and play, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing I’ve done as good as I can. No matter how hard I try, I could never be a Sandy Koufax. But if I can be as good as Steve Hamilton, I feel I’ve been successful.
I might tell you things about myself I really don’t want to know. When I was in the minor leagues I used to hope guys in the big leagues would do bad, so I could get up there. I didn’t know the guys. Some days it’d bother me. I used to wonder if it was right. I used to wonder if it was sinful. It’s almost like saying, I don’t know whether I’ve got the ability, but if he fails, I’ll have a chance. I have seen guys really happy when other people do bad on their own team because it makes them look better. It’s a sign that he’s insecure. It’s a bad thing to see. I can’t say I ever rooted against a pitcher.
I see guys that come back—you watch ‘em come in the clubhouse. Nobody recognizes ’em. The fans don’t know ‘em any more. I set back and watch the front runners come and grab ahold of the guys that are doin’ good and are big stars. They want to grab ahold of their shirt tail. I’ve seen too many guys get a false sense of importance. People always saying good things about you and treating you like you’re something special. You start believing you’re something special. Now they’re out of baseball. They feel, “I was great.” But nobody remembers them. It doesn’t make any difference what your name is. I’ve seen people really have a hard time coping with it.
You find out people no longer want to be associated with you when you’re no longer in the limelight. I’ve seen these people come into the locker room at Yankee Stadium. And I’ve seen ‘em quit coming. When we went to sixth place then to last, I didn’t see ’em around at all. Last year we got back to second place. I saw them comin’ back. (Laughs.) Yeah, here they come again, the front runners.
A lot of ex-players go into insurance or as car salesmen. I’ve talked to two or three of ’em: “Yeah, because I was big, it got me in to see a lot of people.” Today things are tighter and what you were doesn’t mean that much. When I get out of baseball I feel sure I will teach and coach. This is what I want to do. I do lots of Christian work in the wintertime.
(Sighs.) Once you start getting recognized it becomes important to you. I didn’t used to feel that way. One day when we were coming off the plane, a guy asked me if I was the traveling secretary. That’s not good. (Laughs.) When I came over to the National League, nobody asked for my autograph, because I had gray hair. It started to bother me. (Laughs.) I put stuff on my hair and it went sort of medium-brown. But I don’t like it and I’m letting it grow out. I just figure it was me. I don’t feel right. My legs still hurt, my arms didn’t feel any better. (Laughs.)
Recognition, fame—I think of all the time I stood outside my house in Charlestown, Indiana, a two-tone brick, and I threw a baseball where the different colors met. I hit it over and over and over again. We caught flies where it got too dark to see, just hours and hours and hours and hours . . . that’s what most of us have done.
BLACKIE MASON
“I’m a space cadet, a space thief. I’ve always shied away from the term ‘public relations counsellor,’ the old Madison Avenue cliché. You lay back and extol the virtues of others. Some of the people you’re talking about have no talent, some are great. I got into publicity accidentally. I wanted to be a night club comedian. I didn’t go to a school of journalism. My education came from life, from the streets of the city.”
You hit the pavement, gettin’ out, pluggin’ every day. If I don’t hit a newspaper office once a day I feel I’ve missed something. I’m not a great one to sit at typewriters and do slick releases. I have to go out and see the fruit of my work—to see my client get out of the second sports page onto the front sports page. Or see my fighter work his way up. What little success I enjoy I owe to boxing.
Today there’s nothing more exciting than a world’s heavyweight championship bout. You’ve been working with one guy for six hard weeks. It’s now the night of the fight. There’s a certain drama, there’s a certain vibrancy. Suddenly a spotlight hits one end of the arena and you see the champeen coming down. Right before your eyes, everything you’ve toiled for. Millions are gonna be watching this guy. You know him better than anybody sitting out there. You’ve ate with him, you’ve slept with him, you know his inner thoughts, you know the magazines he likes to read, you know what type of food he likes. You see he and the challenger come down the aisle. That’s when you get goose pimples.
I worked in the camps with the late Rocky Marciano. It’s a very important function during the reign of a heavyweight champion. I was the buffer. There were tours of newspapermen that would come up every day. I had to be fully prepared to answer all questions. Why does Rocky put his left shoe on first? Is he superstitious? How many rounds has he boxed, total? What kind of food does he like to eat? People like Ed Sullivan call me and say they want Marciano on his show. I would be able to adjudge, to see that he cannot leave the camp on this and that day. Sullivan came up and did it right from camp. It’s a momentous job.
I worked with a sullen, belligerent Sonny Liston, who had a disdain for a newspaperman. He would cause you aggravation because you never knew what he was gonna say. I worked with Muhammad Ali. When he says, “I am the greatest,” he is among the greatest. Ali is his own press agent. When I worked in camp with him, I felt I was being paid for nothing. He did all the work. He made it easy for me. He would take over a press conference and forget about you. You would not have to sit there and coach him. He would take over and say, “Gentlemen, you have twenty minutes.” They would ask him one question and he would not stop talking until I would get up and say, “Gentlemen, that’s it for the day.”
