John Perrotta
Jun 17, 2016 | Sports, 1st pages
FOREWORD
John Perrotta, a bonafide Jersey boy with a wandering soul, was not necessarily destined to sink himself hip deep in the world of thoroughbred racing, consorting with an array of colorful characters with names like Peaches, Snake, Pockets and The Schnoz. But that’s where he ended up, and oh what stories he could tell.
Perrotta’s journey took him far and wide, to racetracks large and small, wheeling and dealing in search of fast horses worthy of strutting their stuff in world-class events like the Kentucky Derby, the Irish Derby and the Breeders’ Cup. Sometimes he caught them, sometimes they got away, but there was always a good story waiting at the end of the day.
Perrotta followed the money and he followed the dream, two forks in the same road that led him to the side of movers and shakers like Frank Stronach, the Austro-Canadian auto parts magnate who collected racetracks and racehorses as if they were trading cards. Like Robert Brennan, the empire builder in both thoroughbreds and finance who ended up cooling his jets behind bars. Like David Milch, the mercurial screenwriter and passionate consumer of all things racing, whether he was buying expensive horses at auction or boxing them in thousand dollar exactas.
Talk about good stories to tell.
Thankfully, Perrotta has told them in Racetracker, his heartfelt memoir dedicated in its title to the “racetrackers” he has known.
Jeff Foulk, Jay A. Blum
May 5, 2016 | Sports, 1st pages
IN THE BEGINNING
I have been a golfer since the age of 16. As I started to write the print version of this book, I was a mere one month short of my 66th birthday. I have always been very serious about sports; that is just my nature and interest. I was always a pretty decent athlete but somewhat held back by a lack of size and a lifetime of asthma. My Dad was always interested in sports, as a competitor, and fan, so I was schooled early in the lore of the game as well as the mechanics. I remember the stories I would hear from older people, about the hazards associated with golf in Scotland. The stories about the pot bunkers, the gorse, the wind, the rain, and all the other differences from the American game, made an early impression on my mind. But it always remained in the abstract. That was there, this is here, and I was busy trying to learn the game.
In 1984, I was 41 years old and living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and golf had become my primary source of recreation. That summer, I bought my first Video Cassette Recorder (VCR). One of the first things I recorded was the ’84 British Open, which was played at St. Andrews. It was the year that Seve beat Tom Watson, down the stretch. I still have that tape and watched it several times while preparing for my trip. I had always watched golf on television, especially the Majors, but had never had the luxury of revisiting them via video tape. That year I started a tradition, in which I still continue today, of recording the Majors and re-watching them when nothing else was on. While re-watching the Open, I became fascinated by the course at St. Andrews with all its humps and bumps and bounces of links golf. I thought it was amazing how different it was from our groomed and watered golf courses. It looked like a great challenge to keep the ball under the wind and play the game close to the ground.
W. McCarthy
Aug 17, 2015 | 1st pages, Sports
On October 12, 1929, standing at the center of the glorious arena known as Sanford Stadium, just before the Georgia versus Yale game commenced, was a group of men in civilian attire. Among those men was one whose appearance was ecstatic with cheerfulness. Over 30,000 spectators applauded. The man was Doctor Steadman Vincent Sanford, Dean of the University of Georgia, who had been encouraged by an idea and transformed it into veracity.
Doctor Sanford stood, listening to the praise of the speaker who, on behalf of grateful fans and alumni, was bestowing upon him a silver cup and $1,500.00 in gold. It was a small wonder his eyes drifted to the magnificent scene that was his Sanford Stadium come true.
Perhaps Doctor Sanford’s reflections drifted, too. He obviously remembered the pessimism his plan received when he initially announced his bold intentions. And pondered, assuredly, how his large-scale proposal had been considered an impossible endeavor, even by the men who most passionately wanted to see this plan consummated.
But there were not mere doubters who had to be won to this plan by Doctor Sanford. Among the trustees, faculty, alumni, and friends, were men who believed the task was unachievable.
