One on One
For it was on that court at Lunt and Damen one day last summer that Stuart Menaker and Ira Berkow, two worn and creaky 50-something basketball warriors, met to continue their ancient rivalry.
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This was a pivotal time in the city’s basketball history; the game, long dominated by Jews and Italians, was becoming more of a black kids sport. In 1954 the DuSable High School Panthers, the first all-black team to win the city crown, revolutionized the game with its fast, aggressive, high-flying techniques. “We were good, but those guys at DuSable were great,” says Berkow. “They helped change the game.”
The rivalry never turned to hate, however; they were cut from the same cloth. Working-class Jewish kids (Berkow’s father was a city precinct captain, Menaker’s a sign painter), the two became inseparable friends. “We played basketball and baseball all day and hung out at night,” says Berkow. “I’d go to his house or he came to mine. We’d sneak into Wrigley Field, go to movies at the Granada. There was Tony’s hot dog place on the corner of Touhy and California–we went there. The big place was Ashkenaz, the old deli on Morse. That was the center of our social life. We’d eat there and laugh and be fools, a bunch of loud-mouthed kids. Each one thought he was smarter than the other.”
Though he moved to New York City in the 60s, he never completely left Chicago, at least not in his subject matter; he wrote a book about Maxwell Street and another about the DuSable High School city champs of 1954. Every now and then he came home to visit his parents (who still live in Rogers Park).
“There’s probably a reason for what happened to me; maybe I was wound up too tight, maybe it was time to get away,” says Menaker. “I couldn’t be happier. I love it here. I love my job. It worked out fine. I loved coaching kids; it’s all I wanted to do once I got to college. But I had a great run.”
Berkow won the next two games, and the stage was set for game five. It would be stealing from the book to give away too many details of that final game; suffice it to say, Berkow made a tactical error. Instead of following Menaker beyond the three-point line, he sagged on defense to cut off his drive. But Menaker had the stroke and knocked down six straight long-range jumpers. By the time Berkow jumped back to cover him the game was lost. All told, they spent two hours broiling in the sun, banging and hacking and dripping sweat. When it ended they went to the Walgreens at Howard and Western, bought some orange juice, sat in the shade, and rested. “I wanted to beat him for the sake of the book, but in the end it’s just as well,” says Berkow. “Next time I’ll cover him outside of the line.”