I’m up at seven. At a quarter after eight I’m in my automobile heading for the Loop. I’m kind of morose. I’m not one of those cheerful risers that get up singing arias and operatics and tell funny jokes in the morning. I begin to feel better when I hit the fringes of Chicago. The tempo grabs me. I’m hittin’ the jungle. The Loop is my domain. I’m away for three days and I’m a lost soul. When I prowl, I’m within my realm. These are my, my, my people.
I don’t really begin to function until the afternoon. That’s when I can rip and tear. That’s when I’m strongest and the adrenaline begins to flow. I’m punching, punching. I’m calling up different media: “I’ve got a great angle for you.” This goes on all afternoon. I’m getting constant, constant phone calls, people asking for my clients for appearances. I’m beginning to feel like a theatrical agent.
Just today, the phone rings. Muhammad Ali. “Hello there, you little white devil you.” This came out of the blue. This gave me a buoyed up feeling. I suddenly felt this day was worthwhile. He took time to call me and converse with me. “Are you coming out to this fight?” So on and so forth.
I have a certain tempo. You come from your rounds at the paper. You have seven, eight messages waiting. You have lunch, come back—more messages waiting. You go across the street for a cup of coffee—there’s more messages. Some days you come in and there are no messages. Who have you offended? Who have you hurt? I can’t afford to hurt anybody. It’s part of my work. You come hat in hand. You’re like a peddler. You’re fighting. A client doesn’t want to see slick releases. He wants to see the tearsheets from the papers. You fight and you fight like mad.
You’re afr
aid of telling the particular individual what he really stands for. You want to, but you’ve got to suppress this because he holds the destiny of your future livelihood. It frustrates me. You want to have a feeling of independence.
People are always calling you up. A divorce case: “Can I get a lawyer?” “Can I keep it out of the papers?” You go and do big favors and you never see them people again. When you ask them for a favor, these people will always give you that one cliché: “If I could do it for you, I would. But, gee, I don’t know.” I don’t say they’re obligated, but it’s a hurt feeling. To have somebody say to you, “I’ll never forget you, Blackie, for what you did for me.” You see these people later and you get the feeling they’re trying to avoid you. I get the feeling they give me a cold hello.
You say to yourself, That’s the story of my life. Why can’t I be like that individual? Use a guy, then walk away. You felt like you’ve been used and totally discarded for what you have just done. I’m sensitive. It stays with me, and then I find myself becoming vindictive. I only hope this man comes to me for a favor again and I’ll hurt him bad. These situations have turned me into that kind of an individual. I came out of a tough neighborhood and a favor was the big thing. We believed in the buddy system. Too many people I’ve met are constantly using you as a stepping stone.
There’s been a change in the element in twenty-seven years, since I broke in. The people now are a different breed. They are the Madison Avenue-PR-type. The Brooks Brothers suit, attache case, and let the cookie crumble if it will and all these clichés. These three-hour lunches. Big corporations have these people knifing each other, backstabbing, jockeying for position. Oh, it’s become very commercial, cold and impersonal. It’s now: “We’ll have an eyeball to eyeball confrontation,” and they come in with structures and surveys. This leaves me very confused. It must be impressive to a board, when somebody walks in with facts and figures and so on and so forth. I can take pride without going through this phony rigamarole.
How do I feel about my work? I wouldn’t be doing anything but. I’m happiest in this field of endeavor. If somebody took me out of this and offered me twenty-five thousand dollars a year more—“You’re the manager of a men’s clothing department”—I would say no. I’d be miserable. I’d be like a caged lion, pacing. I’d growl at everybody, because the money wouldn’t be worth it. I do not want to demean the man that sells clothing, because these people are necessary too. But I could never visualize a challenge selling a man a tie for three dollars, ringing that cash register, and saying, “I accomplished something today.” Within thirty days I would be taking psychiatric treatment. I would be cornered. This would not be my cup of tea.
When a fighter walks in, or a basketball player, you say, “I’m gonna sell that guy.” You pick up the papers and you see the results of the work you put in. There’s the challenge. This work is meaningful. It gives me happiness.
I think I’m the last of the breed. I’m the last of the real hustlers. I can accomplish what I want with you in an hour. I don’t have to sit over four martinis. Nor can I deal with an account who says, “Get me a broad.” The era I came out of—the great teachers—they’re all gone now. I learned from the greatest of them all, the late Jack Kearns. He was my mentor, God rest his soul. He said to me many, many times, “Kid, you’re a throwback to the old days. But there’s one thing you haven’t got—larceny. I gotta teach it to ya.” Well, I never took a full course. That’s why I haven’t made the big score. I do the best I can. I gotta be me.
JEANNE DOUGLAS
She is a professional tennis player. She is twenty-two. She travels nine months of the year as a member of the Virginia Slims Professional Women’s Circuit. “It’s Women’s Lib, you’ve come a long way baby. Yeah. There’s been quite a discussion about a cigarette company sponsoring a sporting event. What can you say? Some of the girls smoke, some don’t. It’s just a way of promoting tennis. We’re not promoting smoking.”
