Author: jsackmann

It is hard to convey the degree to which the sports world was seized by the Battle of the Sexes. On September 19th, 1973, the day before the match, newspapers around the United States put together full-page spreads to preview the long-awaited tilt. Punters scrambled to lay last minute wagers: Bobby Riggs was a 5-2 favorite, and it was increasingly difficult to find a Billie Jean King backer to bet against.

Celebrities flocked to Houston. George Foreman would hand over the winner’s check. Bombshell Mamie Van Doren met Riggs on a talk show and became an ardent cheerleader. 69-year-old painter Salvador Dali turned up, for some reason.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a Baltimore saloonkeeper. “Everybody’s talking about it. I mean people who don’t even like tennis–people who could care less about Ron Laver or whatever his name is. A serious tennis match could never get the public as excited as this thing has.”

Laver himself–Rod, not Ron–wasn’t crazy about it. He feared it was turning his sport into a burlesque.

He wasn’t wrong. But… for a gimmick, it was sure a glorious one. While the 51,000-capacity Houston Astrodome wasn’t going to sell out, more than half of the tickets were already accounted for. The Battle would set a new attendance record for a tennis match, and the television broadcast was expected to reach as many as 90 million viewers.

Rocket Rod, alas, could never.

So much of the spectacle’s success was owing to the goofy charisma of the diminutive, motor-mouthed Riggs. Even the mission-focused Billie Jean couldn’t always help herself: “I like him and I hate him. He is so ridiculous. Sometimes I laugh, but mostly I get furious.”

Bobby promoted the match–and promoted it, and promoted it some more–with a steady stream of male chauvinist patter: Women are at their best in the kitchen and the bedroom. (Billie Jean said she didn’t mind the bedroom part.) He claimed membership in WORMS: the World Organization for the Retention of Male Supremacy.

The irony was evident, even to Riggs. Women’s tennis, he said, “has come a long way, baby, and playing me isn’t hurting either…. Tennis has been the benefactor all over the world. It just happens to be good for Bobby Riggs, too, but that is only incidental.”

What made the match so compelling was that the outcome was truly uncertain. All the social relevance and celebrity appeal in the world couldn’t manufacture a must-watch out of an obvious blowout. Hundreds of the top men tennis players could beat Billie Jean, and a handful of them had done so over the years, in practice. Riggs, with his funky dink-ball game and the wildcard of his advanced age, could bewilder King–as he had Margaret Court–or could be overpowered by her.

The Court result, combined with a general faith in the savviness of the 1939 Wimbledon champion, made it tough to bet against Bobby. But several details tilted the forecast in the other direction. The Sportface surface was a low-bouncing one that would favor a dashing volleyer over a geriatric lob machine, especially over the course of a best-of-five-set match. Riggs had coasted through his preparation, chugging vitamins but letting his overall fitness sag from its Mother’s Day peak. Billie Jean had Margaret’s loss to learn from, and she’d know exactly what to expect.

Expert predictions were, well, predictable. Few pundits broke ranks with their own gender. The New York Times ran side-by-side pieces presenting each player’s case, by Neil Amdur and Grace Lichtenstein. Pancho Segura, one of the finest tennis minds in the game’s history, sided with his buddy Bobby, producing the X’s and O’s to explain why the veteran would pull through. No less a figure than Althea Gibson picked Billie Jean, who would “run Bobby’s little legs off.”

King said over and over again that it wasn’t (just) about the money. She was ready to put half of the human race on her back and carry them to victory.

Could Bobby muster the motivation to counter Billie Jean’s sense of responsibility? Long-time pal Lornie Kuhle couldn’t imagine the Happy Hustler losing what was, at its core, the greatest tennis hustle of all time. “That’s why Bobby’s going to win,” he said. “There’s really too much money on the line for him to lose.”

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

Hold the presses–we have a final result. Riggs beat King, 6-3, 6-4. Bobby barely broke a sweat.

