1st?

yes! interesting, i would never have taught things could have been like that way back in the day...

Second? hee hee

As always, great post Steve!

you rock. another great story unearthed from the bowels of tennis history.

What an enjoyable read! Who would have guessed that the "greatest generation" was coined not by Tom Brokaw, but by E. Digby Baltzell in a sociological history of tennis.

Incidentally, I just finished Pete Sampras' autobiography, written with Peter Bodo, and it sounds like the grass roots, entrepreneurial, California tennis culture played a role in Sampras' development, too.

In one scene, Sampras is contracting with a local college coach to learn the volley. In another, he’s practicing footwork in a trailer park. The most conventional part of Sampras’ development was lessons with groundstroke guru Robert Landsdorp.

Compared with the academy approach, the Sampras’ plan was largely improvised, stitched together by a loose-knit group of freelance tennis nuts sprinkled across the Los Angeles sprawl.

Steve,

Bushrod Park in Oakland still has the courts Don Budge learned his tennis on. They're at 59th and Shattuck. There are three free public hard courts in a very modest public park. My daughter has soccer practice at the same park, and there's a childrens playset too. Over the years the courts have been up and down: there's a bar right across the road on Shattuck called Bosun's Locker that had a double murder about 15 years ago, and the neighbors had 59th st. shut down to through traffic to impede drug dealing. Nevertheless, it's basically a good place, and there have been regulars there consistently for many years. When they'd start up their doubles robin on a Sunday morning you could forget about getting the court off them until lunchtime at least.

I stopped playing tennis after one too many bad ankle turns on the Bushrod courts, when they were in pretty bad shape. I vividly remember lying on the ground, panting and whining, knowing I wasn't going to be playing tennis for weeks or months. The courts have got a beautiful surface now, though. The park frontage had a bit of a facelift as well, although the Canadian geese still poop all over the soccer field.

They're called the Don Budge Memorial courts, but I don't think there's anything detailed about Budge on an inscription there: there should be.

Thanks for this article.

I second Andy C and say, "what an enjoyable read." And sure pertinent to our times, though we've hardly felt the first sting of it yet, but hopefully we will not descend into a 30's dustbowl style of depression—if the gods allow. During the 20's and 30's homosexuality was a crime in both Germany and England—as well as many states in the U.S. and I believe that England did not take these laws off its books until well into the 1960s.

Actually, entertainers (and tennis players are a type of entertainers) do quite well during a depression. Everyone wants to forget their troubles.

Steve, this was thoroughly enjoyable, and a great taste of what tennis' history is like for those whose interest is piqued by your column.

I'm not so sure Jones was the SoCal Hopman, though. While everything I've ever read or heard suggests that Hopman had a code that you broke at your peril (Bob Hewitt, anyone?), and players he kept both above and below the salt (Nails Carmichael?), he knew how to train players , was a top flite player himself, and wasn't the autocratic ruler that Jones could be. Pancho Gonzales didn't fare so well with Jones, and it's not a stretch to believe it had as much to do with Gonzales' background as it did with his loner mentality.

Plus, I had the chance to play at Hopman's facility once when he was still alive, where I learned a valuable tip about equipment. Hopman's sneakers had holes cut in them where his feet had blisters or corns, and I was told this was something he'd done for his players when they had foot problems, as well. It's worked perfectly for me when needed, and the look on other players's faces when I've taken a knife to their sneakers to help them has been priceless.

But he'd never have passed muster with Jones.

wow - this article made my day. I was traveling on a airplane all day. Lost luggage, and watching the terrible financial news. Ironically enough i was also watching the current 'best match ever played' - the 2008 Wimbledon final - on my ipod on the airplane. I thought Rafa and Roger were the two best gentlemen in sports. But your story just shows that in a completely different generation, these two would have fit in, not stood out. Thanks for the research. I had no idea that California had such a tennis tradition. I grew up in Oakland, but didn't know about Bushrod Park. A couple more comments - I guess to the California traditions of tennis we can add the unorthodox early training of Venus and Serena Williams on the public hardcourts of Compton. I don't know much about Sam Querrey's history, but hopefully he'll add to the legendary names to come from CA.

cheers, -c

We'd appreciate these '30's champions more if there were more videos of them, Budge and Gonzales especially.

two errors at least in this article

a. Adolf Hitler did not call Von Cramm before the match - that is an invention though it was widely believed at the time.
b. the charges relating to homosexuality brought against Von Cramm were trumped up charges - a common tactic by the Nazis to discredit opponents. Von Cramm had never hidden his distaste for the Nazis and as a national hero was hard to otherwise discredit. It is sad to see such a badly researched article on what is supposed to be an expert tennis website.

