FRANK 24: Sports

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Vans

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Oakley

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Boost

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Burton

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Schmack

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Scion

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All Day I Dream About

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Contents

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DC

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The Boxing Jew

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Staff

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Fall Classic

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Red Five

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Kid Dynamite

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Phenomenon

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Tuf Nut

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Ride

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The Big Flip Off

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Intro

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Chocolate Thunder

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An Illustrated History of

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La Isla de Beisbol

Drugs in Sports

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Letters to a Young

Sports/Sex

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Gilyard

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Where the Dodgers

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Sportswriter Kronk Style

Dined

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Still Life

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Distro League

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Early Retirement

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Versus Mode

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Instrumental

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Ghostface Killah Doll

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Charlie Hustler

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Habana Yacht Club

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Gravis

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Nice Guys Finish Last

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X-Large

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Amazin’

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Swagger

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My name is Christopher Isenberg and I love sports.

It’s not because I was ever that good at them. My greatest athletic achievement was third team all-league second baseman in high school, an honor I earned primarily because I was a good bunter.

Not being a star didn’t matter. I was always as interested in the idea of sports as actually playing.

All of my earliest attempts at self-expression concerned baseball: a miniature Yankee stadium made out of cardboard complete with lights and changeable scoreboard, a papier-mache Bucky Dent puppet, and a dressing style that

in retrospect seems like an elaborate piece of performance art.

From ages four to seven I wore a full Yankee uniform (including plastic batting helmet, stirrups and often eyeblack) almost every day. I insisted it be washed (when it absolutely had to be) at night. In every photo record from those years, including weddings and bar mitzvahs, I am fully suited.

It wasn’t just a fashion statement. It reflected a world view, a cultural consciousness shaped by sports.

I learned long division by calculating earned run averages. I learned how to read by studying the back pages of the Daily News. Wade Boggs taught me about adultery, Len Bias about cocaine, George Steinbrenner about high finance, Sam Spence about instrumentals. I learned about font, layout, and photography from Topps, Fleer, and Donruss.

In editing this issue, I have tried to bring all of this personal and cultural sporting history to the table and create my ideal magazine: a concoction of 60s Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Mad, Eros, and Batman. To make it happen I needed every ounce of help from the Frank Staff, family, old friends and new co-conspirators (led by amazing Tyson artist Mickey Duzyj).

Sports taught me about the pain of loss. When the Dodgers took the series from the Yankees in 1981, I questioned the existence of God. And after the Jets dropped the Mud Bowl in ’82, I was officially a heathen.

There’s no “I” in team, but in the immortal words of Allen Iverson, “There’s two I’s in championship.”

But as a fan, the pain of losing a game was temporary. The pain I saw in the faces of my fallen heroes — Doc, Darryl, Charlie Hustle, Iron Mike — was permanent. Shame, humiliation, addiction, depression — I was both saddened and fascinated by their torments.

Thank you Mom, Dad, and Zoe for all your love and support.

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1970 – “How fabulous are Greenies?”

Jim Bouton’s Ball Four blows the lid off big league amphetamine use and the ancient art of “beaver shooting”.

1970 - Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher Dock Ellis throws a no-hitter while tripping on LSD. Ellis recalls: “The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t.

Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.” -From Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball by Donald Hall.

1971 – MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announces a long-term Drug Education and Prevention Program.

According to the Program: “…unprescribed possession and distribution of amphetamines and barbiturates (including greenies) is a violation of federal and states laws. Discipline will be considered by the Commissioner’s Office in cases of illegal involvement. Such matters will be handled on a case by case basis.”

1976 - The 1967 NL MVP Orlando “Baby Bull” Cepeda is caught claiming baggage containing 150 pounds of

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marijuana in a San Juan, PR. Cepeda spends 10 months in a Florida prison.

He goes on to become a practicing Buddhist and to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1980 - Texas Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins is suspended by Major League Baseball after he is arrested with cocaine, and convicted of narcotics possession in Canada. The Player’s Union files a grievance and the suspension is lifted.

1981 – Former Dodger “Sweet” Lou Johnson tells the Associated Press that he sold his 1965 World Series ring to cocaine dealer for $500.

1981 - Dr. Patrick A. Mazza, a former Phillies organization doctor, is cleared of criminal charges that he improperly prescribed amphetamine pills to Tim McCarver, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose, Larry Christenson, Larry Bowa and his wife, and the wife of Greg Luzinski. Mazza has his medical license suspended for one year.

1981 - Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy by Dallas Cowboys Pro-Bowl linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson appears in the December issue of Playboy.

1983 – Henderson is arrested and charged with sexual assault and false imprisonment after he admits smoking crack with two teenagers in his apartment. He serves 28 months in prison.

1982 - When N.L. East favorite Montreal Expos finish third, team president John McHale tells the New York Times that he blames cocaine: ‘’We felt we should’ve

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won in ‘82. When we all woke up to what was going on, we found there were at least eight players on our club who were into this thing.” Rookie All-Star Tim Raines, the only user publicly identified adds, ‘’I had it in little gram bottles that I kept in my pocket…when I carried it in my pocket, I’d go in head first.’’

1982 - Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star pitcher Steve Howe leaves the team for drug treatment and is suspended by the Dodgers. Howe goes on to be suspended for drug use a MLB record seven times.

1983 - Kansas City Royals Jerry Martin, Willie Aikens, and A.L. batting champ Willie Wilson plead guilty to attempting to buy cocaine and are sentenced to three months prison. MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspends the three from baseball for one year.

1983 - Chili Davis tells the New York Times Giants coaches warned him that the FBI was watching him. “The coaches’ whisper, ‘Hey, they think you’re on cocaine. You’re not getting mad when you make outs any more.’”

1982 - 3-time Knick all-star Michael Ray Richardson is traded to Golden State amid drug rumors.

1984 - Pitcher Pascual Perez serves three months in a Dominican Republic prison after a conviction for cocaine possession.

1983 – Richardson is traded back east to the Nets. In camp, Michael Ray goes missing for three days; he then enters a drug rehabilitation program at NBA partner Hazelden Life Extension Institute.

1984 – One year after playing in the NBA All-Star game and following a stint in drug rehab, Dave “Skywalker” Thompson falls down a flight of stairs at Studio 54 disco, effectively ending his career.

1986 - Richardson fails his 3rd drug test.

He is banned from the NBA.

1985 - Curtis Strong, a Pittsburgh caterer, drug dealer, and friend to baseball players is tried on 16 counts of distributing cocaine in Pittsburgh from June 1980 to May 1984.

1987 - Richardson is denied reinstatement, he moves to Europe to play professionally for the next 13 years.

2003 - Richardson returns to the U.S. and is named Denver Nuggets Community Ambassador.

1983 - The NBA introduces the first professional sports drug policy. The policy is aimed at stopping use of cocaine and heroin. According to the policy, Players who test positive in “reasonable cause” tests are banned from the league for a minimum of two years, when they may apply for reinstatement.

Players Lonnie Smith, Keith Hernandez, Lee Lacey, Enos Cabell, Rod Scurry, Dale Berra, Dave Parker, John Milner, Jeff Leonard, Tim Raines, Al Holland, Lee Mazilli and mascot Kevin Koch, alleged to have kept cocaine in the beak of his “Pirate Parrot” costume, are listed as government witnesses and granted immunity.

Dave Parker tells the court he had made it possible for his ‘’primary supplier’’ to get into the Pirates’ clubhouse at Three Riv-

ers Stadium and to fly on the same plane with the Pirates when they traveled to other cities to deliver drugs.

Keith Hernandez tells the court: cocaine was “the devil within me.” He recalls using cocaine, including playing a game high.

Dale Berra, subject to defense attorney Adam Renfroe Jr.’s questions during cross-examination, tells of drug use as a Pirate: “Q. Where did you get them [amphetamine pills, or, “greenies”]?

A. From Bill Madlock. You could get them from Willie Stargell.

Q. So Willie Stargell gave you amphetamine pills?

A. Yes.” John Milner, in cross-examination, testifies regarding his tenure as a Met: ‘’Willie had the red juice…

Q. Willie who?

A. Mays.

Q. Willie Mays?

A. That’s right, the great one, yes.”

Lonnie Smith tells the court, “The majority of the time, I hid it on me, had these Playboy socks with pockets in them and I’d stick it in there. I had ways of folding my clothes, 10, 12 pairs of pants in a suitcase. I learned it from a Latin friend in Venezuela. People who wanted to

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check wouldn’t take the time… We Federal Expressed it back and forth, I Federal Expressed the money, he Federal Expressed the stuff. He would use a phony address for his address. I thought it was kind of creative in a way. He’d send me newspapers from Philadelphia and tape the stuff inside the papers.’’

Strong is convicted on 11 counts and sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.

1985 - John “Hot Rod” Williams is acquitted of charges that he took money to fix Tulane basketball games. There were reports that cocaine was involved but drug charges were never filed.

1985 - Cy Young Award winner Denny McLain found guilty of federal charges involving racketeering, extortion and narcotics and sentenced to 23 years before the convictions are overturned.

1996 – McClain is convicted of conspiracy, theft, money laundering, and mail fraud. He is sentenced to eight years in Federal Prison.

Class of ‘86 #2 Boston Celtics - Len Bias (Maryland) dies of cocaine induced heart attack in his University of Maryland dorm room on draft night. Bias allegedly smoked “a pure form of cocaine freebase” with teammates. The New York Times reported that one teammate said, “Hey Len, you’re hitting the pipe too hard.” #3 Golden State Warriors - Chris Washburn, (NC State) is banned from the NBA for life in 1989 after failing his third drug test. 1991 Washburn is convicted of cocaine possession and sen-

tenced to three years in prison. 1996 Washburn is shot by an acquaintance to which he allegedly owed money. #6 Phoenix Suns - William Bedford (Memphis State) is named in a 1987 indictment alleging that he either witnessed or knew of drug transactions by Sun teammates. 1988 Bedford enters rehab and returns to play in the NBA until 1993.

