5. Continued

Before the audition, I took care to find out that Jack Dempsey was a former heavyweight boxing champion. Then I tried out and — mirabile dictul — got the job. For 26 weeks, every Monday night, I would bravely pitch sports questions at the experts arrayed at the panel desk in front of me. It was an excruciating experience. It made me remember boyhood nightmares in which I would be in a strange classroom about to take a final exam in a course I had never heard of.

Apparently, I got away with the bluff, because not one of the sports mavens ever seemed to doubt that I knew whereof I spoke. The proof came a few weeks after the demise of that quiz when I was once again called by WOR.

My employer smiled benevolently. "You've done a good job, Goodson. Now I have a real opportunity for you. We are looking for someone to help describe the Dodger ball games from Ebbets Field. How does that strike you?"

I paused. I had never been to a major-league ball game. I knew nothing, minus zero, about baseball. He responded to my hesitation. "This is a big deal, guaranteed $25,000 a year." I swallowed. "I'll do it." "Good," he replied, looking at his calendar. "We will give you an on-the-air test in about two weeks." "Terrific," I said — and dashed to the nearest bookstore.

There, I bought "Baseball: The Official Rules." If it wasn't 100 pages thick, it seemed to be. I began on page 1, where the precise measurements of the "diamond" were

diagramed, then went on to the functions and duties of each player in the infield and outfield, the definition of a strike, a foul, an infield fly and on and on through the fine print. As I got to the 10th page, I collapsed. Much as I needed the money, I knew there was no way that I could manage this bluff! I can't remember the alibi I gave the executive, but certainly it wasn't anything as shameful as "I've really never seen a baseball game." But I did bow out.

Twenty years later, long after I had given up performing and was running a television production company specializing in "game" shows (quite an irony for a non-sports-fan to earn a living at "games"), I was invited by my banker to have dinner on the company yacht while cruising around Manhattan Island. It was a "men only" party, and the talk centered on business and, of course, sports.

After dinner, I stood on the deck in a group that included Gene Tunney, another former heavyweight champion and by then a successful Wall Street investor. I thought I was doing an acceptable job of being responsive to the sports chatter, when Tunney suddenly broke off from the conversation, turned, gazed down at me suspiciously from his enormous height. "Goodson," he asked, "tell me about you. What do you do for a living?"

Because "What's My Line?" was my show at that time, it seemed natural for me to respond, "What do you think I do?" He looked at me thoughtfully. "Goodson, I'd say you are a poet."

I blushed. I knew what he meant. He'd found me out.

Mark Goodson is president of Goodson-Todman TV Productions.

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_{PART C Exercises}