I was reminded about Dick Schapp twice today. Dick of course was a prolific sportswriter, columnist and sportscaster who passed away a few years ago. Dick immortalized himself to me in a few ways, one of which was when he told a TV sports news audience that Riva Ridge and Secretariat were the two most famous stablemates since Joseph and Mary. When he said it, in the 70s, there were people who did know who Riva Ridge and Secretariat were. Less now. They were back-to-back winners of the Kentucky Derby for the same Meadow Stable. They were horses, in other words. Riva Ridge missed winning the Preakness, thus denying Meadow Stable back-to-back Triple Crown winners. Rare earth, indeed.
So Dick was comparing horses to two of Christendom's most famous people. Several layers of outrage descended on him, but he survived. He even kept his job, best as I can remember.
He was also famous for popularizing the description of New York City as Fun City. The words were actually uttered by Mayor Lindsay as he crouched out of a helicopter ride over NYC at the outset of the 1966 Transit Strike. Dick was nearby when hizzoner said, "Well, I still think it's a Fun City," even as he had been watching traffic jams of epic proportions from the air that were the result of the strike that he wouldn't prevent on the first day of his administration.
Mayor Lindsay was an optimist. You had to live through it, to know it.
Fun City became such a popular phrase that there was a porno parlor, video booth, "dirty-book-store" that was named Fun City. It was only recently torn down for a bank building near Bryant Park. Mayor Lindsay knew how to coin a phrase, and Dick knew how to write one.
Even with all that, that's still not why I was thinking of Dick today. As I noted in a prior posting, Dick was famous for writing in the Herald Tribune after Candy Mossler and her boyfriend were acquitted of murdering her wealthy, older husband, that the killer should, "Come on down" to Florida.
That was a popular slogan for Florida tourism at the time.
The last time I went to a library was years ago when I went to get a microfilm copy of Dick's column on Fun City. It was worth it. And today, I was going to go again for another piece of "research," but got delayed by the other job. That's the second time I thought of Dick.
The first was this morning when I heard that the Brazilian police have now released the boxer Arturo Gatti's wife, who they first believed had strangled him in his sleep. They now contend that Arturo hung himself 7 feet (okay, he wasn't that tall) from the floor with her purse strap tied to a staircase post.
Dick, I wish you were here.
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