The Bangor Daily News Bangor, Maine Thursday, July 06, 1972 - Page 33
Speaking of Sports by Owen Osborne
Not since the ping pong match with the Chinese has an international match caused such a stir.
The Olympics have taken a back seat. The Wimbledon finds people asking, “Who's Wimbledon?”
The world trembles in anticipation.
A Yank and a Russian have a chess match.
We're not quite sure hour it has affected your life but for some, they've even lost interest in soap operas. For women this is serious because they could miss chapters of As The Stomach Turns.
This chess match is going to be a fight to the finish, a death match. Not even Chief Strongbow and Turo Tanaka in their tag tussle with the Mad Russians can compare with it.
Competitors tell how they must prepare for such a match, the physical exercise needed to get in condition, the mental mood needed to match wits. This is the greatest thing to hit Iceland since the Ice Age.
Fischer and Spassky will go down in history with Dempsey and Tunney, Tinker, Evers to Chance, Rockne and his Four Horsemen. Generations from now kids will listen in awe as details of this match are told.
Perhaps best of all is the fact it will be televised. The entire world can watch the breath-taking moves, the daring and the cunning.
This should be a coup for a sponsor. This of the minutes it will leave between moves, the opportunities to go to the refrigerator if you're having more than one.
While the match is underway a sponsor won't get rook-ed.
Best of all, there will be instant replays.
One prime move can be reshown to the world, and to top it all off, it can be done in slow motion.
Somehow it all seems unbearable.
How can Nicklaus concentrate, politicians seek voters and bettors keep their minds on the daily double knowing not what will be the next chess move?
We don't know about you but we'll be happy when all this suspense ends.
Then the world can start turning again.
Speaking of Sports 06 Jul 1972, Thu The Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine) Newspapers.com