1999 - Strawberry is charged with possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute. Strawberry allegedly solicited an undercover officer for sex for $50. When searched, police find 0.3 grams of powder cocaine was inside of his wallet.

#7 Dallas Mavericks- Roy Tarpley (Michigan) is banned from the NBA for life in 1991 after he refuses a drug test, his third drug violation of league drug policy.

10/1994 Tarpley is reinstated. 12/1994 Less than a year after signing a six-year, $22 million contract Tarpley is banned again for drinking alcohol, violating his after-care agreement. 1997 Tarpley is arrested and charged with burning his girlfriend’s stomach with a clothes iron 1987 - Dwight “Doc” Gooden’s friend and teammate Darryl Strawberry tells the New York Times ‘’I saw on TV last night that people were saying he had a drug problem in 1985. It’s not possible. As far as having a serious drug problem now, that’s not possible, either.’’

1987 - In a voluntary drug test to “end the gossip” Mets pitcher Dwight “Doc” Gooden tests positive for cocaine and checks into rehab for 28 days.

1994 - The Dodgers announce Strawberry has a substance abuse problem and place him on the disabled list.

1996 - Gooden throws a no-hitter in a comeback with the Yankees.

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1987 - Waltergate: FBI gambling investigation leads to indictments for ten Phoenix Suns players on drug charges. James Edwards, Jay Humphreys, Grant Gondrezick, Garfield Heard, Mike Bratz, Don Buse, Curtis Perry, Walter Davis, William Bedford, and team photographer Joseph Beninato. Walter Davis, the key prosecution witness is “forced to turn on teammates.” The case is never tried and all criminal charges are eventually dismissed.

1989 - Bob Probert of the Detroit Red Wings is suspended from the NHL for life for smuggling 14.3 grams cocaine into the U.S. Probert is reinstated in 1990.

1994 – Probert, now a Chicago Blackhawk, enters an NHL rehab center in California.

Marty Marinovich, to be an NFL quarterback, is stopped by police in Newport Beach, CA. Police report finding cocaine and marijuana.

1996 - Marinovich is arrested for growing a marijuana plant in his house.

1993 - Tennis prodigy Jennifer Capriati is arrested in Coral Gables, Florida for marijuana possession. She agrees to six months of drug counseling.

2001- Capriati returns to form and wins the Australian and French Opens, earning the USTA #1 ranking.

1993 - Robert Parish, the oldest player in the NBA is arrested when police find marijuana in his home and in a FedEx package addressed to him. Parish and Alaa Abdelnaby are rumored to be called “Chief and Chong” by teammates.

1993 - Cincinnati Reds pitcher Tom Browning is arrested for possession of marijuana.

1995 - Former Houston Rocket Vernon “Mad Max” Maxwell is found with marijuana when he is stopped for running a red light.

1991 - Phoenix Sun Richard Dumas tests positive for cocaine and suspended by the team.

1995 – Dumas is banned from the NBA for violating an aftercare agreement prohibiting alcohol.

1997 – Dumas tells the New York Times “If they tested for pot, there would be no league” 1991 - USC star Todd Marinovich, groomed by his father, former Raider lineman

1996 - Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin is arrested with former Cowboy tight end Alfredo Roberts in a motel room with cocaine, marijuana, and two topless dancers. Irvin is charged with felony cocaine possession.

Prosecution witness Rochelle Smith described drug use and group sex with Irvin. Dallas police officer and Smith boyfriend Johnnie Hernandez is arrested when he attempts to hire an

undercover police officer to kill Irvin. The NFL suspends Irvin for five games.

1996 - Portland police see Trailblazer Isaiah Rider smoke marijuana from a soda can and arrest him on possession charges.

1998 – The NBA’s career leading scorer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, is caught carrying marijuana in a Toronto airport.

Canadian customs officers fine him.

2000 - Abdul-Jabbar is arrested in Los Angeles for driving under the influence of marijuana.

1998 - Lawrence Taylor is arrested twice in one year. Charged with buying crack in Florida, and possessing drugs in New Jersey.

2003 - In his autobiography, LT: Over the Edge, Taylor admits he smoked crack cocaine before games.

2000 - Kevin Stevens of the New York Rangers is arrested for possession of crack cocaine and is admitted to the NHL’s treatment program.

2001 - Former Dallas Cowboys and 6 time Pro-Bowler Nate Newton is arrested in Louisiana when police find him driving a van containing 213 pounds of marijuana.

2001 - Out on bail, Newton is arrested when police find him driving a van containing 175 pounds of marijuana.

2003 - Newton is sentenced to five years in federal prison.

2001 - Boxer Pernell Whitaker, a former champion in four divisions, is ar-

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rested on drug charges in Virginia Beach when police find cocaine among the boxer’s belongings when he is sentenced to four days in jail after pleading guilty to speeding and driving without a valid license.

2001 – Portland Trailblazer Shawn Kemp checks himself into a drug rehabilitation program for cocaine abuse.

2002 – Trailblazer Damon Stoudamire is charged with felony possession of more than 150 grams of marijuana after police respond to a burglar alarm at Stoudamire’s house. Search later ruled illegal.

2002 – Trailblazers Stoudamire and Rasheed Wallace found with marijuana during a traffic stop.

2003 – Stoudamire sets off an airport metal detector carrying more than an ounce of marijuana wrapped in aluminum foil.

2004 - Former MVP and admitted steroid user, alcoholic, and abuser of painkillers Ken Caminiti dies in the Bronx, as a result of what the New York City Medical Examiner calls “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of cocaine and opiates.”

2005 - MLB officially bans the use of amphetamines.

2006 - Former Philly third baseman and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt’s, Clearing the Bases, is published. Schmidt writes that amphetamines “have been around the game forever.” illustrations James Blagden words Nick Strini & Chris Isenberg

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words Chris Isenberg & Bud Schmeling photos Mathew Modine vintage images courtesy of Bamonte’s

Since 1900, both working class locals and well-heeled epicures have been frequenting Bamonte’s, an iconic Italian bar and restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days celebrity diners include Jack Nicholson and Mike Piazza, but in the 40s and 50s Dem Bums were the ones turning heads in the joint.

Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, or Duke Snider might stop by to celebrate a big victory with clams casino or get over a tough loss with the famous veal scaloppini. The Brooklyn Sym-Phony Orchestra, five Dodger fanatics who provided a hand-made soundtrack for every game at Ebbets Field, were such regulars Bamonte’s was their unofficial clubhouse.

Lovingly watched over by the ghosts of the boys of summer, Bamonte’s continues to thrive today. Proprietor Anthony Bamonte and his childhood friend and daytime bartender Johnny Pizariello recently took a moment to reminisce about the good old days.

AB: Well you had quite a few Yankees fans too. You were either a Dodger fan, a Yank fan, or a Giant fan. But these guys, if you threw a dime down they would fight you for it. Right Johnny?

Going back to those days those guys were die-hard fans.

F151: So you would have both factions in here rooting?

AB: Most of the fellas here used to be Dodgers fans.

FRANK151: The trolley used to run from Ebbets Field to here?

Anthony Bamonte: It used pass on Lorimer Street.

Johnny Pizzariello: You know that was one of the ways, supposedly, that the Dodgers got their name, people dodging to get out of the way of the trolley. Nobody knows for sure.

F151: How many stops to Ebbets Field from here?

AB: I don’t know exactly, 20 minutes, half-hour?

JP: Yeah, the bus on the corner now goes to where Ebbets Field used to be. It’s the same route.

AB: It wasn’t like today, see. The ballplayers were regular guys from what I remember. They had a job plus they played baseball. It wasn’t like today. I mean a lot of these baseball players today are regular also. But in those days it was a working class job. Those fellas couldn’t put two dimes together right, right John?

F151: This neighborhood was mostly Dodgers fans?

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F151: Did you get to go to any of the World Series games?

AB: No, just regular season. I didn’t go that often. Little Joe-Joe, the midget [who at 92 is the last surviving member of the Brooklyn Sym-Phony], he used to give me one cymbal and he’d hold the other and say, “That’s my partner.

He’s coming in with me.”

The Sym-Phony. They would play things like “Three Blind Mice” to get on the umpires. When they first started, it was just like a nothing thing, really. Who knew it was gonna be like it is today?

They just donated the drum to the Hall of Fame [Cooperstown].

F151: So when Jackie Robinson came up you were seven, do you remember people talking about him at that time in the neighborhood?

AB: One thing I do remember is one time he had to go on the field and there was a threat on his life. Someone was going to shoot him. He went out there anyway. He was a brave man.

F151: How did the neighborhood feel about him breaking the color line? Was the opinion mixed?

AB: I don’t really remember that.

JP: New York wasn’t bad at all. He had trouble in other cities, like St. Louis.

New York had a lot of blacks at that time. There was no racial things in New York in the 40s and 50s. That all started in the 60s.

F151: Can you tell me a little about ’55 when the Brooklyn Dodgers won it and how the neighborhood and people in here reacted?

AB: When the team won, at night they would go around in cars and trucks and they would have horns or anything that would make noise. They would hang a dummy that would say Yankees or whoever off of a pole on the truck.

They would go through the neighborhood of the Yank fans and they would “give ‘em the business”. Remember the time they used to go around with the dummy on the truck Johnny?

JP: Yeah, they hung the dummies on the lamp posts too.

AB: You don’t see none of that today.

F151: In ’55 did they go nuts in here?

AB: Yeah it was like a big thing for people, from what I could remember.

John, what do you remember from on the Northside in ’55?

JP: The tickertape parade on Broadway and in the neighborhoods. It had nothing to do with the city. The people themselves had their own parade.

AB: It was a different era, different type of people, different attitudes. You know what it was in those days? You had that loyalty. Today, I don’t really think there’s loyalty, not compared to what it was in those days.

F151: Who were you closest to out of the ballplayers that came in over the years?

AB: Tommy LaSorda, and then I became friendly with Joe DiMaggio at that time. Joe came here for like seven years.

F151: Can you tell us about DiMaggio?

