FOR THE SPORT OF IT

By Roger Esty

"So Tony ,did you ever go sport fishing with those Rams that came used to come down for the summer?"
Tony Panza was drawing me a draft as he reached back in memory.
"I went a couple of times,"he answered.
"I've heard those guys could really kick up their heels."
Tony stretched out his arms on the bar. He looked at me kind of funny. Made me feel younger than my years.
"Roger,I remember one time in the early 50's when the Rams were goin' strong and Murphy was on his way up.They all was in here one night and decided they wanted to charter a boat and go sport fishing."
Sport fishing. The Rams. Irish Bob Murphy. I asked Tony to draw me another beer.
"It was decided that Radovich,Steve Bradaric who was behind the bar that night,and Fears,Van Brocklin,Skeets Quillan,and Elroy Hirsch,and of course Murphy were going to go down to the docks and charter a boat."
"Who could deny them?,"I asked. I moved to the edge of my stool.
"Well the way I heard it they couldn't find a boat because everything was booked so they talked Ross Miller to go out in his 24 foot lobster skiff."
"Did Ross put up a stink?"
"Naw. He didn't care as long as those fellas' filled it up with gas and supplied the booze."
I told Tony to set me up with a shot of Jack Daniels.
"That's a lot of people for a skiff,"I said.
"Hell, Ross would have taken out the whole Ram team if they'd asked him. Hell,he didn't care."
"So did they catch any fish?"
"No,"said Tony."They spent too much time getting drunk and trying to throw each other overboard."
Tony saw that I was nearing the end of beer number two so he broke out another glass and drew me another.
"Someone,I think it was Steve Bradaric ,brought out a shotgun and I they they spent more time shooting at seagulls than fishing."
"So they came back empty?"
"It was a miracle they came back at all,"said Tony.
"So what happened?"
I wasn't going to forget this.
"Well they decided they'd done enough huntin' and fishin' and since they were a few miles off Ensenada,it was a good idea to pull in port and frequent the local whorehouses. Besides,they ran out of booze."
"I would have liked to have been there,"I remarked.
"No you wouldn't. You see Murphy got possessive of one of the girls in the bar when she tapped him of all his money and she then sat with another guy. The next thing you know it's the Rams and Murphy against the Mexican cops."
"Geez, Tony you could write a book."
"Radovich is trying to stop it.but then he gets whacked with a billy club and now he's swingin' away. To make a long story short all those gringos spent the night in the Ensenada jail."
"That was quite a story."
"That wasn't the end of it. When they pulled up to the dock the next morning the skiff was gone.They had let Murphy tie the boat up since he was in the Navy."
Tony caught himself and shook his head.
" Murphy didn't secure the line good enough and the skiff broke loose and was floating out to Hawaii."
I laughed,but wasn't surprised.
"They all started to yell at Murphy,but the dumb Irishman told them they never showed him how to tie knots in the Navy."
Me and Tony looked at each other in the eye. We smiled kind of sad like.
"Yeah,"I sighed."They don't make 'em like that anymore."
"Yeah," said Tony. "And we're lucky they don't as long as we stay out of their way."