Comparative Study. The Chairman and the Boss

The Chairman and the Boss

1. List what the author of this article says about
Frank Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board,
and Bruce Springsteen, the Boss. Pay
particular attention to

• the impact of their music on American people and culture the spiritual character of their music their audiences their best albums the protagonists of their songs their (ethnic) backgrounds their personalities their performing powers their political commitments.

2. Where does the author see parallels and
where does he see differences?

3. Pick a few songs from both superstars.
Categorize them and say whether you agree
with the description the author gives of their
songs.

14 SportS

PART A Background Information

A SPORTS-LOVING NATION

MEDIA COVERAGE

PRIVATE AND

INSTITUTIONALIZED

ACTIVITIES

Whether they are fans or players, the millions of Americans who participate in sports are usually passionate about their games. There is more to being a baseball fan than buying season tickets to the home team's games. A real fan not only can recite each player's batting average, but also competes with other fans to prove who knows the answers to the most obscure and trivial questions about the sport. That's dedication. Dedication short of madness is also what inspired hundreds of thousands of football fans to fill Denver's stadium in dangerously freezing temperatures, not to watch an exciting game but just to demonstrate team support in a pre-Superbowl pep rally, days before the actual contest. And it is with passion that Americans pursue the latest fitness fad, convinced that staying fit requires much more than regular exercise and balanced meals. For anyone who claims a real desire to stay healthy, fitness has become a science of quantification involving weighing, measuring, moni­toring, graph charting, and computer printouts. These are the tools for knowing all about pulse and heart rates, calorie intake, fat cell per muscle cell ratios, and almost anything else that shows the results of a workout.

The immense popularity of sports in America is indicated by the number of pages and headlines the average daily newspaper devotes to local and national sports. The emphasis on sports is evident in local evening news telecasts, too. Every evening for five to seven minutes of the half-hour local news show, the station's sports analyst, whose territory is exclusively sports, reports on local, regional, and national sports events.

Television has made sports available to all. For those who cannot afford tickets or travel to expensive play-offs like baseball's World Series or football's final Superbowl, a flick of the television dial provides close-up viewing that beats front row seats. Although estimates vary, the major networks average about 500 hours each of sports programming a year. Recently, the emergence of several cable channels that specialize in sports gives viewers even more options. The foremost of these channels, ESPN, runs sports shows at least 22 hours a day and is now received by 37 million American homes, or nearly half of the 86 million homes with television sets.

Opportunities for keeping fit and playing sports are numerous. Jogging is extremely popular, perhaps because it is the cheapest and most accessible sport. Aerobic exercise and training with weight-lifting machines are two activities which more and more men and women are pursuing. Books, videos,

Superbowl: the championship game of the National Football League. pep rally: an assembly intended to inspire enthusiasm.

246 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

American football

and fitness-conscious movie stars that play up the glamour of fitness have heightened enthusiasm for these exercises and have promoted the muscular, healthy body as the American beauty ideal. Most communities have recreational parks with tennis and basketball courts, a football or soccer field, and outdoor grills for picnics. These parks generally charge no fees for the use of these facilities. Some large corporations, hospitals, and churches have indoor gym­nasiums and organize informal team sports. For those who can afford member­ship fees, there is the exclusive country club and its more modern version, the health and fitness center. Members of these clubs have access to all kinds of indoor and outdoor sports: swimming, volleyball, golf, racquetball, handball, tennis, and basketball. Most clubs also offer instruction in various sports and exercise methods.

SPORTS 247

AMERICAN SPORTS

VIOLENCE AND SPORTS

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS

Schools and colleges have institutionalized team sports for young people. Teams and competitions are highly organized and competitive and generally receive substantial local publicity. High schools and colleges commonly have a school team for each of these sports: football, basketball, baseball, tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, and track, and sometimes for soccer, swimming, hockey, volleyball, fencing, and golf. Practices and games are generally held on the school premises after classes are over. High schools and colleges recognize outstanding athletic achievement with trophies, awards, and scholarships, and student athletes receive strong community support.

Football, baseball, and basketball, the most popular sports in America, originated in the United States and are largely unknown or only minor pastimes outside North America. The football season starts in early autumn and is followed by basketball, an indoor winter sport, and then baseball, played in spring and summer. Besides these top three sports, ice hockey, boxing, golf, car racing, horse racing, and tennis have been popular for decades and attract large audiences.

