Monday, August 26, 2013

Bobby Riggs Threw His Match Against Billie Jean King

by Don Van Natta Jr.

"HELLO AGAIN EVERYONE, I'm Howard Cosell. We're delighted to be able to bring you this very, very quaint, unique event."

On Thursday night, Sept. 20, 1973, 50 million Americans, fatigued by Vietnam and Watergate, tuned in to see whether a woman could defeat a man on a tennis court. Dubbed "The Battle of the Sexes," the match pitted Billie Jean King, the 29-year-old champion of that summer's Wimbledon and a crusader for the women's liberation movement, against Bobby Riggs, the 55-year-old gambler, hustler and long-ago tennis champ who had willingly become America's bespectacled caricature of male chauvinism.

Before 30,472 at the Houston Astrodome, still the largest crowd to watch tennis in the United States, the spectacle felt like a cross between a heavyweight championship bout and an old-time tent revival. Flanked by young women, Riggs, in a canary yellow Sugar Daddy warm-up jacket, was imperiously carted into the Astrodome aboard a gilded rickshaw. Not to be outdone, King, wearing a blue-and-white sequined tennis dress, sat like Cleopatra in a chariot delivered courtside by bare-chested, muscle-ripped young men. Moments before the first serve, King presented Riggs with a squealing, squirming piglet. "Look at that male chauvinist pig," Cosell told viewers. "That symbolizes what Bobby Riggs is holding up. ..."

All of the vaudevillian hoopla made it easy to forget the enormous stakes and the far-reaching social consequences. King was playing not just for public acceptance of the women's game but also an opportunity to prove her gender's equality at a time when women could still not obtain a credit card without a man's signature. If she were to defeat Bobby Riggs, the triumph would be shared by every woman who knew she deserved equal pay, opportunities and respect. Equally sweet, King would cram shut the mouth of a male chauvinist clown who had chortled that a woman belonged in the bedroom and the kitchen but certainly not in the same arena competing against a man. For Riggs, the $100,000 winner-take-all match offered big money and a perfect launching pad to a late-in-life career playing exhibition matches against women.

It seemed a certain payday for him. Four months earlier, Riggs had crushed Margaret Court, the world's No. 1 women's tennis player, 6-2, 6-1, in an exhibition labeled by the media as the "Mother's Day Massacre." Court's defeat had persuaded King to play Riggs. Nearly everyone in tennis expected a similarly lopsided result. On the ABC broadcast, Pancho Gonzales, John Newcombe and even 18-year-old Chrissie Evert predicted Riggs would defeat King, then the No. 2-ranked woman. In Las Vegas, the smart money was on Bobby Riggs. Jimmy the Greek declared, "King money is scarce. It's hard to find a bet on the girl."

But by aggressively attacking the net and smashing precision shots, King ran a winded, out-of-shape Riggs all over the court. Riggs made a slew of unforced errors, hitting soft returns directly at King or into the net and double-faulting at key moments, including on set point in the first set. "I don't understand," Cosell said after a King winner off a Riggs backhand. "He's been feeding her that backhand all night." Midway through the third set, Riggs looked drained and complained of hand cramps. After King took match point, winning in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, Riggs mustered the energy to hop the net. "I underestimated you," he whispered in King's ear.

Read the rest here.

Side notes:

Bobby Riggs lived in the very exclusive Beekman Place section of New York City. I lived down the street a bit, but when friends came in from out of town, I would have them park in the garage where Riggs lived. He owned a very stylish, old style Rolls Royce. It was very cool. Most of the time it just sat there with a full cover over it.

I was at the announcement in Chicago, where Billie Jean King endorsed Blair Hull, who was running in Illinois as a Democrat for the U.S. senate seat, against the then unknown Barack Obama.

4 comments:

  1. And now in professional women's tennis, there's equal pay for .

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is just plain bull shit You wait 41-42 years after a tennis match to assert that one of the tennis players took bribes from the Chicago Outfit to throw a tennis match that the sexist Bobby Riggs started?

    That tennis match began when he asserted that women were so inferior to men that a player such as Riggs who was over 50 and had not played a match in at least a decade could beat a woman.

    The bozo who made this allegation is a pathetic attention seeker and should be treated accordingly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You obviously didn't read the article:

      "It seemed a certain payday for him. Four months earlier, Riggs had crushed Margaret Court, the world's No. 1 women's tennis player, 6-2, 6-1, in an exhibition labeled by the media as the "Mother's Day Massacre." Court's defeat had persuaded King to play Riggs. Nearly everyone in tennis expected a similarly lopsided result. On the ABC broadcast, Pancho Gonzales, John Newcombe and even 18-year-old Chrissie Evert predicted Riggs would defeat King, then the No. 2-ranked woman. In Las Vegas, the smart money was on Bobby Riggs. Jimmy the Greek declared, "King money is scarce. It's hard to find a bet on the girl.""

      Delete