Interesting post - I love reading about tennis history.

Makes me ashamed of Wimbledon in that post-war period though.

Who cares whether your shoes are dirty? Meanwhile African Americans
were not allowed to join the USTA or compete at even club tournaments......thank goodness that era of "honor" is gone, although
many of their ideals of sportsmanship were truly honorable. I wonder if that idea of embarrassing the linesman was one that was universally held.....I thought it was considered sporting by most to give the point to the opponent after an obviously poor call

Steve, You have enough material for at least three screenplays here :). They should be making movies out of all this stuff. Awesome! Thanks for the history lesson.

Another gem from Stephen Tignor. Well researched and beautifully written.

And yes, the photo at top clearly demonstrates the easy grace and athleticism of the game's finest players nearly a century ago. Until Laver and Sampras came along, many considered Budge the best of all time (I'm trying to avoid using the acronym that sparks far too many debates in these forums.)

Thanks to your work, Steve, many of who knew little of the man can now count him as one of the true gentlemen of our great sport.

Nice work, Steve. I can't wait to see your take on Marble, 'Teach' Tennant and World War II one of these days.
Thanks for covering Budge and Cramm's relationship off the court so well.

md -- thanks for pointing out Steve's errors in the article. They are interesting, though minor, and presumably come from Steve's stated source for his information.

Since you have a higher standard of research than Steve, and since I don't know of any tennis website with better information, please write an article yourself. What about a detailed story (no errors, please!) on Bill Tilden or Jack Kramer or Pancho?

I look forward to reading your piece, so thanks a lot in advance!

Re Baron von Cramm: the Wikipedia article mentions "a lengthy article about von Cramm's career in the 5 July 1993 issue of Sports Illustrated," which I have never read but which might be of interest to those who want to know more about him. There was also a discussion of the 1937 Budge-Cramm Davis cup match at "Talk Tennis" on Tennis Warehouse.com in February 2007: tt.tennis-warehouse.com/archive/index.php/t-117105.html.

The source for the story about Hitler's phone call to Cramm was an interview given to reporters by Budge after the match. However, one of the posters in the Talk Tennis discussion said that Cramm always denied that he received such a call, and it is not mentioned in any of the German-language sources about Cramm which I was able to access online.

Great article, Steve! But let's not forget about the original California Comet, Maurice McLoughlin in the 1910's. Would love to find out more about him...

steve-

will you on top of the bracketology for the Madrid Masters Series?

A follow-up on Cramm and the errors cited by md:

a)His 1938 conviction for homosexuality:
Although the prosecution on a morals charge was politically motivated, the charge was not simply invented out of whole cloth. According to the New York Times account of the trial (May 15, 1938), Cramm acknowledged in court that he had had a homosexual relationship in the early 1930's with Manasse Herbst, a Jewish actor/singer, and that Herbst had subsequently blackmailed him for $12,000

b)the telephone call from Hitler: as I mentioned above, Cramm evidently denied receiving such a call, even after World War II when it would not have been politically damaging to acknowledge the call. However, it is hard to imagine why Budge would have made up such a story and told it to reporters right after the match if it had no basis in fact. Does anyone know more about this?