AB: Joe was a good guy, to me anyways. At the beginning, see, Joe is the kind of guy who waits to see the person you are. Once he sees what kind of person you are, he either likes you or he doesn’t. Anytime he used to come to New York, he used to come here.

Joe was a good person. We used to reminisce about the good times.

F151: What did DiMaggio like to eat?

AB: Tomatoes, pasta, ravioli, he used to like the sausages and the peppers.

He loved tomatoes. It’s a funny thing he loved tomatoes, and Tommy LaSorda loved tomatoes. I used to get these tomatoes and he used to say, “Anthony where do you get these tomatoes?” And I would tell him Florida,

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and he would say, “No way, you get these in Florida? No way, I come from Florida and they don’t…” And I used to tease him and say, “Well Joe that’s because they are all up here.” I had to go downstairs one day and I showed him the box. “Joe here’s the box.” Joe would say, “How come they don’t have them in Florida?” I would tell him, “Don’t ask me, ask them in Florida. What am I gonna do, lie to you?”

F151: Do you watch baseball anymore?

Do you go to any games?

AB: No, I don’t follow it too much.

F151: How come you aren’t interested anymore?

AB: I was never what you call a real fan, I mean I watched it, but not like Johnny.

JP: When they were playing baseball then there was nothing else. Today, with television there’s a hundred things going on, too many things. Baseball that was it, nothing else was going on.

AB: That’s true.

JP: Football wasn’t big, basketball wasn’t big. Nothing!

AB: That’s why baseball was the American sport, it was like stickball.

You played stickball on the street.

F151: When did they first start talking about the Dodgers leaving?

JP: That was 1957. They hated O’Malley, they made dummies of him and they burned them.

AB: We had a flag pole in the yard and the Hall of Fame sent me a letter, they wanted the flag pole. Someone told them that the flag pole came from Ebbets Field, I could have told them it came from Ebbets Field. They wouldn’t know the difference. Someone made them understand that it was from

Carl Furillo (about to pitch the ball), Joe-Joe the Midget (L of Furillo), and the rest of the fellas playing Bocci Balls in Bamonte’s yard, circa 1941. “They would play for 10 Cents beers. Whoever lost would pay the round.” -Anthony Bamonte Ebbets Field. As far as I know it came from the American Legion Post, if it was from Ebbets Field, it was news to me.

F151: What did the Dodgers SymPhony guys do when they took the Dodgers away?

AB: After they left that was it. Those guys still came in. They were regular guys, nothing special, like me. They were regular working people. They did this as a pleasure, out of loyalty to the Dodgers.

F151: How upset were they when the Dodgers left?

AB: They were all upset.

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JP: Everyone was upset.

F151: What do you think it did to Brooklyn and the neighborhood when they left?

AB: It took the sport out of it, you feel like you didn’t have a team to root for.

JP: The expression was, when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California that’s when baseball stopped becoming a sport and it became a business.

AB: It’s all big business today. Look at football, the same way, when the hell did you ever see football being played on turf? Football was always played on dirt from what I could remember, same thing with baseball.

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words Michael Ramadan Jones When my personall video game whipping boy Isenberg asked me to moderate a history of sports video games, my hands got cold. My hands get cold when I play, ice cold. Colder than using Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. It was destiny; I never asked to be a legend.

Yet sometimes greatness is thrust upon those who least expect it. Yes, I’m talking about sports video games, so if you’ve never considered the geopolitical implications of Punch-Out, please put down this book and resume being the sucker-ass punk that you are. In this day and age, men use video games to separate out the weak, to show one’s own

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greatness, and to get the bitches. Ladies, if your boyfriend can’t win with the Houston Rockets in NBA Live 95, dump that fool!!! Trust me, you can really tell a lot about a person from how they play a sports video game. Plutarch once said, “Put a joystick in a man’s hands and his truest essence will shine through.” I can’t say that there was any one secret to my overwhelming dominance; it was more of a philosophical inclination towards the realness. Don’t steal third base with Steve Balboni (or Ken Phelps). Don’t throw a Hail Mary on every play to Rod Woodson.

Don’t put Rony Seikaly at point guard.

Simply put, man up and play.

His name was Terry, and he was my master. He would go to the arcade with 2 quarters, one for Punch-Out, one for Double Dribble. He never lost. He also liked Church’s Chicken. He also used to utterly annihilate me. Double Dribble was our battleground, and he showed me first hand the pain that one day I would inflict on others. He would win by obscene margins, taking advantage of my innocence by using the hotspot (shooting a baseline three as you jumped out of bounds) and stealing the ball every time without informing me that there was a steal button. Morals aside, I got my mulatto ass beat down. No matter if he was NY, CHI, or LA, I was AO (assed-out).

Graphically, this game had ill cutaways to in-yo-face dunks that would make Larry Nance proud. I’ve also never seen so many white people dunking in my life…

Konami must be on some Aryan shit.

Achilles vs. Hector, Rome vs. Carthage, Bo Jackson vs. LT. This game allowed you to momentarily enter the realm of the Gods. In video game terms, the epic clash between two players with 99 ratings. I didn’t have too many friends willing to get served up at this point of my development, so I played dolo while listening to Stezo’s first album. For some reason I remember using Warren Moon to bust dat ass (the CPU’s ass of course) on many an occasion. Some neophytes say that Madden was a better game, but did it have Dexter Manley at the height of his illiteracy? No. Plus, can you beat the sensation of running off-tackle with Walter Payton, evading Carl Banks, and wiggling your d-pad to shake off the last

defender before you enter the Tecmo emblazoned end zone? Claro que no!

A racist’s delight, but the genesis of it all....this was EA Sports’ first use of black/white race baiting... ironic since

the game’s graphics were in that weird shade of green famous on the Apple 2 ... 20 years before Eminem, it allowed white kids to pretend they had some soul. Plus, given the black community’s hatred of Larry Bird, it also gave to us a chance to take whitey to the proverbial hoop. No self-respecting black man would ever accept having to play as LB. I don’t remember if LB could throw down in the game, but Dr. J definitely had a weak-ass jumper. As if that weren’t enough, when you managed to shatter the backboard, the game paused while a janitor (race unknown, but surely an immigrant of some sort) swept the floor... just like the real thing.

The modern era of my greatness started with this bad boy. The key was that EA finally got the running game right. When EA changed the axis on the court, they unleashed the monster. The formula: Rodney Rodgers from the baseline for 3, Abdul-Rauf from the top of the key, LaPhonso Ellis on the break, and Mt. Mutombo on the boards. Understand, my Nuggets from Denver were a running lot; a perfectly oiled, balanced, unselfish unit that I still consider it an honor to have coached. We never ignored the fundamentals, even when other players

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brought in a rougher style of play that changed the league. Not to be sentimental, but my connection to this team goes deeper than the Golden Joystick that we won in ’95. I chose this squad due to the fact that my college girlfriend was from Denver and they happened to have upset the Sonics that year. A little known fact is that Dikembe Mutombo signed my mortarboard at my graduation, ordaining my triumph, seriously.

Seen through the prism of American imperialism, Punch-Out is a geo-political masterpiece expressed through two buttons and a d-pad. First of all, Little Mac is a metaphor for American foreign policy and history. With the help of his trusty slave/sidekick/cornerman, he proceeds to beat up on the Germans (Von Kaiser), the Russians (Soda Popinski), the French (Glass Joe), Indians (Great Tiger), and whatever country King Hippo is from [ed. note: Hippo Island, S. Pacific]. All the while, Little Mac is an innocent underdog whitey (he had to jump to reach his opponents with his punches!!!) with no desire other than to ascend in the rankings. How convenient....What’s next? Will the U.S. be referring Bald Bull and Mr. Sandman to the UN Security Council?

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For those of you with no knowledge of history or history of knowledge, the single wish of every male child in the 1980s was to have the actual names of the real players in their games. We had to settle for made up teams and players with last names taken from the corny ass people at Jaleco or Epyx. But in Bases Loaded, it didn’t matter that Norkus was the last name of the programmer’s drycleaner, the game-play was all that mattered.

Firstly, you could play a whole season.

Secondly, about 20 players had about 70 homeruns (who doesn’t remember the famous summer of 88, when Bay and Prokop had us all marveling at their sheer power). Thirdly, it allowed you to dive, jump, and make errors (my friend Lee S. lost a lot of games due to his ham-fisted fielding). And fourthly, it had a black side-armer with grey hair (on Washington, I think) that would always send some chin music my direction.

In terms of sheer dominance, this game was my apex. My control of the Vancouver Canucks was the talk of the league.

When my checking line took the ice, watch your nuggets!! It got to the point

that I started to use scrub teams just to keep the matches with my friends interesting. The game had an unstoppable move in it, but the fact that you could drop the gloves and bash in your opponents grill made up for it. In fact, the speed and concentration needed to play this classic lead to several reallife confrontations over the use of the pause button, in some cases leaving friendships ruined. I take a certain pride in being one of the six black men who know who Geoff Courtnall is.

As a latchkey kid, at no time in my life would I consider myself an expert at the Triple Lutz or Alpine skiing, but this game made it close. You see, these games for the old Apple IIe taught my black ass all about biathlon, bobsled, ski jump, and luge. Not that I ever get a chance to bring up speed skating at the local herb spot. They used to let you choose between a lot of countries (I was always the USSR, for obvious reasons) and they had the real anthems. I still remember the deep seeded pride I felt when I got my first perfect score in the Hot Dog competition, or the rush that crept up my spine when I achieved that perfect joystick rhythm needed for cross country skiing. Classically corny.

If you know this one, welcome to my world you nerdy motherfucker!!! The count was always 3-2, the plays took up to a fortnight to happen, it only had two sound FXs, and if you couldn’t read at grade level, you were dead. Let’s start from the beginning. There was only one screen in the game, you played by choosing between 1 and 9 on the keyboard (4 was Hit and Run, 7 was intentional bunt) and the ball moved slower than Willie Stargell after a rack of ribs. The lack of actual joystick warfare forced us to confine our shit-talking to phrases like, “Yo money, you press 6 like a bitch!” or “Son, even if you peek at my button selection, you still ain’t shit!” So why was it la bombazo?

