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At the moment when I turned 35, I became reborn as a player.  No longer did I have to compete in the open category. I was now deemed a wily Veteran. Right then and there, my focus was to make the most of the opportunity.

While I was competing in the opens, I was regarded as a better than average player, receiving #7 ranking in the US after the 1983-84 season.  Now that my place in the open scheme of things had been secured, it was time to see how I would fair in the 35+ Division.

I embarked upon competing from sea to shining sea here and there and around North America in the Vets classes, meeting compelling figures in along the journey. One was the venerable self-styled sportsman Pete Bostwick - who at the time was a member of Manhattan's stately R&T.  I asked him what he did for a living and he introduced himself to me as a "Sportsman".  Hearing this, accompanied with my care-free California background, his statement seemed a bit overbearing. After all, he was from a world of men having escutcheons on their well-tailored blue blazers. It turned out that the reference to himself as a "sportsman" was not grandiloquent. The moniker fit him precisely. I was privileged to have met him.

Thanks to my friend David Tepper for sending me the following piece.

John

 

Peter Bostwick Jr. - still a legend at 86

by Bill Fields

Despite a fleeting skirmish with the obituary page in the 2019/20 T&RA Annual Report, I am delighted to report that Pete Bostwick Jr. is still very much alive.

In June 2019, G.H. Bostwick Jr., “Pete” to the world and “Pap” to his family, was in his Long Island home talking about a lifetime of being good at many sports and how good those sports have been to him.

Over the course of his illustrious lifetime, Pete has been a legend at Real Tennis, Rackets, Tennis, Golf, Squash and Ice Hockey. The secret of his success? “If you have good hand-eye coordination, you can learn to play all those games, but you never play them as you would if you stuck to one sport,” Pete said at the time. “I played four racquet games at a national level, but I think I could have played at a higher level if I stuck to one sport.”

Pete and his younger brother, Jimmy, came from a family of athletes. Their father, Pete, a Hall of Fame polo player and jockey,  was on six U.S. championship polo teams and was America's leading steeplechase rider from 1928-31, during which he rode in three British Grand Nationals. Their mother, Laura Curtis Bostwick, was a fine golfer. Great aunts, Harriot and Margaret Curtis, were champion amateur golfers who founded the Curtis Cup Matches, a biennial competition between the best women amateurs from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland.

Throughout his life, Pete has been known as much for his character as for his athletic achievements. He never competed with aggression, but with relentless precision, perseverance, and a positive spirit, along with impeccable sportsmanship.

The full article, written by Bill Fields in The Met Golfer magazine is attached, with kind permission of the Bostwick family. The greater athlete you've never heard of - you have now!

There is also an excellent piece by Jim Zug which covers both Peter and Jimmy Bostwick.

Related Links

The Met Golfer

The Greatest Ever