How times have changed department: in the 1930's, Time Magazine put tennis stars on its cover, even European ones. Here is a link to the cover depicting Cramm on 13 September 1937 http://tinyurl.com/4ejvwy.
And for the past several years we've been complaining that Roger Federer couldn't even make the cover of Sports Illustrated!

interesting responses to my post -

a. what is your source for Von Cramm admitting in court he had a homosexual relationship - obviously if I am wrong I am prepared to apologise to Steve. I had always read (in quite a number of books) that the charges were without foundation.

b. the source was Don Budge and he obviously believed it to be true but Von Cramm always denied it and I am inclined to believe him

Nora - I would not deem myself to be sufficiently expert to write an article on this era. It is one that interests me greatly though.

here's an article on cramm from si in 93:

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138011/1/index.htm

budge said in his memoirs that a call was from hitler, cramm said it was from someone else. the writer, ron fimrite, quotes players of the time saying its was known that cramm was a homosexual, but that that those specific charges may have been trumped up.

skip, it's true, perry jones couldn't teach tennis or play it well. an interesting character nonetheless. hopman just struck me as similarly devoted to tennis in all its old-guard forms. from what i know, hopman hated the professionalization of the game

Also, in Baltzell's book, which is interesting and very entertaining, Gonzalez skipped school and showed up at the tennis facility early and Perry sent him away. He scolded him about his responsibiliy to himself and Gonzalez never skipped school again.

Wow, that was a great read Steve!

Actually thanks to articles like this one on tennis.com I'm getting a real zest for tennis history. I'm already reading about some tennis champions from before my time, but these guys also sound fascinating and I'm going to try looking up their biographies or any related accounts. Maybe "Sporting Gentlemen", if I can find it.

Safin beat Davydenko ! 3 wins in a row ! Can't believe it ! This is cool ! And it's the week-end !

Sorry for the off topic, though.

glad you liked it, sher. baltzell's book is available used on amazon

Yeah it was a great read, Steve, and I saved it for just this time when I knew I'd have little to do. You don't disappoint; in fact, if I may, you could up the output level, man! More for the masses, please.

Anyway, I'll have to agree with jojo however, in that while everyone was busy being sporting gentlemen, both blacks and homosexuals lived in second tier existence (as evidenced by your very article!). If we're to remember history proper (and I'm a major history buff), let us not forget that for a significant percentage of the world, we'd rather not return to the 'Good-Time '30s' or any period before the civil rights movement or Stonewall.

But interesting read nonetheless.

As someone who came of age just after the Perry Jones era ended, I can say, that although I never even saw Jones, this is what we are talking about.

At the time, the Southern Cal Tennis association office was based in a small room located at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, just south of Melrose in L.A. The SoCal sectionals were played there, as was the Pacific Southwest.

LATC was basically the Bollittieri's of its day, in the sense that if you were a top ranked junior, you were invited to practice and play there.

What Jones controlled were (1) the actual rankings, and remember in the days before computers all rankings, especially junior rankings, were completely subjective, (2) the entries for national tournaments outside SoCal, and (3) the funding for travel to national tournaments outside SoCal.

Basically, if you were not favored by the USTA, you had no junior career.

Obviously, this system was prone to abuse, certainly in the case of minorities.

But when Budge was worried about Perry Jones's opinion about his tennis shoes, think about the context.

Today, if Nick Bollettieri thinks you have dirty shoes, it has no bearing on whether or not you get to play the national 16s.

Thanks,Steve,for a really great read.

On a final note and I hope Steve reads this I would like to thank him for writing this article. Whether or not the facts are totally correct is slightly irrelevant (I was a bit cranky when writing my earlier criticisms - I just didn't like Von Cramm being apparently smeared yet again with the homosexual tag which is irrelevant in tennis terms - he appears to have been a wonderful man and whether he was gay or bi or straight doesn't really matter) as this is a now neglected part of tennis history and was an early golden era. Just imagine the matches these players would have had in the absence of the amateur professional split.

Big Bill figures into the mythology of Hollywood, too. I've read a few stars' bios from that decade, and it seemed like Tilden was everywhere, playing with all the stars on their private courts in Beverly Hills and Los Feliz. Old codgers still hang around the courts at Vermont Canyon and tell tales of those days. And as we've learned from a few of those stars' bios, gay or bi or straight didn't matter much to them, either.

Hi, nora! I didn't know that's why we never played when I lived in Oakland.