First of all, it had all the classic teams, the ’27 Yankees, ’55 Dodgers (my squad), ’75 Reds, and about forty others. It had all their stats and kept new stats (which was unheard of in those days). I am sure my mental toughness was enhanced by facing the ’73 Athletics. Aside from all that, it introduced you to sports history and useful stats like what my leadoff hitter’s OBP against LHP is after the 7th inning on the road. Tell me, how is a kid today going to know who the fuck Chris Chambliss is?

Luckily, I had this gem of a game to teach me how to be a true sports nerd.

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When I first saw this one I was in a state of shock. The sheer idea that I could combine my joystick wizardry with the Showtime Lakers was up to this point just a wet dream. It was my freshman year of college when one fateful night I heard a rumor that another kid in the dorm had Sega. I was promptly confronted by my next obsession.

We immediately bought a Sega solely for the privilege to play this legend (a phenomena later re-experienced with Golden Eye for N64). Not only did they have my beloved pre-HIV Lakers in the game, but nine other squads with complete rosters!!! Suddenly the possibilities were endless, I could temporarily inhabit the body of my favorite whitey Bill Laimbeer, but I could also take a charge with Vlade Divac. The game itself was mega slow; and once you learned the “tip-in”, it got a little repetitive. I believe I used the Pistons to inflict optimal damage on an array of nerdy Midwesterners. Lakers vs. Celtics also cemented my beloved roommate’s second tier gamer status for the next four years.

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Cuba. Cuba. Cuba. Can you say the word without dreaming your dream? Does it involve a linen suit on your back, a fat Cohiba dangling from your lower lip and a tall caramel beauty with the tightest ass of all tight asses in your bed. Or maybe you would just like to spend some time with people who truly understand how sick America has become, who know that the key to happiness is not fresh breath, a new model SUV, and a house in the Hamptons. People who have long realized that there must be sharing and taking care of each other, because we are all, each one of us, worthy. words Chris Isenberg

photos CB Smith

But for all that wild longing, nobody comes back from Cuba very satisfied, no matter how many friends they tell they had the time of their lives. Hepcat New Yorkers bump into to someone they know, confirming their suspicion that they have arrived a year too late. Gueveraphiliac backpackers find the image of their prophet for sale on refrigerator magnets and shot glasses at the airport.

Italians get herpes. Middle-aged Germans discover that the girl they thought liked them for their thick moustache and quaint pronunciation of Spanish was just playing the long con. I have been there six times now, and each trip has produced a new and unique disaster.

I have been detained in a hotel broom closet and interrogated on suspicion of being a baseball agent, sold stale cigars, had my head kicked in by unaccountably angry locals in Matanzas, and contracted hepatitis A after being dared by small children to swim in the murky waters off the Malecon.

I have never fallen in love, I still can’t salsa or understand half of what anyone says, and I have loaned out sizable sums of money I am unlikely to see again.

Still I keep going back.

Maybe because I have also swilled Havana Club and swapped dirty jokes with three time Gold Medal Heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson, dipped in the pool at Meyer Lansky’s old Riviera, wilded out in the nightclubs of the Isle of Pines with Jose Contreras’ former teammates, and

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copped an ebony and ivory chess set on the cheap at a secret antique house in Vedado.

When I was growing up here, New York used to be full of powerful revelations too. But these days - both because I know it better and because it’s changed so much - the city has less secret places and people. And with Time Out, the Village Voice, and a thousand online auteurs fighting to be the first to expose every inch of novelty, good things don’t stay secret very long.

Places in Havana get spoiled too, and you only have to have visited Hemingway’s Floridita and drunk overpriced daquiris with tourists from Kansas City once to understand how bad it will soon get.

Poolside at the Havana Yacht Club: Champagne socialists better not dive off the shallow end.

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A high school dance troupe uses the the Yacht Club’s hall as a rehearsal space.

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But without the media machines, with Fidel’s stubborn foot on the breaks, periodic blackouts and jinetera crackdowns, no advertising and no money for renovations - it’s easier to find places with ghosts, and you don’t have to be as careful about who you tell about them.

A year ago, led by Flaco the Fixer, my friend Carter and I discovered the old beach and pool clubs of Marianao La Concha, Nautico, and the Havana Yacht Club. It wasn’t really that they were so well-hidden. You could see their dilapidated spires and towers easily enough from the main road along the Malecon. It was just that they were untrafficked-”cerrado para restauración” or allegedly off-limits for foreigners.

La Concha was in the worst shape - literally crumbling, but we slipped a couple of dollars to the door guard and went right inside.

Fifties modern Nautico was harder to get to. It’s in better condition than the others and in current use for athletes,

partidos, and other Cuban poobahs.

They wouldn’t take our money there.

They let us in because we said we were working on a college thesis, and I think because they were proud of how nice the place still looked.

Because there were a few layers of guards entry to the Havana Yacht Club ended up costing five dollars and a t-shirt, but it was my favorite of all - like the ghost-town cousin of The Breakers in Palm Beach. You could almost still hear the sun–tanned daughters of sugar tycoons giggling by the pool, taste the fresh mint in the mojitos that the bartenders must have churned out by the pitcher, and see the high masts, white sails, and hulls of the most gaudy and elegant sailboats from around the world anchored in its in natural harbor.

One day when Fidel is gone, and the money comes flooding in to Cuba, the HYC will be restored and regain its status as the playground of plutocrats. But it will lose something. It is a place more beautiful in its dereliction than it ever was in its splendor.

“Nice Guys� by Chris Isenberg. From Fall Classic: Remembrances and Ruminations on the

Precipitous Declines of Our Sporting Heroes. Chromogenic Print on Archival Paper.

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JOHN

Amazin’

LINDSAY Mayor

words Steven Isenberg

“ ... Tell Lindsay and the rest of the Mets fans to go fuck themselves.”

In 1969, during batting practice at Shea Stadium, Gil Hodges, the manager of the New York Mets, once a Brooklyn Dodger, walked over to Leo Durocher, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, formerly a New York Giant, and said “Leo, I was just talking to Mayor Lindsay on the phone and he said to tell you Chicago is still the second city.” Leo answered “Tell Lindsay and the rest of the Mets fans to go fuck themselves.”

The Miracle Mets of 1969 helped save the reelection of New York Mayor John V. Lindsay. In 1973, he returned the favor to baseball and the City when he began the renovation of Yankee Stadium, thus keeping the Yankees in New York.

To all of this there is a back story of which I was part as a young mayoral staffer in City Hall.

In the mid summer of 1969, the Mets were lagging behind the first place Cubs and the mayor was running behind in

the polls. One night while we were campaigning in Brooklyn, I was listening to the radio. Tom Seaver had a no-hitter going. I suggested to the Mayor we go to the stadium; I had a feeling. Scheduled events stood in the way. The next day at a meeting, the mayor said he had seen on television that Seaver had lost his no-hitter, but that he admired how he and his wife, Nancy had handled it.

With sudden inspiration, I said why don’t you call Gil Hodges and wish the Mets luck. You can say you know what it is to have to come from behind (Lindsay had just lost the Republican primary and was running as a Liberal and Independent).

And ask him to tell Leo Durocher that Chicago is still the Second City. Lindsay had to be assured this was okay to do.

I said it was only late morning, the game hadn’t started.

I only heard his side of the conversation. Hodges left the phone for a minute and Lindsay wound up talking to Seaver. Then Lindsay roared with laughter.

After he put the phone down, he told me what Durocher had said. I briefed the press corps and phoned a friend at WOR radio. Hodges was ahead of us in telling the press at the stadium. The New York Post, then an afternoon paper, headlined with a cleaned up version of Leo’s riposte.

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Barbara, Steven, and Christopher Isenberg with Mayor Lindsay on his last day in office, December 31, 1973.

What a gift he gave us. Shea is in Queens, a borough critical to the election and one that was sore at Lindsay over a lousy job of snow removal the previous winter. Leo put Lindsay and Mets fans together.

The whole thing took on a life of its own with telegrams to Mayor Daley of Chicago, tabloids in both towns playing it up and Lindsay predicting later in the summer that the Mets would take the pennant. He was right. From 91/2 down in August, the Mets came all the way back to win.

with your prediction. Four straight.”

And so it was. After the last game of the Series, Lindsay went into the clubhouse and had champagne poured over his head. The picture was everywhere the next day. He went up three points in the Queens polls. In the victory parade up Broadway to City Hall, Lindsay rode in the open limo next to Hodges. at Gil’s invitation. That way, Hodges said, “you are boo proof.”

They were in every photo and TV shot together. Lindsay won reelection weeks later.

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We were together at the first game of the World Series in Baltimore where I had advised him not to accept an invitation to sit with Vice President Agnew (a former Governor of Maryland) and David Eisenhower, President Nixon’s son-in-law, but to sit on the Mets side with their owners. He called me over to him in the seventh inning, “It looks like the Mets will lose this one. When I left New York, I predicted the Mets would win in four straight. What should I do?” I said, “There is only one thing to do. Hold up four fingers and say you are sticking

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In 1972, Lindsay called me at home one night and said, what would you say if I told you that CBS is considering moving the Yankees to New Jersey. I told him if that happened every newspaper would say the Bronx was dead and compare it to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. The Mayor responded, “I thought that’s what you’d say.” And so began our last baseball adventure, a deal to rehabilitate Yankee Stadium that kept the team in New York. Enter George Steinbrenner, and a new era began.

