Point of View: Spent in a Worthy Cause

I was thinking of calling the Hampton Jitney to see if I couldn’t get them to wrap one of their buses with a photo of me and fellow septuagenarian Gary Bowen, winners this past Sunday of East Hampton Indoor’s men’s B doubles championship, but modesty prevailed.

“In case you missed it on ESPN,” I emailed my son, “Gary Bowen and I won E.H.I.T.’s men’s B doubles championship!”

Frankly, I hadn’t held out much hope that we would. Not only were our opponents far younger, but we weren’t given much time to rest up from a semifinal agon the day before.

“Don’t come, Mary,” I said to my wife early Sunday morning, “it’s going to be a slaughter.”

Like a creaky torero with his best passes behind him, I laid out my Fred Perry tennis whites on the bed. There would be blood on the Har-Tru — and, unless I brushed my teeth, bad breath in the afternoon.

At least you will have spent yourself in a worthy cause, an inner voice confided. You will not be on this day among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Gary had been telling me all during the tournament to “play up, play up,” and so I did, beating back as many serve returns as I could. We won the first set with relative ease, at 6-2.

“You’re a lion at the net!” Gary, who in the early ’60s played basketball at Brown, marveled at one point.

But our opponents were more inclined, I’m sure, to think I was a-lyin’ when late in the second set, which they won 6-4,  Scott Rubenstein overruled an out call (“by one ten-thousandth of an inch”) I’d made.

“It’s in,” he said, and the battle continued.

When it was over at last, I sank to my knees, bowed my head, and raised a hand to heaven. Gary, who had played wonderfully, was over the moon.

It was proposed the post-match photo be taken at the site of the damn spot, which prompted Scott to say, “I called it in and you still couldn’t beat these guys in their mid-70s.”

Their day will come, and rather soon too, I expect. Meanwhile, I went on to the Classic later that day with a light heart and the wheels singing, the first time, I think, that that’s ever happened.

Oh, and Mary did come — somewhere along in the first set. It was like the golden-lit scene at Wrigley in “The Natural,” only she’s prettier than Glenn Close.