Okay, the victim wasn’t Billie Jean. It was her husband, Larry King. On September 18th, just two days away from the main event, Bobby Riggs hustled Mr. King for $300. Larry wasn’t much of a tennis player, though he did enter a few husband-and-wife doubles events with Billie Jean in the mid-60s. Bobby spotted him three games in the first set, four games in the second. You can do the math: The man of the hour won twelve games in a row.

In fairness, Larry was probably exhausted. The public knew him as Billie Jean’s “husband and business partner”–not necessarily in that order. He ran interference for Madame Superstar, handling travel arrangements and ferreting out business opportunities for his wife. The job was never more demanding that it was this week. Everyone wanted a piece of Billie Jean, and the woman herself was hiding out.

The Kings had spent years turning over every leaf, identifying sources of funding and promotion for women’s tennis. Now, the phone never stopped ringing. Jerry Perenchio, the producer staging the match, had taken to calling Thursday night’s spectacle a $2 million operation. Nominally, it was winner-take-all, for $100,000. In actuality, each player was guaranteed another $100,000 for broadcast rights. Sponsorships went up from there.

Way up.

“If this were a Broadway show,” wrote Grace Lichtenstein in the New York Times, “the title would be ‘Money!'”

Television advertising spots had sold out almost instantly. Billie Jean would earn $25,000 for appearing in one of them, a hair-roller commercial for Sunbeam. Riggs was getting $75,000 from Hai Karate, the official cologne of the Happy Hustler. Nabisco paid him $20,000 to flog its Sugar Daddy candy bar. The Kings got a cut of sales from the ubiquitous pro-Billie Jean pins and t-shirts.

“Don’t feel sorry for the loser,” said Perenchio.

He meant Bobby or Billie Jean, of course. But Larry King, one of Riggs’s many victims in the days before the Battle, would also do just fine.

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

The Bobby Riggs–Billie Jean King spectacular wasn’t the only tennis on offer in Houston. The Battle of the Sexes was slated for Thursday. On Monday, September 17th, the Virginia Slims of Houston tournament kicked off. Billie Jean was there.

I will never cease to marvel at this. The Riggs match, for all its silliness, was enormously consequential–and King knew it. She was out to avenge her gender for Margaret Court’s loss in May, all the insulting things Bobby had said, and–oh yeah–every other slight in the history of male-female relations. She had spent part of the year injured and much of the last week in bed with a virus. Her last appearance at a major, against Julie Heldman at the US Open, had ended by retirement in a heat-induced haze.

The Slims event was little more than an anonymous tour stop. Billie Jean had every reason not to show. Yet on opening day, she not only played one match: She played two.

In the first round, she dispatched Cynthia Doerner of Australia, 6-0, 6-4. Things got a bit shaky in the second set, but the whole match took less than an hour. King came back later for a second-round tilt against 20-year-old Kris Kemmer. That one was even easier: 6-0, 6-2.

Kemmer, like most of the women in Houston, had no problem balancing competition with support for a fellow player. Wearing a pin that said “Billie Jean is No. 1,” there was no question who she’d cheer for on Thursday. “I think we’ll all die if she doesn’t win,” she told a reporter. “She just has to win.”

King was ready to do just that. “I am very healthy again,” she said after securing her place in the quarter-finals. Riggs “had better be ready to play tennis. I am very serious about this match.”

With that, Madame Superstar went into “hibernation.” She wouldn’t give any more interviews. She wouldn’t have to play the Slims event again until Friday. She would practice, she would prepare, and she would shut out the non-stop distraction machine that was Bobby Riggs.

Easier said that done. Riggs went on every Texas talk show that would have him, often several in a single day. He got a medical checkup from a noted heart surgeon, Dr. Denton Cooley. The doc visit was almost certainly just for press consumption; Bobby was more concerned about a nagging case of tennis elbow.

He practiced, too, but even that was part of the show. A bubble was set up next to the Astrodome, and Team Riggs charged five bucks to watch the old man wheeze through a workout. Even with the $100,000 spectacle on the horizon, he couldn’t help but hustle, challenging all comers to a $50 or $100 match, arranging chairs on his side of the court to slow himself down and even the odds.

