Another summer and another two-week sojourn to Saratoga Springs. A highlight this year was seeing sometime local trainer and all-the-time fellow Giants fan Jeremiah Engelhart win the Union Avenue Stakes with his 3-year-old filly Tricky Temper. Especially pleasurable was cashing a ticket or two on the race, which, despite all the blather about attending the races to have fun, is the true high for those of us who fancy ourselves as semi-skilled handicappers.
Speaking of that semi-skilled lot, my wife and I once again met up with Dave from Geneva who offered to share with us a bag of peanuts in lieu of handing out any winning horses. Accompanying Dave was Charlie from Newark who tried to hit me up for an overpriced plate of several two-ounce meatballs on the pretext of some mythical (in my opinion) bet that we made on a long ago NFL game or Cleveland’s season record or the number of Browns players arrested or ... well, who knows what.
Most unexpected was running into Big Al and Charley Knuckles. Both of my devoted readers may be familiar with Big Al from previous essays. He’s a friend from my childhood days in the Edgerton Park neighborhood of Rochester. While literally bumping into Al on my way to a betting machine was unexpected, it certainly was not surprising. Al was dealing blackjack in Edgerton Park at the age of 10. By 12, he was putting parlay sheets in our desks at St. Anthony’s grammar school. As for Charley Knuckles ... well, let’s just say that Knucks’ collections weren’t conducted during Sunday Mass.
“Joey, who da ya like in this........