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photographer Ellen Stagg stylist Shannon Sauceda make up Katie Wedlund hair Michelle Syder at Bumble and Bumble illustrator Jonathan Cammisa words Chris Isenberg models Amy Decker with Next Chapman with Case Dominque with Elite Annie with SVM Susanne with Code Chrissy Top by Adidas, wristband American Apparel Chrissy’s butt tennis skirt by Fila Tiva, shirt by Adidas, undies by American Apparel Martina top by Fila, skirt by Adidas, undies by American Apparel, headband by Pony Chrissy top and skirt by Adidas, wristband American Apparel Martina top by Fila, headband by Pony Chrissy top by Adidas, wristband American Apparel Martina top and skirt by Fila, shoes by Adidas, headband by American Apparel Florence top and pant by Speedo, undies from Urban Outfitters, shoes by Nike Nancy sweater and vest by Fila, skirt by Adidas, shoes by Puma, white top and undies American Apparel, socks Urban Outfitters Leslie top by Puma, skirt from Screaming Mimi’s, shoes by Puma, socks and undies American Apparel Katerina sequin jacket and bottoms from Screaming Mimi’s,

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THE BOXING JEW words Jamie Fraser images coutesy of pugilistica.com

Daniel Mendoza Daniel Mendoza is, without a doubt, if not the greatest, certainly one of the most remarkable British boxers there has ever been. Born in 1764, over a century before the Marquess of Queensberry drew up the first set of rules (including the use of gloves), he was the first Jewish prize-fighter to become a champion and he lived in a house just a short walk from York Hall, the great East End boxing institution.

Often credited with being the father of the sweet science, Daniel Mendoza was the first prize-fighter to rely on footwork, jabs, and defense, rather than the slugging blows that epitomized

the brutal world of the prize-fighter of the late Eighteenth century. He stood only 5’7” and weighed 160 pounds (he would have been a middleweight by today’s standards) but he used his speed and agility to triumph over taller and heavier opponents. Pierce Egan, the boxing historian, described him in Boxiana as “a complete artist” and “a star of the first brilliance”. Although criticized by some at the time for being cowardly, his development of concepts such as the guard, the straight left, and sidestepping tactics (some kind of crazy idea - why not meet your advancing bare-fisted opponent chinon?), led to him becoming a hugely

popular fighter who even counted royalty amongst his admirers.

Of Spanish descent, Mendoza was always proud of his heritage and billed himself as “Mendoza the Jew”. The plaque outside his house in Bethnal Green reads, “Daniel Mendoza, the Boxing Jew of East London”. At the start of his boxing career, he was employed in the service of a Jewish family and, in his memoirs, he comments on how the anti-Semitic feeling of the time often gave him an excuse to train on the streets of East London; “I was here frequently drawn into contests with butchers and others in the neighborhood who, on account of my mistress being of the Jewish religion, were frequently disposed to insult her”.

Mendoza’s first recorded victory, a 40-round epic, against Harry the Coalheaver, ended in a knockout. From there, Mendoza went on to gain the patronage of the Prince of Wales (who became King George IV) following his dispatch of Sam Martin, the “Bath Butcher”, in 1787. During this time, Mendoza was trained by Richard Humphries, then one of the most eminent boxers in England. As his protégé became more successful, Humphries turned against him and the two quarreled. A series of fights followed in the years beginning in 1788, when the two fought for almost an hour before Mendoza threw in the towel following a leg injury. Large amounts of money had been bet on Mendoza, his supporters in the crowd were disappointed and there were allegations that he had thrown the fight.

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In the rematch the following year, there were no such rumors as Mendoza beat Humphries in 52 minutes - he beat Humphries again in 1790, in the first bout at which spectators were charged an entry fee (the fight is also notable for being hyped in the press by a series of combative letters between Mendoza and Humphries). Mendoza laid claim to the title of heavyweight champion of England when the prevailing champion Benjamin Brain retired.

This claim, however, was contested by another top English boxer, Bill Warr, and the two met in May 1792 to fight for the title. After 23 rounds, Mendoza was victorious. The two met again in November 1794, and this time, Warr was dispatched in 15 minutes.

Mendoza eventually lost his English title to a man 4” taller than him and 40 pounds heavier who won in nine rounds using the novel approach of holding Mendoza by the hair with one hand while punching him in the face with the other. The name of this great fighter? John “Gentleman” Jackson.

Despite having earned a fortune during his career, Mendoza also managed to spend his income in an extravagant fashion (sound familiar?) - by the time he died in 1836, Mendoza had fought a number of ill-advised come-back fights (for financial reasons), opened a boxing academy, owned a pub in the East End, wrote his memoirs and even appeared in a pantomime, “Robinson Crusoe (or Friday Turned Boxer)”. He died with enormous debts but left a great legacy for boxing to follow and develop.

BILLY RIPKEN ENTERPRISES PRESENTS

ISENBERG RICKSTER PERSONAL COLLECTION

TWO UNASHAMED COLLECTORS DUKE IT OUT FOR SPORTS CARD SUPREMACY. WHO WILL BE THE CARDBOARD KING AND WHO WILL WEAR THE BROWN CROWN?

Chris Isenberg He is in desperate need of Felix Unger. Crusty underwear on top of extremely valuable sports artifacts. But when it came down to cards, all of his pieces were stored nicely, in special binders, and he curated his collection as objects of art. His choices were impeccable. I have to admit that his collection was much wider than mine — football, basketball, even some hockey. Since Barry Halper just died, Ricky might be the reigning memorabilia king.

Ricky Powell Listen, how much am I getting paid for this? Yo, his shit was like way after the prime, he should’ve got a late pass. No I’m just kidding. Chris Isenberg, the kid, he’s got some shit, I was quite impressed with his knowledge of the era preceding his birth. He had a good in with his pops, the Mayor Lindsay days, that’s pretty cool. I asked him if he knew the only Yankee who played with Mickey Mantle and Don Mattingly.

Without pause he looked right at me and said Bobby Murcer. I was like what! This kid gets certification from the Rickford Institute of Sports Memorabilia, in Oscar Madison mode.

Chris Isenberg: I like the rosy sky on the Nike poster promo card. It makes you remember that this grizzled guy in the mug shots now was once this beautiful young kid.

Ricky Powell: Thurman Oh My God! Whoever got the Thurman Munson bat on “Bat Day”, was winning! Circa ‘70, ‘73… I always got Roy White or Celerino Sanchez.

Chris Isenberg: I only have baseball, so I had to get nerdy to compete. I bought these Islamic baseball stamps at a convention. I wonder if Iraq will ever issue a Barry Bonds stamp.

Ricky Powell: Oh, oh, oh, oh! The Sugar Daddy joints. These were miniature size from the early to mid 70s‌ I also got Norm Van Brocklin.

Chris Isenberg: This is the Holy Grail. Bronx Zoo meets Miami Vice. One day I want to meet the guy who did layout for Donruss and give him an award. I was such a sucker in ’84, I actually rooted for Mr. May to win it. Later I turned against him after the seagull incident.

Ricky Powell: Oh time to get zooted! It’s my psychedelic 3-D glasses Pistol Pete Maravich card from ‘71-’72. I think this is one of those “irregulars”. Pistol Pete was eons ahead of contemporary basketball. He turned down a milliondollar contract with the Globetrotters in ‘69... imagine what the world would have been like had he done that.

Chris Isenberg: To know the truth about steroids all you have to do is look at your card collection. Look how skinny Bonds, McGwire, and Canseco are.

It’s amazing! I almost had to send my collection to Jim Bunning to introduce as exhibit A during the Congressional Hearings.

Ricky Powell: This page… this page is a concoction of Funkular Crewtons. I really looked up to these players as a young lad. I think drawing a moustache and sideburns on Jerry West’s all-star card says something about me, but what I don’t know.

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words Dave Larzelere illustrations Soner On Maybe the reason that there are so few black superheroes is that there was this one brother who was so bad and so funky and so generally large and in charge that there’s just no need for all the low-rent Daredevils and Green Lanterns that populate the whitebread superhero market.

His name was Chocolate Thunder, and he hailed from the Planet Lovetron. He had most of the traditional super powers, but he also had this whole off the hook funkosity quotient that made a superhero like Batman for instance, seem like a borderline pansy. Chocolate Thunder was the Chairman of Interplanetary Funkmanship, and yes, that is a very heavy trip, but if anyone could handle it, he could.

His daytime Clark Kent name was Darryl Dawkins. But unlike Clark Kent, he was anything but mild-mannered.

Nor was he shy about using his super powers for his day-to-day enjoyment purposes. Being 6’11”, and being able

to fly and smash stuff and shit, he decided to play in the NBA. He joined up with the Sixers, and pretty soon just forgot about all that crime-fighting hassle and concentrated on basketball and laying his mack down. He named all his dunks like they were his children: The Rim-Wrecker, The Spine-Chiller Supreme, and The Sexophonic Delight. He laid tons of women and did loads of drugs and just generally carried on like Superman or the Hulk would if they weren’t wound so tight.

Nowadays, the Double Dizzle is just chilling, coaching an ABA team, the Newark

Express. We caught up with him to get the news from the stratosphere and see what he was up to.

million billion light years away. I go there in my mind to, you know, get away from the day-to-day.

Frank151: So, Darryl... Mr. Thunder... are you still the Chairman of Interplanetary Funkmanship?

Daryl Dawkins: I’m actually president now.

F151: Anyone else we might have heard of who’s been to Lovetron?

DD: Oh yeah. World B. Free. Artis Gilmore. And lots of beautiful women.

That was my whole thing, taking the ladies out there. That’s why, when I go there, I travel in an invisible transporter, so everybody can see all the fine women I ride with. I like to show them off, you know. Back in the day, Lola Folana was often to be seen in my spaceship.

F151: That’s quite a promotion.

DD: It’s not that big a deal. I’ve been on the scene for a while out there. It’s more about how people have to treat ME, you know what I’m saying? Not what I myself have to DO. (We ponder that, and find it has great meaning) F151: Where is Lovetron exactly?

DD: Lovetron is a planet that is one

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F151: Have you ever been to Krypton?

DD: I’ve flown over it a couple times.

I gotta say, I’ve never really been able to understand that whole scene. Superman, people from Krypton, they all get destroyed by Kryptonite! I mean,

that doesn’t make any sense. See, I’m Chocolate Thunder, but I don’t get destroyed by chocolate. I like chocolate.

DD: Solid. You know, he can fly, which is tough. But basketball is not really his thing.

F151: Can anything destroy Chocolate Thunder?