“Last month was for wine, women, and song,” Bobby told a friendly hometown reporter. This month, he said, “It’s all tennis.”

Riggs and King had very different ideas of what it meant to have a single-minded focus on the game. Under the lights, in front of millions of eyes, would it matter? In three days, the world would find out.

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

On her first trip to the United States, Yevgeniya Biryukova just wanted to play tennis. Soviet authorities, she had found, were stingy with such opportunities. The 20-year-old physical education student from Baku was the reigning champion and top-ranked player in the USSR. Yet when a Soviet team left for America in March, Olga Morozova and Marina Kroshina got the call instead.

Biryukova, a member of the Stormy Petrel club in Baku, finally reached enemy territory in August. She lost a first-rounder at the US Open to Ilana Kloss, then headed to Charlotte for the Four Roses Classic. She picked up her first win on American soil against Marilyn Tesch, then waited for her highest-profile match yet, against none other than Chris Evert.

Evert was a late arrival to the tournament, having taken part in the World Invitational Tennis Classic in Hilton Head. Bed-ridden with a virus, she was in no condition to play her scheduled match on Thursday. But rain interceded, and the match was delayed.

While tournament officials watched and waited on Thursday, Biryukova earned her first batch of stateside fans. The Azerbaijani player could have asked for a default, but that was never in the cards. “She said she came here to play tennis,” the tournament director relayed, “and would be glad to play the match, no ifs or buts about it.”

Alas, Evert wasn’t well enough to play on Friday, either. Biryukova advanced to the quarters, where she dispatched Britain’s Veronica Burton in straight sets. Her first semi-final appearance against top-flight Western competition carried an extra charge. Morozova, the fourth seed in Charlotte, didn’t make it as far, losing a marathon to Martina Navratilova the same day.

On September 15th, the Stormy Petrel was in the final four, a position she would’ve considered unthinkable just a few days earlier. Evert, Morozova, and Virginia Wade were out; Navratilova and Evonne Goolagong were in the other half. Biryukova’s opponent was the equally unknown Japanese woman Kazuko Sawamatsu. The two players had met just a month earlier, at the World University Games in Moscow, where Sawamatsu picked up the victory.

But Biryukova had been paying attention. Sawamatsu’s backhand was weak, and she wasn’t the best mover. While the Soviet player liked to come forward, Sawamatsu made it difficult. Settling in for a baseline duel, Biryukova aimed to “hit to her backhand, but not every time,” as she said through Morozova, who interpreted for her.

A local reporter judged the match to be “a test of patience and endurance rather than firepower,” a contrast to the more stylish Goolagong-Navratilova semi that went the way of the Australian. Biryukova struck first, breaking serve in the seventh game and holding on to win the first set, 6-4. She played the big points better than Sawamatsu did–or, at least, not as badly. The Japanese woman double-faulted to hand her opponent a break on two occasions. Biryukova came back from 40-15 to break for 5-4 in the second, then held on for victory.

The woman from Baku was satisfied with her victory but realistic about her chances against Goolagong. “Let me rest for a while,” she said, “and then I’ll think about it.”

* * *

The Four Roses Classic was, for the most part, a Bobby Riggs-free zone. Billie Jean King had entered the Virginia Slims tournament in St. Louis, and unable to compete, she stayed in Hilton Head under a doctor’s supervision. Five days away from the nationally-televised spectacle, King remained optimistic she could play, and Riggs pronounced that she had cracked under the pressure.

Still, no self-respecting newspaperman in Charlotte could leave the question unasked. Would Goolagong consider taking on Riggs herself? As usual, she left it to her coach, Vic Edwards, to answer.

“These matches are strictly for money, and not for tennis,” he said of the Battles of the Sexes. “The less said about them, the better.”

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

Jan Kodeš was on a mission to silence the doubters. Seeded just sixth at the 1973 US Open despite holding the Wimbledon crown, he succeeded: Oddly enough for a man with three major titles already to his credit, he was the discovery of the tournament. Journalists wrote breathless accounts of his “acrobatic wizardry” and marveled at his “sixth sense” for the dimensions of the court.

