The Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts Thursday, July 06, 1972 - Page 26
Chess On Tube? It Must Be Real by Leigh Montville
The headline on the wall of the Boston Chess Shop explained the situation better than anything.
SPASSKY'S MOVE—
HE WALKS OUT
The words were black and bold and from an unexpected source. The New York Daily News had discovered chess.
The New York Daily News? Yes, by God, the New York Daily News. The crookedness of Fun City had been pushed inside with the Treasury balance. Chess had commandeered the front page and the big headlines.
“How about that?” chess shop proprietor Bill Lukowiak said yesterday. “For an intellectual sport like chess to cover the front page of the New York Daily News — to cover the whole front page—is about as wild as you could imagine.
“And how about all the television. Here's chess vying with the Democratic National Convention for time. Chess finally is real. It's on the screen.
“In this day, you're not real until you're on television and now, all of a sudden, chess finally is real.”
Indeed, it is. If reality is big headlines and television, chess has become as real as the stain on your tie, the hangnail on your left index finger.
The media world hangs on every move of this world championship meeting between Bobby Fischer and the villainous Soviet in the wilds of Iceland. Is it on? Is it off? Frank Sinatra never courted Mia Farrow, Jackie never married Ari, Albert Scopes never taught that we all came from monkeys with any less fanfare.
Fischer has pumped the event with public relations wildness that must make Muhammad Ali smile. Spassky has been beautiful, far better than your basic George Chuvalo heavy. He has added his own degree of somber petulance to the affair.
Is it on? Is it off? The chess world has invaded the outside world. Finally.
“That's why we're here,” Bill Lukowiak explained pointing around his shop at 335 Newbury St., “We moved here in April from a place down the street.
“Here we have more tables, more room. We're ready. We expected this. That's why we expanded.”
The room contained 40 tables, 40 timers, the chance for 80 players to be involved at once at 50 cents for the first hour, 35 cents an hour afterwards. A boutique shop sold chess sets (from $3 to $400) and a variety of books that included dusty tomes that could give the addict every move of every major game Spassky and Fischer have played.
For free, the addict could read all the big headlines and stories pasted on the wall across from the two men's rooms (“we don't get many women here”), and could get a lot of talk about the big match.
“That's all anyone seems to be talking about around here these days,” Lukowiak said as four different matches quietly clicked along. “Just about everyone is rooting for Fischer.
“He's the new player we've been waiting for. We've been waiting for this match since 1957. What's that, 15 years? We've been waiting for Bobby Fischer to play the Russians for 15 years.”
Lukowiak, 29 years old and rated as an expert player
William Lukowiak
Number of games in database: 9
Years covered: 1959 to 1990
thinks Fischer has been misinterpreted. He said the holdout for more money was a solid move. He said the fear of the Russians bugging rooms and poisoning food was far from paranoia. He said the Russians would do it.
Before Navalny, a long history of Russian poisonings
“This title means a lot to them, more than the people of this country seem to understand,” Lukowiak said. “This is the classic match between American individualism and the Soviet system, and the Russians don't want to lose.
“Everything Fischer had done has been smart. Although…”
Although what?
“Although if he hadn't decided to show up, we probably would have taken up a collection around here to put a contract on him…
“We've been waiting for this match for a very long time.”
Chess On Tube? It Must Be Real 06 Jul 1972, Thu The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com
Chess On Tube? It Must Be Real 06 Jul 1972, Thu The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com
