In 1973, tennis was all the rage. But wouldn’t the game be even more fun with stars from other sports? That was the thinking behind the third annual Dewar Sports Celebrity tournament at Kutsher’s Country Club in Monticello, New York.
While the 12-player field was all men, parallels to the recent Battle of the Sexes spectacle were obvious. 62-year-old baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg–a Bobby Riggs pal, no less–was the defending champion. The contrasts were not just between the old and the young. Three of the invitees were basketball players, including seven-foot, two-inch Artis Gilmore, while track and field athletes like Jim Ryun might have passed unnoticed on the street.
Players were picked for their celebrity, not their tennis prowess. Ryun said that he began running because he “couldn’t do anything else,” and he swung and missed on at least one serve. Gilmore’s groundstrokes were softer even than Riggs’s, and Miami Dolphins running back Jim Kiick* griped that the rackets weren’t big enough. Heavyweight boxer Bob Foster was on hand as an alternate, and he was perfectly happy to remain on the sidelines.
* Kiick’s daughter Allie has fared better. She has won seven ITF singles titles and peaked at #126 in the WTA rankings.
The whole tournament took place in one day: June 4th. Hoopster Rick Barry took the individual honors, flashing a big serve and an intensity that suggested he couldn’t simply turn off his competitive streak. After players cycled through a doubles round robin, switching partners throughout the day, the group was whittled down to four. Greenberg and basketball star Gail Goodrich would play for the title against Barry and the man who had just broken the NFL’s single-season rushing record: O.J. Simpson.
In addition to his speed, Simpson had what the New York Times called a “tricky forehand.” But Greenberg and Goodrich were the class of the group, perhaps the only two men present who regularly played tennis. They took the final in a single pro set, 8-2.
Greenberg, his playing days long behind him, was the most accustomed to this kind of half-serious exhibition. He closed the day with a one-liner worthy of a Catskills comedian.
“It’s not so much how you play this game,” he quipped. “What counts is whether you win or lose.”
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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.
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