When the women organized their own circuit, they were blacklisted by the United States Lawn Tennis Association. “The officials of USLTA are very well-to-do businessmen, who’ve never paid their way to Wimbledon. I always paid my way. It’s like the tournament is run for them, not the players.” The schism occurred because “women’s prize money was less than half of the men’s. For Forest Hills men were getting six thousand dollars and the women would get sixteen hundred. Billie Jean57 is Women’s Lib. She hit the roof.” It was touch and go until Philip Morris came along. “They own Virginia Slims. They couldn’t advertise on TV any more, so they put money into Virginia Slims tennis circuit.”
The circuit: Long Beach to Washington, D.C., to Miami to Richmond. “People in town come out. Married couples. The blue collar will come maybe once a week. The upper class comes every night. Tennis is spreading. But I’m getting tired of living out of a suitcase and having my clothes wrinkled. That I hate. I love playing tennis.
“I started playing when I was eleven years old. My whole family plays. We’re a huge tennis family. My uncle was like ten in the United States. My mom took it up after she was married. She got ranked twenty-fifth in southern California, which is one of the best places to play tennis. She works in a pro shop at our tennis club. She pushed me and I really resented it at first. But she made me play to the point where I was good enough to like it.”
It’s pure luck that I was born when I was born. Now there’s professional tennis. There wasn’t before. It’s a business now. Just like a dentist. You go at it training-wise, exercises, running. Match-wise, girls are now cheating. (Laughs.)
It’s not maybe really cheating. We have umpires and linesmen. The other day an umpire made a call against my opponent. It was very close. He called it “out.” I’m not gonna go against the umpire. Maybe in amateur days I would say, “Hold it. I thought that was good.” I may have said, “Play two, take it over.” I’m not gonna do that now and nobody’s gonna do it. When you were amateur, you were more open. Winning now is everything.
The first time I encountered it, I was just out of the juniors.58 It was doubles. There was no way we were gonna beat the others, they’re world class players. Okay, I hit the ball down the center. On a clay court it kicks the back line. It’s taped. You can see it shoot off. It’s the first game of the whole match and they spend five minutes looking at the mark. “It’s out! It’s out!” My partner says, “If it’s that close, let’s play two.” No. This was typical of the whole match. They were top players. It wasn’t even gonna be close. But nobody’s giving away one little inch.
Players tend to be more superficial now. Before you were more friendly. You’d write back and forth and have a good time. Now you don’t have good friends. You’re on the court and people are just having fits, losing tempers. People are now so competitive for money you just don’t want to get involved personally. You get on the court and how can you beat your best friend type of thing. Kind of a lonely life.
I want to be good, and this is the only way. But when there is money, the competition is so tough. There are like sixty-five women in the world, beating their heads against the wall every week, just playing against each other just week after week after week. It’s really a hard life and getting a little shaky. Quite a few girls have gone home. The tops are getting the glamour—Billie Jean says, “We’re the ones who bring the crowds.”
That’s why I’ve got to keep improving. I’ll never be a tennis bum. We have them among the girl players, too. Someone who’s not making it and just won’t let go. They go to tournaments . . . They’re kinda down on themselves. It’s a sad life to be not advancing. When I stop improving I’ll go into something else. Something better—like about six-foot-three. (Laughs.)
“I grew up fast, I was very awkward. I really didn’t like the game. My mom paid me twenty-five cents an hour to play. There’s five children in my family. We all play tennis. My oldest brother’s been number one for UCLA two years in a row. He’s twenty-third in the United States.
“We subscribe to World Tennis magazine. You see pictures of people in Wimbledon. I said, “I’d never see those people in my life.” I got pretty good and I started to travel. I was on the Junior Wightman Cup Team for three years. I quit school—I was gonna major in design at UCLA—and went to Australia, South Africa, France, Italy, and I played in Wimbledon. Financially it was tough. You pay your own way. You get token prize money. Then Virginia Slims came up. It’s just lucky timing.
“My mom wanted it for me because she never could play tennis. She’s been to all the teas and just felt she accomplished nothing with her life. I go to these houses and stay with these housewives and it blows my mind that all they do is plan dinner and take care of the kid. They don’t do anything, these ladies. I do want to get married and have a family, but I do want to do something.”
There’s zero social life. I get romantically involved about twice a year and wreck my tennis to death. There’s this French girl who was like number three in the world a couple of years ago. When she’s having a great love life she’s just playing fantastically.
My brother goes on the circuit too. We compare notes all the time. It’s different for men. The townies come out. It never ceases to amaze me how they can sit and watch a tennis match in ninety degrees heat with false eyelashes on, make-up, hair spray, and not one drop of sweat. The guys pick’em up. It’s harder for girls to go out on a one-night. It’s gotten to a point where I only go out with guys that I’ve met before. You can be friendly and have a good time, but you hate to be put-upon. I’m just not that kind of girl. I’m not a prude, but I’m not going to go to bed with some guy just while I’m in town.