Although many spectator sports, particularly pro football, ice hockey, and boxing, are aggressive and sometimes bloody, American spectators are notably less violent than are sports crowds in other countries. Fighting, bottle throwing, and rioting, common elsewhere, are not the rule among American fans. Base­ball and football games are family affairs, and cheerleaders command the remarkably non-violent crowd to root in chorus for their teams.

For many people, sports are big business. The major television networks contract with professional sports leagues for the rights to broadcast their games. The guaranteed mass viewing of major sports events means advertisers will pay networks a lot of money to sponsor the program with announcements for their products. Advertisers for beer, cars, and men's products are glad of the opportunity to push their goods to the predominantly male audience of the big professional sports. Commercial businesses enjoy the publicity which brings in sales. The networks are glad to fill up program hours and attract audiences who might perhaps become regular viewers of other programs produced by those networks, and the major sports leagues enjoy the millions of dollars the networks pay for the broad-casting rights contracts. Many sports get half of their revenues from the networks. National Football League (NFL) teams, for example, get about 65 percent of their revenues from television. The networks' 1986 contract with the NFL provided each of the 28 teams in the league with an average of $14 million a year.

Just as in any business, investments are made and assets are exchanged. Team owners usually sign up individual players for lucrative long-term con­tracts. Star quarterback Joe Namath was invited to play for the New York Jets, one of the NFL teams, for $425,000 in 1965. Coveted baseball player Kirk Gibson recently signed a three-year contract with the Detroit Tigers for $4.1 million. More often in the past than now, team owners traded players back and forth as items for barter.

Any business operator hopes to get a good deal. However, the network sports industries have not been faring well lately. They have experienced financial setbacks mainly caused by the oversaturation of sports programming on networks and competing cable channels. Networks claim they are now losing money on once-lucrative telecasts. Ironically, the slump in business is occurring at a time when sports shows are drawing larger audiences than in recent years. Part of the problem is that advertising costs got too high, and the

248 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

COLLEGE SPORTS

STUDENT ATHLETES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

WINNING

industries that traditionally buy ads—beer and car companies —are not paying the high prices. Networks, dependent on advertising for revenue, are hoping that the market will change before they have to make drastic reductions ir sports programming.

The commercial aspects of American professional sports can make or break an athlete's career. Young, talented athletes make it to the top because they are exceptionally talented, but not in every case because they are the best. In women's tennis, for example, an aspiring young tennis star must not only possess a winning serve and backhand, she must also get corporate agents on her side. Without agents who line up sponsors and publicity, a player has a very difficult time moving from amateur to professional sports. To get the endorsement of corporate advertising sponsors, a talented young tennis player has a much better chance for success if she is also attractive. Sales-conscious tennis sportswear companies pay large sums of money to tennis pros who promote their products. Many top players earn more money a year in product-endorsement fees than in prize money. Competition and success in sports, then, is not only a matter of game skill, but marketability as well.

College sports lost its amateurism years ago. Teams and events are institu­tionalized and contribute to college publicity and revenue. Sports bring in money to colleges from ticket sales and television rights, so colleges like having winning teams. The better the team, the greater the ticket sales and television coverage, and the more money the college can channel back into athletics and other programs. Football and basketball are the most lucrative college sports because they attract the most fans. Other college sports, particu­larly women's sports, are often neglected and ignored by spectators, the news media, and athletic directors who often disregard women's sports budgets and funnel money for equipment and facilities into the sports that pay. On the other hand, top college teams get a lot of attention. In 1986, the Division 1 college football programs had a budget of nearly $1 billion, while entertaining millions of spectators and television viewers.

To recruit student athletes for a winning team, many colleges are willing to go to great lengths, providing full academic scholarships to athletes, and sometimes putting the college's academic reputation at risk. The tacit under­standing shared by college admissions directors as well as the potential sports stars they admit is that athletes do not enroll in college to learn, but to play sports and perhaps use intercollegiate sports as a springboard for a professional career. The situation often embarrasses college administrators, who are caught between educational ideals and commercial realities, and infuriates other students, who resent the preferential treatment given to athletes. Of late, some universities, such as the University of Michigan, have initiated support pro­grams to improve academic performance and graduation rates of athletes.

