Jump the Shark; Turf Legend Pat Lynch Is Dead

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

JUMP THE SHARK

   From the NEW YORK PRESS, January 17-23, 2001, pg. 86, col. 3:

   Maureen Dowd, as the latest Internet witticism proclaims, has truly "jumped the shark" at a very young age.

   That is, it's all downhill.
   See www.jumptheshark.com.  The phrase is usually associated with TV programs.  It supposedly comes from Fonzi's jumping a shark motorcycle in HAPPY DAYS.

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TURF LEGEND PAT LYNCH IS DEAD

   There was no mention in the NEW YORK TIMES.
   This is from the NEW YORK POST, 16 January 2001, pg. 65, col. 3:

_Turf Legend Lynch dead at 84_
By ED FOUNTAINE
   Pat Lynch, a mainstay in the press box of New York racing for more than a half-century, died yesterday after a long illness at age 84.
   A New York native, Lynch worked for the Hearst newspapers for more than 30 years, at one point running copy for the legendary Damon Runyon.  As the racing columnist for the World Telegram and Sun, Lynch won two Eclipse Awards for outstanding turf writing.
(...)
   After his retirement he continued to attend the races on a near-daily basis.

   Almost ten years years ago, I called the New York Racing Association and asked if anyone knew who John J. Fitz Gerald was.  Everyone associated with racing told me to call Pat Lynch.  Everyone said that Lynch knew everything.  They told me that he could be found every day in the press box.
   "No, Fitz didn't coin the Big Apple," Lynch told me.  "We called him Jack Fitz."
   "He couldn't even write his own name!"
   I gave great weight to this and thought that perhaps Gerald Cohen and I had gotten the wrong guy.
   Ultimately, I found the Fitz Gerald columns where he discussed "the Big Apple."  These were written before Lynch was ten years old.  Lynch had known Fitz Gerald on the downside, when he was, perhaps, a drunk.
   Now dead are Pat Lynch; Cab Calloway (who helped bring "the Big Apple" to Harlem); Gene Ward (the Daily News columnist who called Aqueduct "the Big A"); Charles Gillett (the NY Convention and Visitors Bureau President who popularized the term in the 1970s); and Shirley Povich (the legendary Washington Post sportswriter who was hired by Fitz Gerald's brother).
   The New York Times has yet to write the story.
   I ask once again for William Safire and his assistant to talk to me and to correct the errors associated with my name.
   I have waited a long time.