NYT: Rumsfeld says playing squash has helped preserve his "sanity"

[Rose Siding]

And he cheats:

“He hits the ball well, but he doesn’t play by the rules,” says Chris Zimmerman, a devoted squash player who works in the Pentagon’s office of program analysis and evaluation and is sometimes in the Pentagon athletic complex when Mr. Rumsfeld is on the court.

Mr. Zimmerman has never actually played his boss. But he says he has noticed that Mr. Rumsfeld, 74, often wins points because, after hitting a shot, he does not get out of the way so his opponent has a chance to return the ball, a practice known in squash as “clearing.”

The almost-daily matches, Mr. Rumsfeld, a former Princeton wrestler, acknowledged last year, have helped preserve his “sanity’’ in a period in which he and the administration have come under increasing political attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/washington/24rumsfeld.html?hp&ex=1159070400&en=06c36eba946dad2b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I love that the reporter used quotation marks in reference to Rumsfailed's "sanity".

In other news, game called on accounta' war

[Wilber_Stool]

1. I don't know what to say...........n/t

[MisterP]

2. this man talks to himself at interviews

will I? I suppose I shall!

[UTUSN]

3. He might have shared the tip on preserving sanity for us against his reign

[Mythsaje]

4. Boy, is "sanity" in the eye of the beholder...

And I, for one, behold him as a raving fucking lunatic.

[joemurphy]

5. Methinks he needs to triple his time on the squash court. n/t

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. He behaves like person that's been dropped on his squash too often.

How else could his head be that screwed up?

[Nay]

7. No, it hasn't. He's as crazy as a shithouse rat.

[DeadManInc]

8. Rummy cheats? That is a big fucking surprise!

[Solly Mack]

9. Who told Rummy he was sane?

Who lied to him?

[NOLADEM]

10. He must not play much

[Dem2theMax]

11. Oh no!

He's using the 'sanity clause!'

;)

[TahitiNut]

12. Squash is a gentleman's sport. Rummy doesn't qualify.

I learned to play squash about 36 years ago at the Uptown Athletic Club. My teacher was Hashim Khan ... the world's all-time greatest squash player. (One sportswriter called him the greatest athlete of all-time.) Hashim mastered the sport to such an incredible degree that he controlled the game, no matter the skill of his opponent. Hashim always let me make those points when I was playing at my best ... and never when I wasn't. Even when he was playing national champions, the margin of Hashim's victory was always about the same - allwing the champion those points he really deserved according to his skill level and denyong him those points where he didn't perform at his own best level. More than Howe or Gretzky mastered hockey, more than Nicklaus or Jones mastered golf, more than Jordan or Chamberlain mastered basketball ... Hashim mastered squash. Nobody played at Hashim's level. He formed a dynasty ... with his relatives becoming the inheritors of world championships.

What Mr. Zimmerman is describing we called a "let" ... and all that's necessary is that the player hindered calls it and the player failing to "clear" accepts the call. NOBODY quibbles about this. The game depends on this integrity ... even when there's a referee. A good player doesn't need to hinder his opponent and is actually in a better position to return volley when he doesn't.


Read more ...
http://www.squashtalk.com/pakistan/khanstory1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashim_Khan