Increasing commercialization of college sports is part of a larger trend. American sports are becoming more competitive and more profit-oriented. As a result, playing to win is emphasized more than playing for fun. This is true from the professional level all the way down to the level of children's Little League sports teams, where young players are encouraged by such slogans as "A quitter never wins; a winner never quits," and "never be willing to be second best." The obsession with winning causes some people to wonder whether sports in America should be such serious business.

part в Texts

° Interview:

High School Sports

Q: Steve, you graduated from high school in Quincy, II, and afterwards went to school in Germany for almost a year. As far as school sports are concerned, do you think there is a great difference between Germany and the U.S.A.? A: Yes, a large difference, actually. In Germany, school sports mean P.E., whereas in the U.S. the school sports program has a double role, with the P.E. program on one side and organized competitive sports on the other. In Germany, the function of the competitive sports is taken over by non-school sport clubs, which exist only in small numbers in the U.S.

Q: Let's first talk about physical education or P.E., as it is commonly called. What role does it play in the curriculum?

A: Well, it's a requirement, which means that every student must be enrolled in a P.E. course, and the courses meet five times a week for one hour a day.

Q: What kinds of sports are offered? A: There's usually a period right at the beginning of each semester where a general physical fitness program is done, and, after that, the students get to choose between various team and individual sports ranging from basketball, football and baseball to tennis, weight lifting and aerobics. Q: Let's turn to competitive sports now. What were the most popular teams at your school, and how important were they for the school? A: The biggest team at QHS is by far the boy's basketball team, and then the other teams are heavily dependent on success. For instance, in the last couple of years, the girls' volleyball team has had some success, and, of course, that means a more popular following for the team, although the basketball team has always had a cult following, through thick and thin.

Q: So, obviously, the home games of the top teams are the important events in the life of the school, aren't they?

A: Yes, they are. The basketball games attract a large, diverse audience. They're played at the senior high gym, and it's always packed to capacity. Another thing, if the basketball team were to go to the state tournament, the students would be released from school early so that they would have the opportunity to travel with the team. And we can't forget the financial implications: the games generate revenue for the school.

Q: What other things beside the actual competition on the field add to the atmosphere of the game?

A: At the very beginning of the game, when the players are introduced, the mascot from Quincy comes out dressed as a blue devil. The high school team is called the Blue Devils. He walks out with a flaming pitchfork, and he goes around the gym, which is divided into sections, and, with his back to the crowd, he covers himself in his cape. All of a sudden, he turns around, throwing open his cape, and everybody in that section stands up and cheers as loud as they can, with the student section generating the loudest screams. On top of that there's a band to add to the pre-game and intermission carnival atmosphere, and there's the omnipresent cheerleaders for the same purpose. Q: What do you understand by cheerleaders? A: These are girls, organized into squads, who perform various chants and acrobatics to hype up the crowd.

Q: Do they wear special clothes? A: It's the lack of clothes more than the clothes. They wear very provocative outfits. Q: To what extent does the community become

250 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

1. continued

involved and interested in those games? Do you remember incidents that would illustrate this interest?

A: The community has always been very much behind the basketball program at QHS. For example, when we went to the state tournament in 1981, a local printing company distributed posters, and, driving around town, you could see these posters with this huge blue devil staring out at you on just about every house, and then many Quincians went to the tournament to support the team. And during the regular season, the games are always broadcast on the radio, and, like I said before, the gymnasium is always filled to capacity, so there is a very big grass roots support, and that multiplies when the team is successful. For example, when a team returns from state tourney, it goes to the mall, gets on board an old fire truck and parades around town before going to the gym for a victory rally, which is like a large party for the players and fans.

Q: I guess the members of the top basketball team are very popular with the other students and with the girls.

A: Yeah, they're the stars of the high school community, and, as long as they don't get too arrogant, they're highly regarded by the major portion of the high school population. The girls find the guys to be quite sexy, but the guys at the high school tend to lean toward the cheerleaders rather than the basketball players. Q: Imagine a student wants to join the basketball team. How does he go about it? A: Well, the basketball team in Quincy is very selective, and there's quite a competition for membership, but it's pretty well all decided by the time the people are playing at the junior high. The other teams are more open to entrance later on. Q: What do they do to train?

