And possibly Cas Fish got the 13 number from Bucholz.
This underscores how important it is to source a statistic.
The 23:23 number was not widely reported, I do not see it in the standard references, and individual matches are not listed. It could merely be an offhand remark by Gonzales when he was interviewed by the lady reporter.
It is unlikely that the 23:23 number came from Kramer, who was promoting the American championship tour as the principal head to head tour, and the press generally quoted the 15 to 13 number from that tour for 1959. We need something more substantial than offhand remarks.
This does not suggest that the press covered private matches, indeed the paucity of references suggests the opposite for both 1959 and 1963.
And Bodo would not challenge the official 8 to 0 number without some reliable source, and that could only have been Bucholz.
Again, I do not see a gap in the schedule to allow more Hoad/Gonzales matches, since McCauley has bungled the dates for December.
Ok firstly I have to say something about your manner of debating: I have pointed out to you more times than I can remember an obvious fact, not an opinion but a fact: namely, that Bodo's article, as it stands, does not contradict Hoad's 8-0 record over Laver in the January tour. All Bodo says is that Hoad won his first 13 matches from Laver: no timespan is specified, therefore there is no contradiction.
You have never disagreed with me on this, but what you have done is simply repeat your unqualified statement that Bodo is contradicting the official number of the January tour. You merely ignore what I'm saying and repeat your statement as if nothing contradicting it had ever been said. Not good form, to put it kindly.
As for the possibility that Cas Fish got his number from Buccholz, that's right, that's what it is: a mere possibility. More speculation.
But careful now, because you know how much is wrong in Fish's account. If you think Fish was in contact with Buchholz, then you're raising the strong possibility that Buccholz recalled Hoad sweeping Laver in 39 straight sets, as Fish says, and as we all agree did not happen.
Seriously, think about what would have happened if Fish was in contact with Buchholz, who actually participated in the tour. For me this is not a problem because I have never claimed that Buchholz's memories (or anyone's memories) can be crystal clear after the passage of decades. But for you this is a real problem, because you've been insisting hard that Buchholz had a clear recollection of the events -- which makes is possible, even probable, that Fish would simply have gotten all those details from him when they were in contact. Why would he ask only for the number of matches? In your scenario, after all, Fish is lucky enough to be in contact with someone who actually participated in the event (and it makes sense that Fish would seek out those who were there). So in your scenario it looks like Buchholz either told Fish it was 39 straight sets -- thus showing poor memory, and a bias toward Hoad -- or he did not remember anything about the scores -- which is a knock against your argument that Buchholz, as a firsthand witness, has exact, confident recall of these events.
Which option would you like to take?
Now, your dismissal of the 23:23 tally as an "offhand remark" by Gonzalez: you were gung-ho some time ago when we were debating whether Hoad or Gonzalez won their H2H in the American tour by the score of 15 to 13. If I recall correctly, you told BobbyOne that it was impossible to imagine that these two men could be unclear at any given moment about where the H2H stood. You said they would know the exact H2H as surely as they knew the time of day, or something like that.
But now you'd like to think that Pancho was not at all clear what his total record against Hoad was for the year. Or, since you think that Hoad had the edge for the year, you must be suggesting that Pancho was lying when he said it was 23:23.
Which option would you like to take? Was Pancho's memory unclear, or was he lying?
Now let me state for the record, we don't know that the 23:23 tally came from Pancho. All we know is that 23:23 appeared in the LA Times and in British Lawn Tennis. One or more of the sources used by these two publications may have provided the number; and these two publications may have done their own research.
I don't think it's important that the 15-13 H2H was the more commonly reported stat. The media, particularly the American press, was covering the World Professional title every year, so naturally when they talked about who was world champion, they referred to the tally of the spring tour. Year-round tallies, taking into account all tour matches, as well as tournament meetings and exos, and anything else you like, would be a broader category. That broader stat would not be very relevant when the press came around every year to reporting the spring tour; the most relevant stat would be what the H2H had been on the spring tour twelve months earlier.
Also, the year-round stat got reported in two sources in January: a perfectly natural time for such a stat to be tabulated, discussed, and reported. That's when you'd expect to find a stat covering the full year: and bingo, that's when we find it.
There's no contradiction between 15-13 as the H2H for the spring tour and 23-23 as the H2H for the whole year. You're trying to manufacture tension between the two stats, when there is none.
You'll see what I mean if I ask you this: what do you think was the correct stat for all of 1959? It was something like 23-21 for Hoad, right? The exact number is not my issue. I'm just asking you to apply what you said above to your own stat. Do you think it's a problem that the press generally reported the 15-13 stat for the spring tour, instead of 23-21 for the whole year? That's what you said above, isn't it? (See your remark in bold.)
There's no contradiction: each stat has its own context, its own uses.
And for the love of tennis, I don't know why you're stating yet again, "This does not suggest that the press covered private matches". You're suggesting that press did NOT learn about the private matches? You've said several times that the press DID learn about those matches, and that this was a way to explain several H2H tallies that the press published in that era. And yet here you're asserting that the press did not learn about these matches?
What's going on? Are you even clear where you're going with this?
This is what I gather to be your argument: certain matches in H2H tallies reported in that era must have been privately arranged.
Yes?
OK.
That's your argument.
Therefore, according to your argument: the results of private matches in '59 were given to the press, and reported in the press.
Which leaves us with this inescapable fact: we have no indication that the press was given results for any private Hoad/Laver matches in '63. Nothing.
That's the problem here that you have YET to face squarely.
