Pitbull’s life story should sell well thanks to the ending

Most times when you read sporting autobiographies the subject ends up in your good books.

So I leafed through yachtie Jimmy Spithill’s recently-released Chasing the Cup, My America’s Cup Journey, fearing I might warm to him.

Fortunately, the final two chapters when he got to the nittygritty America’s Cups at San Francisco and Bermuda left me firmly in Team New Zealand’s camp.

The wee Aussie Pitbull doesn’t once mention our skippers by name – hey Jimmy, it was Dean Barker and Peter Burling. Nor Grant Dalton for that matter.

Perhaps it was the poison left over from those press conferences when he mercilessly goaded our lot and from his Oracle boss, oncewas-a-kiwi Russell Coutts, and his septic relationship with Dalton.

Finally, Spithill conceded Team NZ was a champion team at Bermuda and he took full responsibility for being too conservative in the racing.

Our country has never been more humiliated that when Spithill came back to beat the good guys from 8-1 down at Frisco. Except it wasn’t really 8-1 down because Oracle won two races to erase their penalty for a preregatta offence.

He doesn’t divulge any secret weapon, just their discovering superior upwind speed. Afterwards, he received a death threat and he had detectives track down a Kiwi in London who was visited by ‘‘an imposing Bulgarian gentleman’’ and the threat was abated.

Spithill didn’t come from privilege. His family lived in a tiny shack on Elvina Bay in Sydney Harbour with no road access and he got to school by boat. There, as a red-headed boy with a limp, he was bullied, until he took up boxing.

His youth was spent on the water or in the bush. He won all of the local sailing events, but spurned yachting at the Olympics and skippered Young Australia for Sid Fischer at the 2000 America’s Cup in Auckland. There, locals befriended him and his crew.

Soon after, although penniless, he had to sue the wealthy Fischer to get a release to join American team Oneworld, so he has always been up for the fight, as you bet he will be in a foiling hull in Auckland in 2021.

So yes there’s much to admire in the book, notably the racing in Bermuda bit.

Sex sold out tennis in Houston

Back in the 1970s, tennis was rather pitter-patter, even on the men’s side, with those wooden racquets.

That extended into John Mcenroe’s era when players could get away with sliced backhands.

Now, only Roger Federer can and he seldom wins a point off his slice. Today, slices are bludgeoned by the topspin off the big-headed racquets, hence Mcenroe’s wise reluctance to take on Serena Williams.

Just to enure he never changes his mind, he should see the excellent sporting movie just out, Battle of the Sexes, which emphasised the risk Bobby Riggs took when he unsuccesfully challenged Billie-jean King in the Houston Astrodome in 1973.

Riggs is portrayed by funny guy Steve Carell as a gambling extrovert who wanted to put the show back into chauvinism. Much of American manhood at the time was in his camp as King fought for equal rights and prizemoney.

Sporting movies are difficult to pull off. Both Carell and Emma Stone – a dead ringer for Billiejean with those specs – had to learn to play, although real tennis players were used for the long rallies.

In the leadup to the big clash, the movie dwells on Billie-jean’s clandestine romance with her hairdresser, a big deal in a period when rednecks ruled and gay tennis players just did not come out, not with their hubbies at home anyway.

Aussie Margaret Court was King’s bitter rival and disapproved. Court went on to be a Pentecostal Christian minister and is still a critic of gay rights. She also played Riggs, probably to her regret.

Back then, the world’s best would come to the NZ Open at Auckland every year and would happily play concurrently on four adjacent courts at Stanley Street. One day, Billie-jean was bellowing during her match and on the adjoining court I heard John Alexander holler: ‘‘Hey Bill King, keep the noise down’’.

There were also times when national tennis league matches were played indoors at the showgrounds. Sadly, the sport now has little domestic profile and when Marina Erakovic loses in tournament qualifying, even that makes the sports news.

Three man can a team make

Three superstars in a team is enough to produce a champion team.

The Melbourne Storm with Cameron Smith and Billy Slater might never be the same, with Cooper Kronk departing.

The three Ella brothers were equal geniuses, as when they thumped a powerful Manawatu¯ 58-3 in Sydney in 1981. There were North Auckland’s three Going brothers doing their blindside triple scissors move they concocted in a farm paddock.

Meanwhile, one day the Manawatu¯ Turbos might massacre someone if and when they hold the ball, or the opposite might happen if they keep spilling it. But that’s the Turbos for you.