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LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

While musing aloud—which is how he frequently muses—Staff Writer Mark Mulvoy said not long ago that his idea of the perfect life would be to play golf every afternoon, watch a hockey game at night and drink with baseball players afterward. But, unlike most of us, the difference between Mulvoy's concept of the perfect life and life as he really lives it is slight. Mainly, it is that he must find time in his busy wanderings to write stories. An example, and one that exhibits his talent for getting close to his subjects, begins on page 36 of this issue.

Mulvoy came to us nearly five years ago from Boston, where he had been a noted student at Boston College while also writing sports for The Boston Globe. We say he was a "noted" student because that is how Mulvoy, himself, sees it. "I majored in general business, which was very unusual up there. They arranged a special set of courses for me when I explained I didn't have time to go to class and cover sports simultaneously," he says. His education admirably suited his needs.

One reason Mulvoy gets along so well with athletes is that in temperament and life style he closely resembles the people he writes about. He is tall, energetic and effusive, and he is always turned out like one of our clothing ads. The latest in sporting garments appear on him before they arrive in store windows. This earned him a reputation as the Adolph Menjou of First Avenue a couple of years ago when he was a bachelor on New York's East Side.

With unfailing instinct, Mulvoy's first choice of an apartment upon landing in Manhattan was a building on 65th Street that has become known as the Original Stew Zoo. He immediately invited a number of his Red Sox friends to a housewarming, where they met a few score of the hundreds of airline stewardesses who live in the building. The party was such a success that one prominent Red Soxer was fined $1,000 by the club for failure to keep an appointment with the New York Yankees. The late Boston general manager, Mike Higgins, grabbed Mulvoy by the throat and growled, "What're you trying to do, kid, ruin my team?"

Undaunted, Mulvoy forges ahead at a pace that carries him 100,000 miles per year and makes his byline a frequent one in our pages. He has written primarily about baseball, golf (he shoots in the upper 70s) and ice hockey. He has prepared instructional on hockey with Toe Blake and on golf with Gay Brewer, Julius Boros and Jack Nicklaus. Since 1965 all of Nicklaus' stories and golf tips for us have been done in collaboration with Mulvoy.

Mark may have slowed down somewhat lately—tie now has a wife (ex-American Airlines), Trish, a baby daughter named Kelly and a mortgage on a house in Stamford, Conn.—but he still counts his miles by the thousands and is ever alert to a story. He met this week's subject at a dinner party, interviewed him on a golf course and was talked into making his first football bet. Mark won. We don't urge that you take up betting, but do read what our own itinerant sportsman has found out about the subject.

PHOTO

MULVOY AT EASE ON A RED SOX BENCH