DD: White lightning. In very large quantities.

F151: What about Darth Vader? He seems like he’s probably got some game.

DD: Oh definitely, Darth is a mother in the paint. He just backs you down and backs you down. He’s relentless.

F151: Do you know Superman?

DD: Oh yeah. All us superheroes know each other. It’s very casual. I’m like hey, what’s up Supe? And he says, yo Choc. And Devil... you know, Daredevil, I see him around a lot. We don’t really hang, but we’re cool.

F151: Superman can fly and bend stuff and all, what are the specific superpowers of a Lovetronian?

DD: Well, telling you them all would take a while. But the bending things, that’s a key difference right there. Superman bends things. Lovetronians are all about making sure things don’t get bent.

(Again, we ponder. The universe is starting to make sense.)

F151: How’s Superman on the court?

F151: Is Darth really that bad of a guy, or has he just gotten a bad rap?

DD: No, no, no, no, Darth is a VERY bad dude. Here’s the thing when you’re playing ball with Darth you gotta be careful. Cause he gets worked up, and the next thing you know, you go to block his shot and he just slices your whole hand off, like that.

F151: Finally, Mr. Thunder on a personal note. Obviously you Lovetronians are very skilled in the art of love.

I’ve been having a little trouble with the ladies lately. You got any seduction tips for a mere mortal?

DD: Toes. Earthlings always forget about the toes. Women love to have their toes done. And don’t be afraid to use your mouth.

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DO MINICAN

La Isla de Beisbol words + photos Bud Schmeling & Chris Isenberg On the road, behind the scenes and rolling way grande with Don Edgar Mercedes, the young prince of Dominican sports gambling and rising player in the prospect game.

When most people say, “If you ever come to _______, I’ll take care of you.” You might want to think twice before jumping on a plane. But when Dominicans say it, or more specifically, when Edgar Mercedes says it, he fucking means it.

We met Edgar while “covering” the Caribbean Baseball World Series in Puerto Rico three years ago. He was a gregarious and extremely well-informed baseball confederate there to support his beloved Aguilas de Santiago, and we soon discovered he could more than hold his own in rum drinking, Dan Quisenberry referencing, and dice rolling in the casinos of San Juan. After Edgar’s hometown squad, which included Miguel Tejada, Rafael, Furcal, David Ortiz and (more importantly for heckling purposes) Luis Polonia took home the Championship and doused each other

with Presidente, we exchanged numbers and promises to keep in touch and went our separate ways.

Nearly three years later, desperate for another baseball related vacation on the cheap, we miraculously found Edgar’s number on the back of an old empanada wrapper, and our erstwhile companion seemed genuinely pleased to hear from us.

What we were honestly hoping for from this relative stranger was a place to crash for the night and a point in the right direction. What we got was the charlatan journalist jackpot: airport pickup in a Cadillac Escalade, comped rooms at the poshest hotel in Santiago, rivers of Johnnie Walker Black and total entrée into every level of the fascinating and convoluted world of Dominican Baseball.

Don Edgar, we come to you with much respect. Edgar addresses a team of middle men at the lower end of the prospecting food chain. These “agents” have a tenuous claim on a talented prospect but lack Edgar’s contacts and resources to get the best deal. It’s good to be El Jeffe.

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Both of these prospects were brought to Edgar’s school for an audition, but only 17 year old outfielder Moises Sierra (L) impressed El Jeffe. His instincts were right on: the Blue Jays recently signed him for $175,000.

Edgar’s day job is running “Out 27”, one of the largest and most successful books in a country where betting on sports is the legal national pastime. Setting and moving the lines at a gambling house that accepts no limit international action is a job so esoteric and complex that perhaps 50 people in the world can perform it, and so taxing that ninety percent of them will probably be dead before their fortieth birthday. But Edgar is a glutton for risk - the kind of guy who can never get enough action. And in the DR the heavy action is baseball action.

150 Miles south of Santiago lies the Tigress and Euphrates of Latino baseball.

With a population just over 2 million, the greater Santo Domingo area boasts an impressive roster of major league native sons: Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano, and Pedro Guerrero, to name but a few. Edgar has opened his first prospect

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school in this fertile crescent.

The lucky few that Edgar and his staff scout and sign receive what most Dominican parents cannot afford to provide: expert instruction, three meals a day, gloves and cleats, and top competition. In return, they promise to give Edgar 25% of any future signing bonus.

It’s a high risk-high reward proposition.

Edgar is constantly digging into his own pocket to pay coaches, lawyers, cooks, maids and teachers or to offer the occasional advance to an impatient family. But the payoff can be as sweet as the expenses are steep. In the case of a marginal prospect, a paltry five grand signing bonus may not even cover the big man’s expenses. But in the case of a flame-throwing, sixteen year old prodigy named Kelvim Escobar — Edgar has already declined six-figure offers and is holding out for a major payday.

The Art of the Deal. No office. No secretary. No problemo. Edgar negotiates the future of another prospect along the autopista north of Santo Domingo.

Coming soon to a stadium near you: Juan Miguel Miranda, the pick of the Cuban litter gets loose before his daily workout. His batting practice sessions are legendary among the local boys who scramble beyond the right field wall for the right to return the precious baseballs for a small reward.

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As if mining local talent isn’t enough to keep his blood pumping, Edgar has positioned himself as the lead player in the negotiations of 3 of Cuba’s most prized prospects, who, after several attempts at defecting and lengthy internment by the authorities, arrived in the D.R. and recently have been given free agent status by Major League Baseball; a most welcomed decision for Edgar. Juan Miranda is the most promising of the Cuban defectors. A

rare package of speed, power, and baseball intellect that has scouts all over the island salivating. As he does with his youngsters, Edgar plays the part of Latino Kris Kringle, providing the Cubans with housing, spending money, video games, and arranging for them to train at the academy of the world champion Chicago White Sox. Once again, it’s a proposition with big upfront expenses and uncertain returns.Now, we could go on and on

about taking batting practice and shagging flyballs with the Cubans but its time to get over to our luxury box at Estadio Cibao. It’s game day baby, and were not talking just any old game. This is Dodgers Giants, Army Navy, Hatfield McCoy. We’re talking a rivalry so heated and fierce, so steeped in history and highly contested that it makes the Yankees Red Sox seem like a family reunion. Tonight it’s Aguiiias de Santiago versus their reviled rivals from the capital, the Tigres de Licey - holders of 18 national titles.

On this sticky October night, the stadium’s p.a. is at earsplitting level blasting merengue for the gyrating crowd, the young cheerleaders are shaking it for the home team, and Hochi, the double

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jointed overly theatrical mascot for Aguillias is in fine form, mocking the opposition. The first pitch has yet to be thrown To better understand the latin baseball experience, remove the familiar $8 beers, cell phone yapping corporate types, no smoking signs, and the sometimes distracted interest in the game, and replace that with bullhorns, cigars, vendors hawking flasks full of Brughal Rum, and a passion so intense it borders on the unhealthy.

To the great delight of the hoarse and exhausted faithful, Aguilas takes the game and are once again alone atop the standings. For Edgar’s sake, we hope they covered the run line.

Former NY Yankee Luis Polonia is 6th all time on the Dominican League hits list with 701... Off the field, he enjoys performing with his reggaton band INGCO CREW... He served sixty days for having sex with a minor in 1989.

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Gay Talese Letters to a Young Sportswriter

Gay Talese’s The Loser — a portrait of Floyd Patterson after his second crushing loss to Sonny Liston — is the best magazine story about sports I’ve ever read.

The piece is remarkable for Patterson’s startling candor about what it feels like to get knocked out, for the rhythm and flow of Talese’s finely-crafted sentences, and for its downbeat drama. Talese simultaneously reveals Patterson at his most pathetic and his most noble.

Along with Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, The Loser helped establish a new template for journalists in the sixties — a way of investing non-fiction with the stylistic sophistication and dramatic structure of fiction, a style which became known as “new journalism”.

Like Patterson, Talese dwells more on his failures than successes in his forthcoming A Writer’s Life, a personal history bookended by an account of his chase after Liu Ying — the soccer player whose missed penalty kick lost the women’s world cup for China in 1999.

Dapper as advertised in an olive herringbone, three-piece suit, Talese consented to an interview at his townhouse off Madison Avenue and generously dispensed advice for would-be sportswriters hoping to follow in the footsteps of his hand-made shoes.

T H E ST OR Y IS NO T O N THE FI ELD

Gay Talese: If you want to be a beat reporter, a recorder, or a kind of chronicler of every minute of the ballgame seen from a press box, you’re not seeing very much, you’re seeing what you can see on television - you can probably see it better on television, but that’s not the story that you’ll be able to transmit if you are interested in writing that has some enduring value. Now if

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you’re writing about what happens between the hours of two o’clock and five on a baseball field you’re going to get what everybody gets — the final score and how it got to be the score. Boring.

And of no interest to me because the next day it is over. I am only interested in what you can read this year, and next year, and ten years from now.

When I was a young sportswriter, I was

sent to a baseball game involving New York University and some other team that I can’t remember. It was a meaningless event, but it was my first assignment.

I didn’t get to cover the New York Yankees. I got to cover New York University which didn’t even have a good baseball team. There were only about eleven people in the stands and it was a cold spring day. I was sitting there freezing and I was watching two teams that I didn’t care about, but what I did notice was a young man and young woman in the grandstand arguing. They must have been 18 or 19 years old. They were watching the game, but she was also crying.

And it looked to me like the breakup of a college relationship. I thought “Ah Ha!” They’re here at this game, and I’m going to tell this game through the relationship that is terminating.

The game meant nothing, but the relationship was potentially a short story, so I waited until after the game was in the seventh inning. I wanted to be sure they didn’t go home, and I interrupted them. I said, “I’ve been watching you” and they said, “Who are you?” And I said, “I’m a New York Times reporter and I’m covering this game. Well, why are you here?”

This guy said, “My girlfriend here is in love with somebody over there playing in left field and I’m trying to break it up.”