They not only looked on Doctor Sanford as a desperate dreamer, but actually set out to discourage him; for they believed, if he failed, it would be the collapse of a man who would have shattered himself and lost his health, while attempting the impossible.
Undeterred, optimistic, and cheerful, Doctor Sanford set out, alone, towards his fundamental objective, a stadium large enough to accommodate any opponent in the nation. Not yard by yard, but inch by inch he initiated a single-handed effort to create his concept.
His energy was indomitable and his enthusiasm unfailing in the face of doubts that he could not understand, and rebuffs that made him only the more determined. Little by little, the fine, unselfish spirit of the man, who would not be discouraged by the apathy of others, or the physical weariness which assailed him, won the cooperation of every man and woman interested in the University.
Joe Muldowney
Aug 10, 2015 | 1st pages, Sports
WAS THAT THUNDER?
A good day to run a marathon is usually a bad day to watch a marathon. That was not the case on April 15, 2013. The day broke with a deep blue sky; a chilly wind fluttered from the west, the air was dry. An endless procession of yellow school busses departed from the Boston Common to begin the journey along the Mass Pike to the village of Hopkinton, the center of the running world on Patriot’s Day. My morning began in an unusual manner.
Preparing to run the Boston Marathon for the sixteenth time, my wife and I decided that, rather than deal with the crowds at the bus loading area, she would transport me to the athletes’ village, drive back to the train station at Riverside, and later assume her place near the finish line on Boylston Street.
At the toll plaza, busses were lined up like yellow jackets at the hive, and despite some congestion on narrow country roads, we reached the quaint “Welcome to Hopkinton, Incorporated in 1715” road sign by 7:30 a.m. In the forested area on the edge of town, placards nailed to the trees bore the warning, “No Stopping Monday.” Between the words, “Stopping,” and “Monday,” was the image of a runner breaking the finish line tape.
Within three blocks of the athletes’ village, all roads were barricaded, and as my wife and I exchanged farewells, an achy, empty feeling of loneliness enveloped me, even as I approached a small city of more than 23,000 runners. I stood, motionless, for a few moments, as her car faded to a small silver dot. On a magnificent mid-April morning, something didn’t feel quite right to me. The marathon is my favorite road race distance, and Boston is my favorite marathon. Since November of 2011, however, the
Peter G. Tormey, Ph.D.
Jan 8, 2015 | 1st pages, Memoir, Sports
.
—Introduction—
.
Two days before Christmas 1974, Don James seized the reins of a University of Washington football program in disarray. In his 18 years at Washington, James compiled a 153-57-2 record en route to becoming the most successful football coach in the history of UW and the Pacific-12 Conference. He took his teams to 15 bowl games (10-5) including nine straight from 1979-87. He guided the Huskies to six Rose Bowls and is one of only four coaches to win four Rose Bowl games.
His 1991 team finished the season 12-0, beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, and was named National Champion by USA Today/CNN, UPI, the Football Writers, Sports Illustrated, and several computer rankings. President of the American Football Coaches Association in 1989, James was National College Coach of the Year twice. He was inducted into the Husky Hall of Fame in 1993 and entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
As but one measure of his coaching skill, Sports Illustrated once named the three best college football coaches in the country: No. 1, Don James; No. 2, Don James; No. 3, Don James.
As a player in James’ second recruiting class at Washington, I was fortunate to have been part of what James would later describe as “the cornerstone” of his program. In summer training camp before my freshman season, Coach James told us we were there to fulfill our destiny, to be a part of something great, to play in the Rose Bowl and, importantly, to win it. We believed him and it came to pass.
Under James’ leadership, our teams beat Michigan in the 1978 Rose Bowl and Texas in the 1979 Sun Bowl, and he helped establish Washington as a perennial powerhouse for nearly two decades. With James as our coach, we knew we had a chance to beat any team, any day.
