Live Fast, Love Hard, And Don't Let Nobody Borrow Your Comb

Here's a little more Kornheiser, from when he was at the Times (’76-79). He worked at Newsday and then the New York Times before joining the Washington Post.

Philadelphia was having its face slapped by a bully of a winter, and Jimmy was coming from practice where he had attempted murder on a few dozen tennis balls. He had a sealskin coat over his shoulders and the former Miss World on his arm. As he walked past a group of fans one of them called out in a fatherly way, “Button up, Jimmy. It’s cold outside.”

Jimmy didn’t bother to stop, he gave his exit line of his way out of the door. “This is seal, my friend–ever see a seal die of the cold?” The former Miss World began to laugh. Jimmy always leaves them laughing, even if most of his wisecracks can’t be printed.

Jimmy Connors is the master of the single-entendre. He says what he wants, when he wants, to whom he wants. He is a Star. Heis demeanor, his philosophy, is rooted in something the Fonz likes to say: Live fast, love hard, and don’t let nobody borrow your comb. The Fonz gets away with it because–aayy–he’s the Fonz. Connors gets away with it because he wins.

“The Star You Love To Hate”April 10, 1977

Here is a nice bit of writing from a feature story on Catfish Hunter:

Underneath the folksy, good-ol’-boy exterior, with all his talk about bird dogs, killin’ them hogs and farmin’ them soybeans, Jim Hunter is an intelligent, thoughtful, honest and astonishingly secure man, the kind of man who’ll wear raggedy overalls to town becacuse he’s a farmer and that’s what a farmer wears even if he has millions in the bank. He has a touch of Senator Sam Ervin in him, the ability to draw a perfect picture of a horse without having to label it “Secretariat.” “Cat doesn’t demand respect,” said Fred Stanley, his teammate, “he just gets it.”

July 3, 1978