“Nobody pays attention to Kodeš,” said Pancho Segura, one of the savviest tennis minds around, after the Czech squeaked through the a five-set quarter-final. “But he can win this tournament the way he returns serve.”

He nearly did.

On September 9th, the other man vying for the title also had something to prove. John Newcombe, 1967 titlist at Forest Hills and three-time champ at Wimbledon, was seeded tenth, even lower than Kodeš. Splitting his time between the circuit and his “tennis ranch” in New Braunfels, Texas, he had played only nine tournaments since the beginning of the year. He hadn’t won a title, and three times he failed to win a single match.

Bud Collins thought the mustachioed Australian was spread too thin. “Newk seems to have thought he could be the Jack Nicklaus of tennis,” he wrote, “picking his spots, giving most of his time to business interests.”

Newcombe agreed. After winning just four matches in four tournaments in Europe, then missing Wimbledon due to the boycott, he went back to the ranch and practiced furiously. (He still had time for his paying campers, as well as the occasional honored guest. One doubles partner was a Texas politician named George Bush.) When he rejoined the circuit in August, there were no more early exits.

Throughout the fortnight at Forest Hills, Newk improved with every match. Andrew Pattison had upset Ilie Năstase but was lucky to snatch a set from the Australian. Jimmy Connors looked particularly strong headed into the quarter-finals… where Newcombe straight-setted him. In Saturday’s semi-final, the ageless Ken Rosewall–seeded fifth–was little more than a target for Newcombe’s booming serves.

The record crowd of 15,241 was treated to a battle royale, a contrast in styles between Newk’s power and the nimble shotmaking of Kodeš.

The Australian struck first. Kodeš, who had finished his semi-final victory over Stan Smith less than 20 hours earlier, was understandably sluggish at the start. Newk took a routine opener, 6-4.

Then the fireworks began. The Czech broke serve in the second game of the next set. “For the next hour Kodeš played like a man possessed,” wrote Richard Evans. “When he’s in full flow, there’s nowhere to hide.” Newk had one of the strongest serves in the game, and they were coming back even faster. Kodeš recovered from impossible positions and made it look easy. “Everything Jan touched turned to gold,” said his opponent.

“There is nothing cautious,” Evans wrote, “about this man from Prague.”

Newcombe found himself in a hole, down two sets to one. It wasn’t over; he had pulled out a victory from the same position in the 1971 Wimbledon final against Smith. But Kodeš was playing even better.

The Australian didn’t have much variety in his game. There wasn’t much he could do to change his strategy. However, he did have another gear. He cranked up his second serve, the delivery that Jack Kramer called the best he had ever seen. He tightened up his volleys. Only now did Kodeš learn what Connors and Rosewall had been forced to accept: Newcombe at his best was unplayable.

The Czech wasn’t willing to admit fatigue, though he did allow that “it is hard to play semis and finals on successive days.” Whatever the cause, he no longer had the answer for everything Newk sent his way. He managed only five games in the last two sets, despite continuing to play superlative tennis. The Aussie finished him off with his 15th ace of the day.

Evans judged the match to be “an awe-inspiring performance, probably the best of Newcombe’s career.” Collins got closer to the heart of it, relaying his mid-match disbelief: “Can anybody play as well as Kodeš and lose?”

Newk had lost a bit of his trademark swagger through the frustration of his 1973 campaign. Now he had it back. He announced that he was going to get back to the top of the rankings–big talk for someone who had just been rated seventh on the inaugural ATP list and had not been considered the top dog for six years. No more long spells at the ranch: He was going all-out to establish his supremacy.

Kodeš hadn’t managed to upset both of his predecessors as Wimbledon champions, but he certainly left Forest Hills with more respect around the game. People learned to stop underestimating Newcombe, too. He had never been the top seed at Wimbledon, despite winning the thing three times. By the time the 1974 Championships rolled around, Newk stood atop the ranking table, and even the tradition-bound committee of the All-England Club agreed.

