Bobby Fischer RIP

It has now been a week since Bobby Fischer died, at the age of 64, in Iceland. I first heard about his death last Friday morning when I tuned into ESPN's The Mike and Mike Show. The cause of death was kidney failure. The countless press accounts uniformly described him as probably the greatest Chessmaster ever and as a true enigma.

For about 72 hours, you could not avoid Fischer. All the major news networks covered the story, but ESPN really pushed it. They did a nice job covering his whole life, both before and after he defeated Boris Spassky in 1972 to become World Champion. They also managed to repeat a treacly feature that Jeremy Schaap put together after Fischer was exiled to Iceland a couple of years ago, ostensibly about the friendship between Fischer and Schaap's father, Dick. Dick Schaap was a great sportwriter. Jeremy is still riding his dad's coattails and probably should be working for Entertainment Tonight.

The details of his life are already known if you saw any of this coverage. Youngest Chess Grandmaster ever in 1958, world champion from 1972-75 and then the slow decent into madness. The 1992 Spassky rematch in Yugoslavia that violated UN sanctions, the anti-US and anti-Semitic rants, culminating with his gleeful endorsement of the 9/11 attacks. Finally, the endgame - the US revokes his passport, Japan arrests him and prepares to deport him until Iceland offers him asylum, where he dies.

A fascinating aspect of this coverage is that it was ESPN that did it. ESPN, an all sports network that did not even start up until 1979, which was 8 years after Bobby's last real "sporting" related feat. In no way, shape or form can I even imagine ESPN covering a major chess tournament now, although this is the network that covers poker as a sport and, I kid you not, had the U.S. National SCRABBLE Championship on at about 3:00 a.m. last summer. Why I was awake and watching TV at 3:00 a.m. is another story.

Back in the early Seventies, Fischer was a legitimate sports star, right up there with Joe Namath and Tom Seaver. I remember being at camp in the summer of 1972 and our daily morning assembly always started with a Fischer-Spassky update. After he won, he was all over the place - Johnny Carson, Playboy(!), Sports Illustrated, etc. He also sparked a worldwide interest in chess, including with me. I learned how the pieces moved and tried to understand the strategy of the game.

Like your average 10 year old, though, I lost interest in the game. Then in the early Nineties, Fischer again caught my attention, through the great movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer". Although Fischer really only appears in the title, the movie's coverage of the world of competitive chess got me playing again. I hung around Harvard Square and played against some of the speed chess players (and got spanked). I played online chess and read books and actually figured out some of the game's strategic aspects. I will never be great or even very good but I enjoy the game and enjoy playing against opponents that are near my skill level. Bobby, you may have descended into ranting, bigoted loonieness, but I thank you for the introduction to this great game.

A final note on his life and death. I googled Fischer this morning to check some facts and came across this item from the London Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/01/25/ftfischer125.xml. As a result of Fischer's uncertain citizenship and his need to cloak every action in mystery, some authorities in Iceland are claiming that he wasn't even buried legally. Who knows if this controversy will result in Fischer actually being disinterred and reburied elsewhere, but the mystery of Bobby Fischer continues even beyond the grave.