H-O-R-S-E in the Park

I spoke with Ira Berkow in 2007 following his retirement after a distinguished 40-year career in journalism, including 25 years with the New York Times, where he wrote the Sports of the Times column. A native of Chicago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author has written 18 books and the 2010 documentary “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story.” I caught up with him again and we talked about basketball, a game he continues to enjoy watching and playing.

“Ira, now that you are retired from the Times, do you still get to the park to get in a few shots of a different kind?”

“Yeah, I still do that,” he said. “Absolutely. I don’t play games anymore because of my double hip replacement, but I go and I shoot. I had played high school basketball and college basketball…. I’ve played my whole life. I haven’t stopped shooting. I’m 71.

“And we have a basketball court in my [apartment] complex [on the east side]. So, I’ll be shooting and sometimes I’ll see a kid at the other end of the court, playing at the other basket. And if he looks like he could be competitive and that it could be fun for me, I’ll ask him if he wants to play a game of horse. That’s what I do. I play horse.

“This one kid, a few months ago, he looked pretty good, and so I asked him if he’d like to play. He comes over to my side—he’s about 16 years old—and we played a game of horse, and I beat him. We played another game, and I beat him. And we played a third game of horse, and I beat him. It looks like he has a pained expression on his face. He gets his ball and is about to leave. But I didn’t want him to leave with a hurt feeling, so I said, ‘It took all the tricks I had in my bag to beat you.’

“And he looked at me and he said, ‘Are those all the tricks you have in your bag?’

“Well, I got my comeuppance (laughing). I don’t know. Make of that what you will, but that’s what he said. He was unimpressed.”