Found an interesting historical tidbit in the Corner this morning. I remember the Rigg-King tennis match. Bobby Riggs showed up with a 6-foot candy bar and told Billy Jean King that it would be something for her to eat during her imminent retirement(something like that- I was young and it was over 30 years ago). However, Roger Clegg mentioned something that I did not know. Excerpt:

An article on Title IX in the Wall Street Journal today includes a brief discussion of how Billie Jean KingÂ’s defeat of Bobby Riggs in a September 1973 tennis match was a milestone in womenÂ’s sports. Maybe so, but it is less and less noted that, just a few months before, the 55-year-old Riggs had defeated in straight sets the then number-one ranked womenÂ’s player, Margaret Court. (And of course there is the school of thought that Riggs, a notorious hustler, threw the match to King, either because he had bet against himself, or because he wanted to be able to hype a rematch. Riggs denied this.) Just trying to keep this out of the memory hole.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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