view raw text
I r — _t Nagler on Racing Veteran Don Fair Calls Them All— Even a Derby— in Stride By BARNEY NAGLER NEW YORK. N. Y.. May 8. — There was a morning some years ago on which Rocky; Graziano faced a board of inquiry. Somebody, it seemed, had offered him 00,000 to throw a fight which had not come off and Eddie Eagan and Co.. was trying to find out why Rocky had not told the New York State Athletic Commission about the apparent bribe. The hearing drew a large crowd to the state office building downtown, including Red Smith, the columnist, who was accosted as he approached the main entrance. A man said to him, "I liked the line you had in your piece this morning, the one about Jesse Abramson inventing track and field." "Its an bid line." Smith confessed. "But if anybody did invent track and field it was Jesse." •» The columnist said this the only way he knows how: With total sincerity. He was speaking of a colleague for whom he had the highest regard and he was not unwilling to render unto Abramson the things that were the Greeks. It is being remembered here by way of a round about return to the press box at Churchill Downs last Saturday, on the occasion of Iron Lieges Kentucky Derby, the one Gallant Man might have won if Willie Shoemaker had not started counting the purse before he was home. A fellow seeing his first Derby came upon Don Fair, the Daily Racing Forms* chart caller, in the press box. He had known Fairs brother Harold back in New York, during days of association with the evil eye of TV, and this was a bridge to easy conversation. Don Fair, the visitor had been told, was one of the finest chart callers in the country, a man who seldom if ever missed a beat while calling the running of a race for publication in the Daily Racing Form and hundreds of other newspapers around the country. Some time later. Don Fair stood in a corner of the press box. minutes before the Derby was to start, as the band played "My Old Kentucky Homr." which was scratched to pieces over the public address system. He had his field glasses poised, looking a quarter of a mile up the track to the starting gate, mumbling to himself: "Bold Ruler. Mister Jive. Shan Pac. Better Bee. Indian Creek. Iron Liege. Gallant Man, Federal Hill. Round Table. Repeats Names as They Move Into Gate He repeated this several times, calling them as they moved into the gate, as though he were recording them for all time in the electricity of his mind, remembering them now for the chart call he would make later. The newcomer to the Derby, standing high on a chair in order to see over the heads of a row of men in front of him, leaned forward and listened to the mans mumbling recitation ol the Derby lineup, j hearing it almost as a liturgical chant, aware that this was a man trained in the trick of calling them as he saw them. "Nervous?" the newcomer asked Fair. "Of course not." he said. He thought about this for a moment. •Listen to this crowd," he said. "Youve never heard anything like it. Theyll scream from the start to finish, as though each one of them had the winner." And so it was. They wrere off, and the screaming began, first as a roar, then as a rumble, and above it all. for the ones in the press box near Don Fair, there was this call of the race above the noise of the crowd. "At the half." Don Fair intoned, "its Federal Hill by a length and a half. Bold Ruler, by a head. Iron Liege by three, and its Round Table by three. Mister Jive by three, Indian Creek, two and a half, Gal- Contmued on Page Forty-Four Nagler on Racing Continued from Page Seven lant Man by two. Shan Pac a half and Better Bee." The one marking the chart off Mr. Fairs call had it down, writing swiftly as the call was made at three-quarters, the mile, in the stretch and at the finish. The moment it was over, Don Fair turned around and said. "Shoemaker bobbled. He misjudged the finish." He said this firmly, without hesitation, and those in the press box who had been looking at the same race Don Fair had seen shrunk within themselves because they had not seen as much as he had. Indeed, the newcomer had been looking but not seeing much indeed. A minute or two later, Don Fair was at his typewriter, writing his chart commentary on the Derby, commentary that was printed in papers all over the country the next day. A moment or so after he was finished, the loudspeaker in the press box said: "The stewards have questioned Willie Shoemaker and he has admitted he misjudged the finish." "You were right," the newcomer said to Mr. Fair, fairly amazed by the mans perception and leportorial ability. "Lucky." he said.
