That Mad, Crazy Thrill

William Tatum Tilden II, the original tennis bug. There is no sensation in the sporting world so thoroughly enjoyable to me as that when I meet a tennis ball just right in the very middle of my racquet and smack it, just right, where my opponent should be but is not. I enjoy the ring of the baseball off my bat (if I ever manage to hit one), the thrill that comes as the golf ball sails down the course from my driver (it usually sails out into the rough or else ten feet down the course), the thud of the football as it goes (possibly 15 yards) off my toe, the ice under my skates (or my back, more often); but none of these afford me the same mad thrill of crazy excitement as grips me when I smack a tennis ball, "just right." Just because I am a tennis bug. I am one of those poor bugs that will sit out, until eight o'clock at night, together with other tennis bugs, to watch a couple of kids, or old men, or dubs, finish a match that means nothing. I am writing this book in the hope that somewhere...