Dear Diary:
Your recent article about the Central Park tennis courts as a place for “passionate players†reminded me of an incident back in 1973, when I was a young reporter for The New York Times on the parks beat. The courts were being resurfaced with Har-Tru, and I went out to cover the opening of the season.
Of course, there was a fight. Two players, I noticed in the distance, were scrapping over rights to a precious hour's playing time. Perfect. I wrote it into my story. Next day I picked up the paper to find, to my shock, that the anonymous combatants had been given names - Maxwell Ehrlich and Joseph Michalak.
Alarmed that somehow my story had been garbled, I ran to the copy editor to complain. No mistake, he told me. He had put in the names. He knew all about the fight. One of the guys was him - Joe Michalak.
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