And I told the story of this romance and the infidelity alleged by this guy between the girl and some other guy who is playing left field. I wrote about the end of the romance in the middle of the game. Now you see that is where you get a story, you go to a game and the game isn’t the game and the story is not the story until you discover the story.

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READ FI CTI O N

GT: You cannot read only non-fiction and learn much if you want to be a writer. That means whether you are a sportswriter, a writer of music, a writer of science, whatever the hell you’re writing about, you have to read fiction. And you have to read very creative and visual writers of fiction because they are the storytellers, and in order to be a writer of anything you have to be able to see the story when the story isn’t there.

When I was 19, 20, 21, I’d read a lot of short stories, fictional short stories. For example Irwin Shaw, a fiction writer who wrote for the New Yorker, Esquire, and he wrote novels that were made into movies. Marlon Brando made a movie called The Young Lions, based on a novel written by Irwin Shaw. He also wrote a great short story called The Eighty Yard Run. Any aspiring sportswriter or essayist, anybody that wants to write about sports, has to read The Eighty Yard Run. It’s one of the great sports stories of all time. The Eighty Yard Run is about a Midwestern halfback who plays for a team, it might be Michigan, it might be Ohio State. It doesn’t make any difference. During practice this guy, his name is Christian Darling, breaks the last tackler and goes eighty yards. It’s exhila-

rating for him. He wasn’t a star, he was a starter but he wasn’t the star, but on this occasion he runs eighty yards. It’s a winter day in a Midwestern college and he leaves the stadium and there is his girlfriend waiting for him. She waves and he gets into the car. She embraces him.

She’s in love with him. He’s a good looking guy, and he’s feeling that he’s very good looking too because he just ran eighty goddamn yards, breaking tackles, that thrill, the fulfillment of his physicality in running eighty yards. And they drive off in this car.

Romantic life will never be more romantic than it was in that moment after the eighty yard run. He never has another moment of eighty yards. We flash ahead. After the graduation of these people, they get married and this guy Christian Darling is not good enough to be in the pros. He never does much with his life, but because he’s good looking he gets a job as a male model where he trades on his recognition as a Midwestern player of a major college team.

The girl who was in the car becomes the successful fashion editor of a magazine, like a Vogue, and they come to New York and live in Greenwich Village. She is loyal to him, but he never has that eighty yard run again. Little by little the wife is socially and economically leaving him behind. The point this story tells you, beautifully invoked, is what it is like to be an athlete in a moment of ecstasy and what it is like to remember it as an old hall-of-famer, some fat guy that runs out who’s 61 years old and looks like he’s 90.

Christian Darling symbolizes the golden moment never revisited again.

So number one is don’t read sportswriters. Read the great fiction writers. Why?

Because they deal with the visual, they deal with emotion, and they have a sense of dramatic structure. Sports are structured, it has its boundaries, it has its rules, it has its personalities, and it has its confrontations. But it doesn’t have imagination unless the observer in the press box or the observer on the sidelines can imagine what is of enduring story value.

G ET G REAT DI ALO GUE GT: In Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of The Sad Cafe, there is a scene...[Talese opens a galley copy of A Writer’s Life and reads.]...there in the dining room of a race track, sitting next to a horse trainer who looking up from his meal notices that he is about to be joined by a jockey friend - an aging, illtempered rider, presently experiencing much difficulty at controlling his weight - and the trainer is overheard saying in a voice that the jockey does not hear: “If he eats a lamb chop you can see the shape of it in his stomach an hour afterward.” I wanted quotes like these in my sports pieces, but I also knew I could not make them up. I was a reporter, not a fiction writer. And yet if I could get close enough to some of these athletes that I was now meeting in New York and could convince them to trust me and confide in me....I might be able to write factually accurate but very revealing personal stories about big time athletes while using their real names, and then get these stories published in the straight news...

Without faking the facts my reportorial approach would be fictional, with lots of intimate details, scene-setting, dialogue, and a close identity with my chosen character in the conflict.

[Talese puts the book down.]

GT: Look at the beginning of my Patterson article. He’s in a forlorn old nightclub and where he’s holding training camp.

He runs out in the road and somebody says, “Hey you’re Floyd Patterson,” he says, “No, I’m not Floyd Patterson, I’m his brother Raymond.” He gives an autograph and Floyd Patterson writes Raymond Patterson. That’s fiction because Floyd Patterson in his head is a fictional character. He was a man who’d been defeated, he wore a mask, he was eluding the tragedy of being a loser. And yet he kept going, he had perseverance, he got knocked down, he got up.

TH E A RT O F SE D U CT ION

F151: You were the only one that Patterson confessed to. Why do you think that he chose you?

GT: Because I was there most. Just like he’d get off the floor the most because he got knocked down the most. I showed up the most. That’s what I do. I make the extra trip, I make another and another trip, and then another trip. Why do I do this? Familiarity. So that I can gradually get

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in the head of the people that I’m writing about to the point that I can — without distorting it and without imagining — get to be kind of a co-pilot in their consciousness. I am the co-pilot. They’re flying their own plane in a sense. What I’m doing is going along for a ride on their ticket trying to do justice to their truth.

It’s like having an affair. You have to have an affair with your subjects. It’s not that you have be not in love with them so much, but you certainly have to be respectful of them and trust them. And they have to trust you because essentially you’re going to bed with your subject. It’s not a one-night stand, you’re having an affair and it’s an emotional affair, it’s a caring arrangement, it’s one based on trust and mutual respect. Also, I’m trying to give something of their lives, or the essence of their lives, even if it’s a short term life, even if it’s an eighty yard run. I’m trying to make a record with my writing that will last next year and the year after, to give an enduring value to the lives of the people I’m writing about.

F151: Do you think it’s more difficult to seduce a modern athlete than it was to seduce Patterson into the relationship that you are talking about?

GT: No, I think it’s just as easy no matter when. You have to have imagination, and what does that mean? You have to know how to establish your own presence in the story — that’s number one.

I’m foregoing the assumption that you have to be curious. I hope I don’t have to start there. If you’re not curious, go sell stock somewhere, go work on Wall Street, become a lawyer. But if you are going to be a serious writer of non-fiction you have to be curious. Second, you

have to be able to hang out with people.

Sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s inconvenient because you have to get off your ass, go where they are, and hang around. And sometimes they don’t talk to you. So you have to put a lot of time in. You have to be willing to live unproductively in terms of your own agenda.

You have to say I am not going to be impatient or discouraged or insulted by being insulted and ignored. You have to be willing to pay your dues, which is to be ignored for long periods of time waiting for your moment - the moment when you connect.

24, 26 years old, I dressed as if I was the president of a bank or a member of the diplomatic corps because I didn’t want to be mixed up with these sportswriters in the minds of these athletes. I wanted these guys - whether it’s Frank Gifford or Sonny Liston or Muhammad Ali - to know that I was this guy with a three piece suit.

I wanted to draw attention that I wasn’t like the rest of those people. Why? Because I didn’t want what the rest of those people wanted, and I wanted the athlete to make a visual connection with me. I’m establishing a one-on-one before I even have a one-on-one.

You don’t know when that moment is, but if you’re impatient, or you want to do things quick and short cut, score big and get laid right away, you’re not gonna do it. You may get laid right away but you’re more jerking yourself off than doing anything meaningful of lasting value. I sound pompous but that’s pretty much what it gets down to. Then when you finally get the attention of your subject, you have to be memorable to them, and they are not necessarily creative people.

L OOK T H E PAR T F151: When dealing with athletes what are the ways that you present yourself to get their attention?

GT: I’ve said before, and I’ll say again.

You have to dress up for the story, and I physically dress up for the story. When you go to a baseball game, when you travel as press, you’re in a press box, the guys who are regular beat guys and just general reporters are shitty dressers.

They look like they’re teamsters. They look like they’re working as stevedores.

They look like they’re waiting for a part in On The Waterfront. Even when I was

SELL YO URSELF F151: Were there always publicists and have they become more difficult to get past in terms of performing this seduction that you’re talking about?

GT: There is always the gatekeeper. It might be a publicist. They too have to be reached and they have to be convinced. You’re a salesman. You’re selling vacuum cleaners. You’re a door-to-door salesmen. You knock on the door. Now maybe on the other side of the door is

Sonny Liston or maybe it’s Roger Maris or maybe it’s Alex Rodriguez or maybe it’s the next Michael Jordan. Whoever it is, you are there to sell vacuum cleaners and you have to get your foot in the door. You’re selling yourself as a person that they should pay attention to. So you should dress well, have good manners, courtesy, polish. It could be all variety of polish, everyone has a different definition of what is polish, what is good manners.

But it is really part of selling yourself. Diplomats do it all the time. In the UN where they talk too long or in the great capitals of the world, there’s always a way of dealing with the Afghanistani or the Chinese. Osama bin Laden or Billy Martin, they’re all the same. You have to know how to get to them and nobody is beyond reach. Nobody.

F151: Nobody seems to be able to crack Barry Bonds. Does he tempt you as a subject?

GT: Listen I’ve dealt with DiMaggio. He can’t be more remote than DiMaggio…

For a young man on the sports beat Barry Bonds would be a great subject.

What do you do? Well, I remember Barry Bonds’ father but unfortunately he died not too many years ago…I’d go

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to relatives. Go to somebody’s mother or their close friend. Like I went to Lefty O’Doul in San Francisco to get to DiMaggio. I mean DiMaggio was a pretty remote guy.

F151: Did athletes ever know your other work or did you just have to have to sell yourself based on your presence every time?

GT: Sometimes I’d give them my other work, if I had a published book. It helps sell yourself; it’s your calling card, your little business card. You have to show your credentials. They have to know first of all that you’re a published writer, but of course there’s always a time when you’re not a published writer. Everybody has to do their first, second, third, or fourth piece. But it’s all about relationships. It’s about trust and not betraying.

F151: Do athletes want to be flattered in any particular way?

GT: What you have to do is find out what their rhythm is, and figure out how you can dance to it for a while. Who are athletes? They are public figures who sometimes wish that they were private figures. But because they are achievers, great achievers — it doesn’t matter whether they hit a lot of home runs or they are the head of Microsoft — they have achieved so much that they are unable to be alone in public. They also are tired sometimes of having everything they do and everything they say, and even don’t say, getting into print and maybe getting them in trouble. It could be Jimmy the Greek, he said something about black people being blessed physically and they throw him off as a racist.

He’s probably not a racist. They ruined his career, one slip, even a guy like this, or a sportscaster, or a professional ath-

lete says something that sounds like it’s insensitive. They have to be careful because the people who are interviewing them are the one night stand guys — the ones who want to zap you, fuck you, and get out of there.

D ON ’T R AT

F151: Where is the line between ratting and delving into the private area in a way that explains who the person is?

GT: That’s a good question and it’s not so hard to answer because I’ve done it. You have to explain to him that you want to deal with the subject of the break-up of his marriage, or why he took that bribe, or why he never saw his illegitimate son again. You have to explain why it is important for whatever the horrible thing is to be told, but to be told well and fully. Because no matter what it is, that source of grievance or embarrassment to a person, you want to deal with that stuff — the stuff that makes them very sensitive that they don’t want to talk about. You have to explain why it’s important to get this.

You and I are gonna be here another month together and afterwards you’re never gonna see me in your life. I might never see you again. I am capable of writing. You want to take advantage of this fact. You’re not a writer. You’re the MVP. Great, I wish I was the MVP, but I’m not the MVP. But I am an MVP writer

and here we are in the same room, and we’re gonna make your story so important, we’re gonna make it part of history. When you die and someone writes your obituary they’re gonna go to this source — me. What I wrote is gonna be the defining paragraph of your obituary.

You have to sell it that they are historically important. Sportswriters don’t give them that sense of history. Sportswriters give them the sense of today – today. Tomorrow is never. It’s ephemeral.

F151: Did you hear from any subjects after the story?

GT: I never got a fan letter from hardly anybody I wrote about because most of the people that I might have written about, especially sports people, are not letter writers. Most ass kissers are letter writers, sports people are not ass kissers. I never met a sports person that would kiss ass because someone wrote well about them. But they’d see you again. And my great achievement, if it was anything, was that there was nobody I’d ever wrote about that I couldn’t see again. Nobody. I could see Sinatra, I could see DiMaggio, I could see the gangsters I wrote about in Honor Thy Father, or the media people I wrote about in The Kingdom And The Power. I can see them because I don’t rat on them.

But I don’t co-author things either. I am not a ghostwriter. I don’t write for approval. I don’t give them something, “Is this okay with you?” And then if they initial it, I’ll publish it. Never do that. Of course you don’t do that.

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EMANUEL STEWARD words Chris Isenberg & Jason Benavidez photos Erin Hackett vintage photos courtesy of Emanuel Steward

Kronk Style Emanuel Steward is arguably the most successful boxing trainer of all-time. He founded the legendary Kronk Gym in Detroit, personally prepared six of the nine fighters who took gold at the 1984 Olympics, and has trained 32 world champions including Thomas “Hitman� Hearns, Julio Cesar Chavez, Oscar De La Hoya, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and the Klitschko brothers.

Steward is also the rare case where sporting substance meets high style. A constant innovator of trunk, robe, and t-shirt design, he introduced the concept of a team uniform to boxing and has been hugely influential in shaping ring fashion over the last five decades.

“Tommy and Ray get along. And Marvin and Tommy get along. But Marvin isn’t too fond of Ray. He’s still very bitter over the close and controversial decision he lost...That’s why you see Marvin on one side and Ray on the other.”

“That’s Leon Spinks and Tony Tucker. We were training up in Laughlin, Nevada.”

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1984 Olympics, Los Angeles “In the daytime before the bouts, we would train with my pro world Champions: That’s WBC Welterweight champ Milton McCrory on the back bag, and WBA Junior Middleweight champ Mike McCallum looking right at the camera. In 1983 a lot of the fighters from the Olympic team came and trained and lived with me in Detroit to get ready for the Olympics. I bought another house down the street for them to stay in. They would come to Kronk and train so they would be regularly sparring with world champions.

Tyrell Biggs beat Lennox Lewis because he had been sparring with Tony Tucker.”

[A record nine U.S. fighters won gold in ’84 including six Steward had trained: Tyrell Biggs, Frank Tate, Mark Breland, Jerry Page, Pernell Whitaker, and Steve McCrory.]

“The Rolls Royce mark of excellence comes in chrome but I had that gold plated.�

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“You don’t see gold paint and gangster white wall tires on regular limousines.”

“I started designing my suits with one button, no pockets. Nothing dangly. Form fitting. I used to get them from an old Jewish tailor who’s passed on now.”

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Thomas Hearns & Emanuel Steward circa, 1978-79.

“I had a moustache since I was twelve years old, but I had an accident shaving one time and lost a piece of the left side so I had to shave it all off. I have never grown it back since then. I always mean to grow it back. But when it first comes in it looks all scrubbly. I need two or three weeks to really get it going. So I probably will never be able to grow it back because there probably won’t be two or three weeks when I’m not in the public eye. That’s just how it is.”

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The Cool Fox “I’ve always been conscious of fighters’ outfits. When I was coming up they had the fitted white trunks and the white strings dangling, and I thought that looked so cool.

When I fought in the Golden Gloves tournament, I would tie the strings of my shoes to the side. And on the left leg of the trunks I always put my initials. When I was doing that no one else was doing that. “ “And everybody else had the robe to the ground. I had the short robe, just above the knee. With the fox on the back.”

“The fox is so smart. One of the smartest animals. So cagey. We used to go out as kids hunting in West Virginia. And the hardest animal to catch was the fox. We’d go all through the woods trying to chase him, and then we’d see him sitting right back where we started. So I have a lot of respect for the fox.” - Emanuel Steward

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EARLY RETIREMENT words + images Merhav Mohar

“How it feels to not remember the most defining and important moments of your life.”

All my life I had prepared myself for a few defining and important moments, my final exams in high school, my bar mitzvah, being drafted to the army, the first time I had sex, the first time I would be in love, my first fight. All of these I can remember and can describe, all but the most important, my fight for the WBC Fecarbox World Title.

I remember landing in Atlanta, on Sept.

9th, and the first thing I noted was the heat. I remember telling the driver who picked me up, how good this heat is, “its gonna be really easy to make weight with this heat, I can lose at least

five pounds in an hour with this heat.”

I had a full week, full of interviews, speaking engagements, press conferences, and the official weigh in.

That is more or less all that I can remember and describe, although there are a few things that stand out.

I specifically remember, shattering my knuckles on my opponents head in the first round, I remember the shockwave of pain that shot through the palm of my hand, through my elbow, up to my shoulder, and all the way down through my knees to my feet. I specifi-

cally remember that, because without knowing that it would be the last time in my life that I would feel such a thing, I remember how I enjoyed that pain, and realized how addicted I am to it.

How I love it.

The next thing I remember is opening my eyes in a room unfamiliar to me, with a catheter in my cock watching my friend Dimitry walk into the room, with Israel Liberow and Mordy Chaimovits. I remember instinctively pulling out my left hand and asking them to help me strap tefillin [ed. note: leather objects containing Biblical verses which are used in Jewish prayer] on. I didn’t know at the time why that was the first thing I did. I guess my body knew what I had been through and automatically made me pray. I later realized that I had been unconscious for a few days, and was going to die, until that moment that I opened my eyes and strapped on teffilin.

The next two weeks are a morphine and pain killer induced blur, of which I can’t make a lot of sense out of, and can’t remember a lot of. I remember being in a lot of pain, mostly physical, the emotional pain would come later.

I remember landing in Israel on October 1st , the Jewish New Year; a date that would mark the end of the most important and defining year of my life, a year in which I cannot remember the most important moments. After that my memory would more or less be okay, not what it used to be. After all, I am now officially brain damaged.

As odd as this might sound, the above passages describe all my memories

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from September 10th through October 1st. No matter how hard I try, I cannot recall anything, although the true story lies in those memories that I do not have, memories that I was taught, and was told were mine, although I do not know them...

I don’t remember the fight, apparently, he started off strong, and was ahead by one point at the end of the first round. I came back to the corner, and was told what to do. The next few rounds were all mine. I was slowly gaining points and was getting ahead, so much so that the fifth round was awarded to me 10-8. By the end of the fifth round, the score was 49-45 to me, a score that is almost impossible to come back from, unless the unthinkable happens, and it did.

Coming down off the fifth round, I remember my trainer Hector Roca, telling me “he’s ready to go, finish him” to which I replied “Roca, we’re bringing home this belt”… and then my world changed.... I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I was told that I “zoned out”. Hector sprayed some water on me, and said “come on, go on in there and finish him.”

I was told that I got up as the bell went, and he was afraid to come close as he was hurt, and scared to fight. At this point, my brain had already been bleeding and pressure was building up in it. I started losing focus and concentration, starting to black out. He threw a testing jab, just to see what was up. Since my hands were down, he thought I was trying to draw him in. He didn’t realize that I was slowly dying inside.

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After this jab, I more or less collapsed on the ropes, still standing, and fighting with every breath I had, but not fighting him. I was fighting something I never felt before; I was fighting to remain conscious. I was told that as this happened Roca threw in the towel to forfeit the fight, and by doing so he saved my life. I owe Hector my life.

By now I had suffered a Subdural Hematoma, my brain was bleeding heavily, the pressure was building up and had caused my brain to shift over two inches! I passed out on the way to the hospital. I woke up a few days later, and instinctively held my hand out to

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strap on teffilin. I was told that I almost died, but now I live to tell about it...

I was fighting the most important fight of my life, a fight I was getting ready for over 12 years, but with four rounds to go, just 12 minutes from the end, my dream was taken from me.

A friend compared me to Moses, who walked 40 years through the desert only to get to the gates of the Promised Land and see it, but not cross through to it. He would forever remain 12 minutes out. The difference is that at least Moses can remember his journey.

www.instrumentalapparel.com

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