High-school basketball game

A: As with any sport, a major portion of time is devoted to callisthenics, just general physical fitness, and the rest of the time is spent on tactics, teamwork and basic skills. Q: How would you describe the role of the coach?

A: The coach is of major importance for the team, as he determines their success to a large extent. Coaches are hired by the school board as coaches first and as teachers second. And when a coach's luck runs out, he's gone as a coach, but he's retained as a teacher. The community at large stands behind the coaches when they have a winning record; for instance, one fan in Quincy gave a basketball coach a brand new Corvette, just for being a good coach.

tourney, tournament.

SPORTS 251

^e SPORTS IN AMERICA:

COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

by James A. Michener

The athletic programs of American colleges and universities have come in for a great deal of criticism but there does not seem to be a chance to alter the system.

James A. Michener gives background information and comments on the problems.

First, the United States is the only nation in the world, so far as I know, which demands that its schools like Harvard, Ohio State and Claremont assume responsibility for providing the public with sports entertainment. Ours is a unique system

which has no historical sanction or application elsewhere. It would be unthinkable for the Univer­sity of Bologna, a most ancient and honorable school, to provide scholarships to illiterate soccer players so that they could entertain the other cities of northern Italy, and it would be equally preposter­ous for either the Sorbonne or Oxford to do so in their countries. Our system is an American pheno­menon, a historical accident which developed from the exciting football games played by Yale and Harvard and to a lesser extent Princeton and certain other schools during the closing years of

College football

252 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

2. continued

the nineteenth century. If we had had at that time professional teams which provided public football entertainment, we might not have placed the burden on our schools. But we had no professional teams, so our schools were handed the job.

Second, if an ideal American educational system were being launched afresh, few would want to saddle it with the responsibility for public sports entertainment. I certainly would not. But since, by a quirk of history, it is so saddled, the tradition has become ingrained and I see not the remotest chance of altering it. I therefore approve of con­tinuing it, so long as certain safeguards are in­stalled. Categorically, I believe that our schools must continue to offer sports entertainment, even though comparable institutions throughout the rest of the world are excused from doing so.

Third, I see nothing wrong in having a college or a university provide training for the young man or woman who wants to devote his adult life to sports. My reasoning is twofold: 1) American society has ordained that sports shall be a major aspect of our

national life, with major attention, major financial support and major coverage in the media. How possibly can a major aspect of life be ignored by our schools? 2) If it is permissible to train young musicians and actors in our universities, and endow munificent departments to do so, why is it not equally legitimate to train young athletes, and endow them with a stadium?

Fourth, because our schools have volunteered to serve as unpaid training grounds for future professionals, and because some of the lucky schools with good sports reputations can earn a good deal of money from the semi-professional football and basketball teams they operate, the temptation to recruit young men skilled at games but totally unfitted for academic work is over­powering. We must seriously ask if such behavior is legitimate for an academic institution. There are honorable answers, and! know some of them, but if we do not face this matter forthrightly, we are going to run into trouble.

BASEBALL

B

aseball is a nine-a-side game played with bat, ball, and glove, mainly in the U.S.A. Teams consist of a pitcher and catcher, called the battery, first, second, and third basemen, and shortstop, called the infield, and right, centre, and left fielders, called the outfield. Substitute players may enter the game at any time, but once a player is removed he cannot return.

The standard ball has a cork-and-rubber centre wound with woollen yam and covered with horse-hide. It weighs from 5 to 5 1/4 oz. (148 g.) and is from 9 to 9 1/2 in. (approx. 23 cm.) in circumfer­ence.... The bat is a smooth, round, tapered piece of hard wood not more than 2 3/4 in. (ap­prox. 7 cm.) in diameter at its thickest part and no more than 42 in. (1.07 m.) long.

Originally, fielders played barehanded, but gloves have been developed over the years. First basemen wear a special large mitt, and catchers use a large, heavily-padded mitt as well as a chest protector, shin guards, and a metal mask. Catchers

were at first unprotected. Consequently, they stood back at a distance from home plate and caught pitched balls on the bounce, but the intro­duction of the large, round, well-padded mitt or "pillow glove" and the face mask enabled them to move up close behind the plate and catch pitched balls on the fly. Players wear shoes with steel cleats and, while batting and running the bases, they use protective plastic helmets.

The game is played on a field containing four bases placed at the angles of a 90-ft. (27.4 m.) square (often called a diamond): home plate and, in counter-clockwise order, first, second, and third base. Two foul lines form the boundaries of fair territory. Starting at home, these lines extend past first and third base the entire length of the field, which is often enclosed by a fence at its farthest limits.

The object of each team is to score more runs than the other. A run is scored whenever a player circles all the bases and reaches home without being put out. The game is divided into innings, in

SPORTS 253

3. continued

each of which the teams alternate at bat and in the field. A team is allowed three outs in each half-inning at bat, and must then take up defensive positions in the field while the other team has its turn to try to score. Ordinarily, a game consists of nine innings; in the event of a tie, extra innings are played until one team outscores the other in the same number of innings.

The players take turns batting from home plate in regular rotation. The opposing pitcher throws the ball to his catcher from a slab (called the "rubber") on the pitcher's mound, a slightly raised area of the field directly between home and se­cond base.... Bases are canvas bags fastened to metal pegs set in the ground.

The batter tries to reach base safely after hitting the pitched ball into fair territory. A hit that enables him to reach first base is called a "single," a two-base hit is a "double," a three-base hit a "triple," and a four-base hit a "home-run." A fair ball hit over an outfield fence is automatically a home run. A batter is also awarded his base if the pitcher delivers four pitches which, in the umpire's judge­ment, do not pass through the "strike zone" — that is, over home plate between the batter's armpits and knees; or if he is hit by a pitched ball; or if the opposing catcher interferes when he swings the bat. To prevent the batter from hitting safely, baseball pitchers deliver the ball with great speed and accuracy and vary its speed and trajectory. Success in batting, therefore, requires courage and a high degree of skill.

After a player reaches base safely, his prog­ress towards home depends largely on his team mates' hitting the ball in such a way that he can advance....

Players may be put out in various ways. A batter is out when the pitcher gets three 'strikes' on him. A strike is a pitch that crosses the plate in the strike zone, or any pitch that is struck at and missed or is hit into foul territory. After two strikes, however, foul balls do not count except when a batter 'bunts' — lets the ball meet the bat instead of swinging at it — and the ball rolls foul. A batter is also out if he hits the ball in the air anywhere in fair or foul territory and it is caught by an opponent before it touches the ground. He is out if he hits the ball on the ground and a fielder catches and throws it to a player at first base, or catches it and touches that base, before the batter (now become a base runner) gets there.

A base nnner may be put out if, while off base, he is tagged by an opposing player with the hand or glove holding the ball, or if he is forced to leave his base to make room for another runner and fails to reach the next base before an opposing player tags him or the base; or if he is hit by a team mate's batted ball before it has touched or passed a fielder.

An umpire-in-chief "calls" balls and strikes from his position directly behind the catcher at home plate, and one or more base umpires determine whether runners are safe or out at the other three bases.

254 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

HEALTH

Running for your Life

A Harvard study links exercise with longevity

T

HE hordes of Americans who roll out of bed, slip into their Reeboks and run for an hour in the face of snarling dogs, potential muggers and hordes of Americans heading in the opposite direction on their Schwinn 10-speeds must wonder sometimes whether it's worth the aggra­vation. After all, if a rash of recent books and articles like "The Exercise Myth" can be believed, the evidence that physical activity leads to a longer and healthier life is based on a flawed interpretation of cause and effect. It isn't that exercise prolongs life, the argu­ment goes, it's just that people who engage in sports and active occupations are healthier in the first place. But the fitness buffs should not put their rowing machines in dry dock just yet. According to a long-term study in­volving nearly 17,000 loyal sons of Harvard, it now seems that athletic effort is far from a waste of time. Moderate exercise, said a report in last week's New England Journal of Medicine, can add up to two years to a person's life.

In the mid-1960s Dr. Ralph S. Paffenbarger Jr. and his colleagues at the Stanford Uni­versity School of Medicine recruited the Harvard graduates, 35 to 74, and asked them to answer detailed questionnaires about their general health and living habits. Follow-ups carried out until 1978 showed that men who expended at least 2,000 calories per week through exercise had mortality rates one-quarter to one-third lower than those burning up fewer calories. The life-prolonging level of activity cited in the re­port is the equivalent of five hours of brisk walking, about four hours of jogging or a shade more than three hours of squash. More exercise meant a better chance at a long life - up to a point. A regimen that burned more than 3,500 calories tended to cause injuries that negated most of the benefits derived from exercise.

Countering disease: During the survey, 1,413 of the men died: 45 percent from heart disease, 32 percent from cancer, 13 percent from other "natural causes" and 10 percent

Reeboks: trademark of jogging shoes.

Schwinn 10-speed: trademark of racing bicycles.

Jogging for health

from trauma. While previous studies in­dicated that exercise protects against heart disease, Harvard's is the first to show a favorable effect of exercise on mortality from all diseases. As would be expected, smoking, high blood pressure and a familial history of death at an early age were associated with an increased mortality risk. But, according to the study, exercise played a significant part in countering even these major factors. For example, hypertensive men who exer­cised had half the mortality rate of their counterparts who remained sedentary. Among smokers, exercise reduced deaths by about 30 percent.

Harvard men who were varsity athletes while in college — and were thus presumed by the researchers to have been starting out life with basically strong bodies - had no advantage over their classmates in terms of survival rates. Indeed, lettermen who sub­sequently turned soft and sedentary in­creased their mortality risk. "It's not the kind of activity that you did in college... but the amount of contemporary activity that's associated with the long survival," says Paffenbarger.

Matt Ci.ark with Karen Spring^n

lettermen: people who have been awarded a letter, the initial of their school, for outstanding performance especially in sports.

Anything wrong?"

SPORTS 255

256 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

LOUSY AT SPORTS

I'VE DECIDED TO COME OUT OF THE closet. It is not an easy decision to admit openly that I really don't like sports. There — I've said it.

Do you know what it's like to be a man who is not a sports fan? Who not only doesn't care who wins the World Series but who is never exactly sure which teams are playing? Who never, but never, reads the sports section?

I approach this subject with a light touch, but in truth it has been a problem that has plagued me for most of my life, particularly when I was a young boy. For to be a boy not interested in sports was, particularly back then, to run the risk of being thought a homosexual. As a matter of fact, at an early age, when I began to face the awful truth that I simply had no taste for the world of athletics either as participant or observer, I kept it very quiet. Could it be that, indeed, I was a "fairy" or reasonable facsimile thereof? (The euphemism "gay" came into the language later.)

When I married and my wife became pregnant, I kept my fingers crossed. "Please

don't make it a boy." He'll insist that I play ball with him, take him to Yankee Stadium and engage in the sports rituals so necessary for healthy male bonding. It was a girl, and I was saved. But only for a while. Three and a half years later, Jonathan was born. When he was 8 years old, I forced the poor kid to go to a park in New York, where I would lob softballs his way, demanding that he hit them back to me. I saw, almost at once, that Jonathan had inherited my disease. He was lousy at sports, too.

Even after three marriages, three children, and some in-between love affairs, plus the sure knowledge that I adore women, I still feel, from time to time, that, somehow, I must be lacking in the right male genes.

When I first came to New York in the 1940s, I had been a newscaster and announcer at a San Francisco radio station. Gotham was tough for a newcomer. I was hungry, anxious and in need of work. I auditioned for everything.

One day, I was called in by radio station WOR and told there was an opportunity to audition for the job of host of a panel game. "What sort of game?" I asked politely, although I knew that whatever it was, I would grab it if I could.

"It's a sports quiz," the executive explained.

I felt the blood leave my face.

"We were hoping to make Jack Dempsey the host," he went on, "bui when we put a microphone in front of Jack's face, he froze. So what we want is for Dempsey to sit at your side to give the program authenticity, but you'll be the real moderator. We've lined up the best sportswriters in the country to be on the panel. Do you think you can handle it?"

I agonized. I saw the $150 fee (huge money back then) fade into the distance. I took a breath. "Absolutely," I said. "I can certainly handle a sports quiz." I looked the executive right in the eye.

SPORTS 257

5. continued

Before the audition, I took care to find out that Jack Dempsey was a former heavyweight boxing champion. Then I tried out and — mirabile dictul — got the job. For 26 weeks, every Monday night, I would bravely pitch sports questions at the experts arrayed at the panel desk in front of me. It was an excruciating experience. It made me remember boyhood nightmares in which I would be in a strange classroom about to take a final exam in a course I had never heard of.

Apparently, I got away with the bluff, because not one of the sports mavens ever seemed to doubt that I knew whereof I spoke. The proof came a few weeks after the demise of that quiz when I was once again called by WOR.

My employer smiled benevolently. "You've done a good job, Goodson. Now I have a real opportunity for you. We are looking for someone to help describe the Dodger ball games from Ebbets Field. How does that strike you?"

I paused. I had never been to a major-league ball game. I knew nothing, minus zero, about baseball. He responded to my hesitation. "This is a big deal, guaranteed $25,000 a year." I swallowed. "I'll do it." "Good," he replied, looking at his calendar. "We will give you an on-the-air test in about two weeks." "Terrific," I said — and dashed to the nearest bookstore.

There, I bought "Baseball: The Official Rules." If it wasn't 100 pages thick, it seemed to be. I began on page 1, where the precise measurements of the "diamond" were

diagramed, then went on to the functions and duties of each player in the infield and outfield, the definition of a strike, a foul, an infield fly and on and on through the fine print. As I got to the 10th page, I collapsed. Much as I needed the money, I knew there was no way that I could manage this bluff! I can't remember the alibi I gave the executive, but certainly it wasn't anything as shameful as "I've really never seen a baseball game." But I did bow out.

Twenty years later, long after I had given up performing and was running a television production company specializing in "game" shows (quite an irony for a non-sports-fan to earn a living at "games"), I was invited by my banker to have dinner on the company yacht while cruising around Manhattan Island. It was a "men only" party, and the talk centered on business and, of course, sports.

After dinner, I stood on the deck in a group that included Gene Tunney, another former heavyweight champion and by then a successful Wall Street investor. I thought I was doing an acceptable job of being responsive to the sports chatter, when Tunney suddenly broke off from the conversation, turned, gazed down at me suspiciously from his enormous height. "Goodson," he asked, "tell me about you. What do you do for a living?"

Because "What's My Line?" was my show at that time, it seemed natural for me to respond, "What do you think I do?" He looked at me thoughtfully. "Goodson, I'd say you are a poet."

I blushed. I knew what he meant. He'd found me out.

Mark Goodson is president of Goodson-Todman TV Productions.

PART C Exercises

1. Comprehension

Interview: High School Sports

Which way of completing each of the following sentences agrees with the information given in the interview?

1. When compared with Germany, school
sports in the U.S.

a) put much more emphasis on competitive
sports.

b) are almost entirely organized by sports
clubs.

c) consist of competitive sports and, equally
important, P.E.

2. In P.E., students

a) do individual sports only.

b) can choose between team and individual
sports.

c) have to go through a general fitness
program.

3. The popularity of the basketball team at
QHS

a) has traditionally been strong.

b) has recently been matched by the girls'
volleyball team.

c) is strongly dependent on its success.

4. The basketball games are important for the
school because they

a) attract large audiences.

b) attract new students.

c) improve the school's finances.

5. At QHS 'Blue Devils' is the name of

a) the school's teams.

b) the mascots.

c) the basketball team's following.

6. The cheerleaders' function is

a) to stimulate the players during the
games.

b) to create a stimulating atmosphere in
order to support their team.

c) to please the audience through their
appearance and performance.

7. The community supports the basketball
team by

a) having large posters printed for every
game.

b) attending the home games.

c) frequently accompanying the team to
tournaments outside of Quincy.

8. When a successful team returns from a
tournament,

a) it is enthusiastically welcomed by the
community.

b) it parades along the mall on an old fire
truck.

c) it first goes to the gym to celebrate its
success.

9. The members of the basketball team are

a) popular unless they get too arrogant.

b) as popular with the girls as the
cheerleaders are with the boys.

c) unpopular because they are too arrogant.
10. The coach of the basketball team

a) is a local, celebrity as long as the team is
successful.

b) will lose his coaching job if he is not
successful.

c) cannot be fired as a coach.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26