The man with the mustache was number one.

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

There weren’t many tennis tickets better than the second Saturday of the US Open. The 1973 schedule opened with the women’s final and was followed by the two men’s semi-finals. New Yorkers might have wished for a better American showing, but no fan could complain about the chance to see Margaret Court versus Evonne Goolagong, John Newcombe against Ken Rosewall, and Jan Kodeš versus Stan Smith.

The term “Super Saturday” wasn’t yet in common circulation, at least not for tennis. That year, though, sports pages around the country deemed September 8th “Super Saturday” for its marquee college football event: a nationally televised game between Nebraska and UCLA.

The action at Forest Hills put that one measly football game to shame.

Goolagong began the day on a tear, winning four of the first five games and reaching triple break point for 5-1. But Court shook off her fatigue from the previous day’s match against Chris Evert and saved the break points. Margaret seized on her opponent’s weak second serves to break back. At 6-all at the US Open, players faced a “sudden death” tiebreak: first to five points, no need to win by two. Goolagong deprived the shootout of its drama, double-faulting and missing an easy smash to hand the set to Court.

From there, the match followed a script that was easy to follow but impossible to predict. When Evonne landed her first serve, she came in behind it and usually won the point. When she didn’t, Margaret pounced and won the race to the net. Goolagong was perhaps the game’s best shotmaker, one of the few women who could leave the 5-foot, 11-inch Court helpless in the forecourt. She could also lose focus, as she did at the tail end of the first set. As she put it, she sometimes went walkabout.

One of those lapses brought Margaret within a point of a 5-2 lead in the second set. But both ladies played better from behind, and Goolagong chose that moment to switch back on.

“I really enjoy playing Margaret, she’s such a fine player,” Evonne said. “She brings me up to a higher level.”

The underdog charged back, winning five of six games to secure the second set. But then it was Court’s turn. The veteran won the first three games of the decider and never let up. She lost only four points on her own serve, and she continued to treat Goolagong’s seconds as batting practice. Margaret claimed her 24th major singles title by the score of 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2.

The rewards were overwhelming. She was handed a new wristwatch and the keys to a Ford Mustang. And, lest we forget, she received a winner’s check for $25,000, the first time at a major that the women’s champion earned the same amount as the men’s titlist.

“I’m not a women’s libber. I’ve never believed we should get prize money equal to the men,” said Court. “But…”

The 31-year-old “Mighty Mama” had earned that check, battling through three-setters with Evert and Goolagong. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”

She would have to do more than that: She was on the schedule to play both the women’s doubles final (with Virginia Wade) and the mixed final (with Marty Riessen), starting at 1:00 the next day.

On Sunday, while the football teams from Nebraska and UCLA nursed their injuries, Court would drag herself through six more sets of championship tennis. She always claimed she wasn’t motivated by prize money, but at $154,000 and counting in 1973 alone, she sure found her way to win a lot of it.

* * *

Strong as the women’s final was, it didn’t even stand up as the match of the day. After Newcombe straight-setted Rosewall, Kodeš took on Smith in what–for him at least–was the ultimate grudge match.

Kodeš, a smallish 27-year-old from Czechoslovakia, had ridden the chip on his shoulder to a second US Open final. He wasn’t considered one of the big guns of men’s tennis, and not just because he stood only five-feet, nine-inches tall. He had won the French in 1970 and 1971 and Wimbledon this year, yet he was seeded only sixth at Forest Hills.

The Wimbledon title carried as much of an asterisk then as it does now. The player boycott wiped out most of the field, and Kodeš beat three lucky losers en route to the quarters. His last two victims were Roger Taylor and Alex Metreveli, good players but not great ones. Newcombe and Smith, champions in 1971 and 1972, were generally considered to be the men to beat on grass.

Kodeš could hardly ask for a better chance to prove himself. With Newk already in the final, he could beat both men and grab a US Open title in the process.

