Further Thoughts on the Decline of New York Squash by Guy Cipriano March 12, 2014 - Kudos to the Massachusetts State SRA for having 700 participants in their state tournaments as set forth by Greg McArthur!
That is a tremendous achievement and it takes massive work from the organizers to make it happen.
The (NY) MSRA, now rebranded as New York Squash, ran “arrange your own” tournaments from the 1920’s until approximately 1992.
There were a huge number of flights contested each year:
Open Singles
Open Doubles
Amateur A Singles
Limited A Singles
B, C, D and E Singles- Men
Amateur A and B Singles – Women
Amateur A Doubles
Limited A Doubles
Age Groups- at five year intervals from 40 to 60
There were probably
500 participants each year, and it was all coordinated manually and via
telephone. It worked , and worked well.
The turnout was
massive. Finals Night was held before the annual dinner which was held
at the Seventh Regiment Armory in late April.
The winners of each
league team would be awarded their trophies, as would the winners of
the individual and doubles events listed above.
The President’s Prizes
for best winning percentage for a player each league would be awarded,
as would special awards such as the Bigelow Trophy and the Standing
Award for Excellence in Play and Sportsmanship respectively. All this
died around 1990. Now there are about six people who even know and
remember who Ned Bigelow and Eddie Standing were, and what they did in
the game.
There was a
spectacular permanent sterling silver cup held for a year by the winner
of the Met A Singles made by Tiffany , presented to the association by
the father of Beekman and Lawrence Pool. The winner’s name was engraved
each year. There was also a sterling silver vase held each year by the
winning Amateur A doubles team, presented to the association by Ernest
“ Honey” Humpstone, a stalwart NY squash man who was a member of the
University and Rockaway Hunting Clubs. The vase and its base also
contained the names of each year’s winner.
Now those two trophies
are being held for safekeeping in the garage of the 1990 winner out in
Los Angeles and they are gathering dust.
Nobody at NY Squash seems to understand the significance of the events and there is no impetus to revive the competitions.
The ( NY) MSRA
produced an annual yearbook with match reports from every tournament
and ever flight. It also contained photos, ranking lists and promotion
data, and a listing of every member of the association , the club(s) to
which he or she were attributed, and each person’s phone number. That
died in 1988. It was a tremendous resource, and was compiled each year
as a labor of love by the late Bobby Lehman who wrote most of articles,
took the photos, and made it all happen. It was a compendium of each
season and contained “Everything You Wanted To Know About NY Squash ,
But Were Afraid To Ask.”
The league standings
were published every Sunday in the NY Times sports section for both
singles and doubles. That died around 1983.
There were tournaments
every weekend for every standard of play starting in October with the
Lordi at NYAC. Sometimes there were multiple tournaments each weekend .
In November there were challenge matches held to determine which five
men would represent the association in the Lockett Cup ( vs Boston and
Philadelphia) and which three teams would represent the association in
the Ketcham Doubles. The Lockett-Ketcham was held every second weekend
in December. That died around 1990.
There were probably
fifteen public clubs where anybody could join, learn the game and
compete. The public clubs and the private clubs all fielded teams in
each league and the competition was hotly contested. There were some
special quirky clubs like the Lone Star Boat Club where visiting
players wandered past Studio 54 and the gay movie theatre The Adonis,
up the stairs, past the attendant, into a linoleum-floored changing
room with rusting steel lockers in which the members sat naked on
wicker furniture, playing pinochle and drinking Johnny Walker Red neat
out of plastic cups. If you were lucky you might run into Joe Dimaggio
who was a member for 40 years. There were suburban leagues for
Westchester/Connecticut and New Jersey who sent their winners to
compete with the NYC clubs at year end, and would occasionally win it
all.
Sadly this happy land
of squash is all gone. The public clubs are gone from Manhattan, the
quirky clubs are gone, the old legendary pros like Milt Russ, Louis
Ballato, Rick Rescigno, Jimmy Leddy, Bobby Martinez, and Danny Spina
are gone, the yearbook is gone, the Met tournaments are gone, the
annual dinner and the yearbook are gone, the Lockett-Ketcham Cup is
gone, the invitational tournaments are gone, the huge public club
tournament events like the Boodles, which morphed into the Chivas, are
gone, and what is left is unrecognizable with the exception of the
doubles circuit. Today’s NY squash players will never have the
experience of watching a Rob Dinerman vs Eliot Berry donnybrook, or
seeing legendary Charlie Ufford torturing some up and coming young kid
from New Jersey, holding his shots until the kid’s feet blistered and
he couldn’t walk the next day. All I can say about the halcyon days is
R. I.P.
