Ira Berkow - How Life Imitates Sports: A Sportswriter Recounts, Relives, and Reckons with 50 Years on the Sports Beat

Copyright 2020 by Ira Berkow

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by 5mediadesign

Cover photographs courtesy of the author (main image: author with Oscar Robertson; top inset: author with Pete Rose; bottom inset: author with Archie Moore)

Print ISBN: 978-1-68358-379-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-68358-380-6

Printed in the United States of America

Praise for Ira Berkow

Ira Berkow is one of the great American writers, without limitation to the field of sports. His writing is agile, clever, and sparked by observation of perfect details. Scott Turow

With the keen eye of a reporter, the literary touch of a highly skilled writer, and above all a feel for the humanity in every story, Ira takes his readers to a place beyond and above what even competent sports writing generally delivers. Bob Costas

I follow Ira Berkow in the Times with unfailing interest. Saul Bellow

Ira Berkow over the years has regularly given us sportswriting of the most elegant kindhis work glistens with intelligence and sensitivity. David Halberstam

Sports at its best is a kind of music and sportswriting is a kind of libretto. Ira Berkow is among the besta Sondheim of the sports page. George Will

Ira Berkow gets inside people. It can be stated as a law that the sports writer whose horizons are no wider than the outfield fences is a bad sports writer because he has no sense of proportion and no awareness of the real world around him. Ira Berkow knows that what is important about a game is not the score but the people who play it. Red Smith, from the foreword to Beyond the Dream

Ira Berkow is the rare sportswriter who hears something under the cheering, who sees something on the scoreboard apart from the score. He is a fine writer who finds his stories in the character of the sports figures as well as in the accomplishments. E. L. Doctorow

You dont have to be a sports fan to be a fan of Ira Berkows. His intelligence, humor, and humanity made everything he wrote, on any topic, worth reading. He wrote as well as anyone in the business, and he has done it for years. Dave Barry

Like anyone else who I think is good, Ira Berkow can write just as well about things other than sports as he can about sports. Dick Schaap, Kickoff magazine

At night, wherever I am, I call up (on my computer) my hometown newspapers, Newsday, the Post, and The New York Times. I check on the great sportswriters like Dave Anderson and Ira Berkow. Billy Crystal, Yahoo!

Ira Berkow is one of the most talented and multi-faceted sportswriters of our time, He writes like a dream. Ann Landers

Well before I came to know Ira Berkow personally, I looked forward to his books, newspaper and magazine pieces because I knew they would take me well beyond balls and strikes, three-pointers, ten rounds and touchdown passes.... He is a literary writer of the highest quality. Tom Brokaw

Rockin Steady has kept me steady for several days and I have been enjoying it, particularly since I had never heard of Clyde (I live a sheltered life). E. B. White (for Rockin Steady)

I bought the book when I was 12 years old. I loved all the fashion stuff and how to catch flies with your bare hands. President Barack Obama (as told to Ira Berkow, for Rockin Steady)

Ira Berkow is simply one of Americas best writers, sports or otherwise. Jim Bouton (for Pitchers Do Get Lonely)

An extraordinary look into the art of pickup basketball. Who would have guessed that, along with his writing talents, Ira knows how to play the game! Senator Bill Bradley (for To the Hoop)

Ira Berkow is one of the best sportswriters around, so it is no surprise that his basketball odyssey is one of the best sports books of this or any other year.... Very few sports columnists have the genius to produce a timely piece that is also timeless. Ira Berkow has that ability in spades. George Plimpton (for To the Hoop)

This book is a paean to writing.... Ira Berkow (is) one of Americas greatest sports journalists, as good perhaps as his mentor, the supreme sports columnist Red Smith. The Saturday Evening Post (for Full Swing)

Few journalists on any beatsports, politics, or warply their trade with the skill, insight and empathy of Ira Berkow. Wes Lukowsky, Booklist (starred review, The Minority Quarterback)

Nobody covered the fight game with more artistry and insight, with more compassion and humor, than he did. Jeremy Schaap, from the foreword to Counterpunch

The book is a grand portrait gallery, and in its way a historical treasure (with) terrific picaresque stories and scenes. Richard Stern, New York Times Sunday Book Review (for Maxwell Street)

An urban classic William Braden, Chicago Sun-Times (for Maxwell Street)

Also by Ira Berkow

It Happens Every Spring

Giants Among Men

Wrigley Field

Autumns in the Garden

Summers at Shea

Summers in the Bronx

The Corporal Was a Pitcher

Full Swing

The Minority Quarterback

Court Vision

To the Hoop

The Gospel According to Casey (with Jim Kaplan)

How to Talk Jewish (with Jackie Mason)

Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life (editor)

Hank Greenberg: Hall-of-Fame Slugger (juvenile)

Pitchers Do Get Lonely

The Man Who Robbed the Pierre

Carew (with Rod Carew)

The DuSable Panthers

Maxwell Street

Beyond the Dream

Rockin Steady (with Walt Frazier)

Oscar Robertson: The Golden Year

For Dolly, with Dolly knows what and Dolly knows why.

Table of Contents

Introduction

O n an airplane heading to Chicago, I was seated with Muhammad Ali, and working on a story about him. Just before takeoff, the flight attendant came by and said to the champ, Mr. Ali, you have to put your seat belt on.

Superman, Ali said, dont need no seat belt.

And Superman, she responded, dont need no airplane, either.

The next sound heard was the click of Alis seat belt being buckled.

One way or another, Ali was always either entertaining or the subject of news, from his conflict with the military to the Black Muslims to becoming an American icon, even celebrated by those who disdained him earlier on.