The match was a barnburner from the first point. Both men returned well, and many points turned into races to the net–often turning into thrilling exchanges of volleys once they got there. Kodeš grabbed the first set, 7-5. He so neutralized the booming Smith serve that he broke twice to earn a 4-0 lead in the second.

But the tall American charged back, evening the score and forcing a tiebreak. At 4-all–sudden death set point–Kodeš thought Smith missed his first serve and left it unplayed. The line judge disagreed. The Czech couldn’t believe it. He kicked a hole in a chair and “clapped” the line judge on the head. The set was lost, and the chip on his shoulder grew to unwieldy proportions.

Smith nearly rode that call to victory. Kodeš couldn’t get back into it, losing the third set, 6-1. But he eventually remembered the stakes and returned the favor, forcing a decider with a 6-1 frame of his own.

By then, night was falling. “We couldn’t see much,” Kodeš said, “but neither of us wanted to quit.” At last, both men peaked again. They hit their shots at full power, and nearly every point was won, not lost. Bud Collins wrote that “they were just slugging away at each other like two fighters in the 15th round.”

At 5-all, Kodeš finally broke through. He reached 15-40 on the Smith serve, watching Stan save both with cannonballs. When Smith got to game point, it was the Czech’s turn. He kept the serve in play and landed three groundstroke winners to reach 6-5. Four points later, it was over.

Kodeš wouldn’t be well rested for the final, but his desire to prove himself was undimmed. The 1973 Wimbledon champion was one match away from making it two majors in a row–and picking up a $25,000 check to equal Margaret’s.

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:

 

Chrissie Evert was only 18 years old, and she already had sportswriters reaching for their history books. Her matches with Margaret Court had become the most gripping rivalry in women’s tennis. In the final at the French, Court beat her in three bruising sets. At Wimbledon, Evert won a see-saw semi-final. Now they would meet again for a place in the US Open final. The New York Times compared the duel to “Wills–Jacobs” or “King–Richey”–in other words, the stuff of epics.

On September 7th, the ladies did not disappoint. The match showcased both players at their best. It also made a case for the equality–perhaps even the superiority–of women’s tennis. While many of the surviving men griped about the conditions, Court and Evert got down to business and grappled with the heat, the wind, and the divot-marred grass.

Margaret took an early 5-2 lead, then let it go when she abandoned her net attack to “sneak a rest.” A few lucky breaks went her way, and she escaped with the set, 7-5. The second turned into a baseline battle. After a series of long rallies and chalk-raising groundstrokes, Evert evened things up, 6-2.

The Forest Hills crowd hadn’t seen much in the way of outstanding baseline play in 1973. A constant complaint throughout the event was the quality of the turf. Jan Kodeš, slated for a semi-final against Stan Smith the next day, had said, “You got to get to the ball before it bounces.” Other men registered their displeasure with New York’s air pollution. Combine all that with the heat and humidity, and no one was in the mood to slug it out from the backcourt.

Ultimately, Court’s big hitting won the day. She broke for a 3-1 lead early in the third. Chrissie earned two chances at 15-40 in her next return game, but the veteran erased them with a service ace and a line-kissing winner. Evert didn’t give up–three of the final four games went to deuce–but she never found a way back in. Margaret advanced to her 29th career major final, 7-5, 2-6, 6-2.

With Bobby Riggs set to take on Billie Jean King in just two weeks, it was tough to forget Court’s worst result of the year: her 6-2, 6-1 loss to Riggs in May. Four months on, it was tough to imagine such an overpowering yet versatile player losing to the duck-walking senior citizen. Margaret felt that way, too. “He fooled me that time,” she said. “I’d be ready for him now.”

For the Australian, though, the Battle of the Sexes was just a sideshow. Now, only Evonne Goolagong stood in the way of a fifth Forest Hills title, a 24th major overall, and a record-setting $150,000 in single-season prize money. She was more than just half of a great rivalry. Fans and pundits alike couldn’t help but think she might just be the greatest of all time.

* * *

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.

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email: