The Sheppard is my Lord

What with the longer-than-the-Soccer-War-the-War-of-the-Stray-Dog-and-the-War-of-the-Cricket-Match-combined break before the championship match, I have decided to expand my horizons a bit while hopefully keeping my skills in shape while not entirely neglecting New York and Miami.

It is easy to forget that beyond the narrow confines of the sixty-four squares, there is a whole wide wonderful world of computers, printers, and pairing sheets. It was in just this world that I was luxuriating last January when I saw, a few feet away, a twelvish kid brandish a rolled-up vinyl chessboard, then suddenly turn the rolled-up board to point at an age-mate and scream* “say hello to my little friend”. But long before twelve-year-old kids were playing with chessboards to pretend to be gangsters from twenty-five-year-old movies, grown men were playing with chessboards to fantasize about playing baseball.

These days, at Steve Immitt’s big January scholastic tournament at the New Yorker Hotel, there is a team room (where kids/coaches/parents chill/eat/make noise) less than ten feet from the directors’ room. There is even a secret back entrance to this latter room for the savvier among those unable to talk their way past the door guard into the sanctum sanctorum**. But back in the Twentieth Century (where I come from), this tournament was held downtown at the Borough of Manhattan Community College***, near the World Trade Center. There, the directors’ room could only be reached by walking down a long hallway, too cold for those without a director’s T-shirt to brave; too dark for those without director’s infra-red glasses to navigate. In a room this private, even a big, burly, thirty-five-year-old ex-New York Yankee could indulge himself in a little audible daydreaming. Joe Ausanio, former relief pitcher and then assistant tournament director, picked up a rolled-up vinyl chessboard and intoned, in a deep staccato, “now-bat-ting-for-the-Yang-keezz, num-ber-Fif-ty-Fouurrr, …..”. If you have ever watched the Yankees (or their opponents, for you haters), I’m sure you hear the voice of the great Bob Sheppard, who announced today that he retired two years ago. Nice career, Bob. Good luck in the rest of your life.


* “Scream” rather overstates it but I wanted to avoid the awkwardness of “say ‘say’”.

** That's "sanCtorum". Get your mind out of the gutter.

*** A fierce chess rival of UMBC (albeit without the cool theme song) in the halcyon days when “Dallas” was just an old TV show, or at most a Debbie-doer.