In His Ownself , Dan Jenkins takes us on a tour of his legendary career as a sportswriter and novelist. Here we see Dan's hone his craft, from his high school paper through to his first job at the Fort Worth Press and on to the glory days of Sports Illustrated . Whether in Texas, New York, or anywhere for that matter, Dan was always at the center of it all--hanging out at Elaine's while swapping stories with politicians and movie stars, covering every Masters and U.S. Open and British Open for over four decades. The result is a knee-slapping, star-studded, once-in-a-lifetime memoir from one of the most important, hilarious, and semi-cantankerous sportswriters ever.

"A casual and sly sportswriter's memoir. . . . Dan Jenkins has been among America's best and funniest sportswriters for more than six decades."--The New York Times
 
"Dan Jenkins is the Ben Hogan of sportswriting."--Phil Mickelson, pro golfer
  
"This is merely the greatest sportswriter of them all finally giving us an entire book about his greatest character:  His Ownself." --Mike Lupica
 
"Dan takes you on his lifelong journey through the world of sports and sports journalism. . . .  Be prepared to laugh a lot." --George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States

Autorentext

Dan Jenkins

Zusammenfassung
In His Ownself, Dan Jenkins takes us on a tour of his legendary career as a sportswriter and novelist. Here we see Dan's hone his craft, from his high school paper through to his first job at theFort Worth Press *and on to the glory days of *Sports Illustrated. Whether in Texas, New York, or anywhere for that matter, Dan was always at the center of it all—hanging out at Elaine's while swapping stories with politicians and movie stars, covering every Masters and U.S. Open and British Open for over four decades. The result is a knee-slapping, star-studded, once-in-a-lifetime memoir from one of the most important, hilarious, and semi-cantankerous sportswriters ever.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

The Fine Art of Sitting Around and Hanging Out

It seems to me that in my busiest years of writing for a living, I spent most of my free time in convivial bars. I didn’t seek out the bars so much for the whiskey as I did for the atmosphere. A decent bar was a place where I could sip a cocktail, smoke a cigarette, have engrossing conversations with friends, and if there was music at all it was a jukebox with Sinatra and Judy and others on it with a regard for melody--in contrast to today’s eruptions of Krakatoa. I could sit in comfort and eventually reach for a cheese stick or a deviled egg. Dinner at last.

There were a lot of bars like that. They were easy to find after I’d licked another deadline for--in order of my employment--the Fort Worth Press, Dallas Times Herald, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, and Golf Digest.

Hotels provided such hangouts. Downtowns offered them. Neighborhoods had them. They provided a calmness and sanity to life, travel, deadlines, and those occasions when an editor might mistake a machete for a pencil.

Truthfully, I can say that in sixty-five years of covering sports and sidelining as a book author, my stuff hasn’t been raped and plundered too much. There were a few times at Sports Illustrated in the New York days when I’d feel that my stuff suffered cruel and unusual punishment. If an editor, for example, would insert “faster than a speeding bullet” in my copy, I’d resist the urge to throw his pot plant overboard. Instead, I’d take out my revenge by staying in another luxury hotel on the road.

Say it was the Beverly Hills. I’d reserve a cabana by the pool, relax over a cocktail, have a McCarthy Salad, and watch the fat music mogul in thongs and dark glasses yell at people on the phone.

Those were the days when it was almost impossible to abuse an SI expense account because the magazine was wallowing in coin. It enabled me to avoid discomfort and inconvenience.

It was in a bar that I reconnected with the incomparable June Burrage, girl of my dreams since high school. The bar in Fort Worth was the Key Club in the Western Hills Hotel, and we dined later in the Branding Room. We were both between pictures.

After dinner I took out my gold Dunhill, lit her cigarette, stared into her eyes, and said, “I’ve got Texas with nine and a half over Syracuse in the Cotton Bowl--what do you think?”

She said, “Can I go?”

We should have married years earlier, but life got in the way. I made two earlier mistakes in the marriage game.

My first was Pattie, the high school girlfriend. We were married for, oh, thirty minutes, maybe forty-five. Just long enough for both of us to realize it was financially irresponsible.

The second was less of a marriage than two people finding themselves trapped in an Edward Albee play. Joan was a young English professor at TCU and she happened to come from a wealthy family, which made her twice as smart as me.

Both divorces were almost the same thing as affable. No kids or money involved. Each split fell into the category of You Take the Books, I’ll Take the Records.

Flashback. It’s 1997 at the Ryder Cup in Valderrama, Spain. I was in the press lounge, which could pass for a bar, when I was told that a lady from America was at the door and wanted to say hello. I went out and found a slender woman in dark glasses and graying hair.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do we know each other?”

She said, “I’m Joan, you asshole.”

Christ, I hadn’t seen her in forty years.

I said, “It is you! What are you doing here? You used to hate golf. You used to throw clock radios at golf.”

“Nice seeing you, too,” she smiled.

We laughed and visited for twenty minutes about life itself, then she went back to Austin, Texas, and I went back to acting interested in Spain.

June married at nineteen in her folly of youth, and it didn’t last for whatever reason, or reasons, some marriages don’t last.

The fact is, I’ve been the luckiest sumbitch ever allowed to make a living as a writer. Luckier still that June and I found each other. We’ve produced three wonderful kids--Sally, Marty, and Danny. We enjoy great friends from high school, college, journalism, and sports. We’re still laughing and loving our way through life after fifty-four years together.

It’s hardly news that there’s trouble, strife, and entanglements in everybody’s life. But when messy things happen, I tend to fall back on the words of Billy Clyde Puckett.

Billy Clyde didn’t go to Harvard, but he was still deep enough to say: “Laughter is the only thing that cuts trouble down to a size where you can talk to it.”

My down time was more satisfying in civilized bars. A civilized bar is where it was discovered that the problem with sitting around is you never know when it’s over.

Part of the appeal is that cynical wit exists in civilized bars where writers gather. As do suggestions on how editors with tin ears and blue pencils can be captured and put in straitjackets for making stories look like squirrels have been nibbling on them.

Incidentally, I have to say that bars looked more civilized before so many sportswriters began wearing shorts and sneakers. Today you can find dozens of them armed with bottles of funny-colored health drinks. Things that could pass for A‑Rod’s specimen.

Among them, there’s always one who will take it to DEFCON 2 if anybody lights up a Marlboro.

Many are friends and while I’m pleased to see them looking fit and comfortably attired, it’s not easy to envision the old heroes of my …