Jackson W. Showalter would have met Pillsbury, Steinitz, Lasker,
Marshall, and threw a curve ball for the New York Highlanders.

Part of the enjoyment of chess is meeting the people who play it. Chess was, I think, more mysterious and fascinating in those days. Masters were rare and GM's were people who lived in far away places and you only read about them in books and magazines; most people never actually saw them. I think the USCF only had 5-6000 members when I started. Nowadays everybody is a GM (except me). Anyway, it was fascinating meeting some of the guys that made chess history.

Totally agreed. My first job I worked for a friend of my Uncle who owned a screen painting business in Greenwich Village. With my pay I bought about 5 Dover Chess books. In the back of $1.25 books (or less) there were coupons for Chess Review, and U.S.C.F. membership. USCF membership was around $5. A subscription for Al Horrowitz's Chess Review was around $5 also. And Chess Review threw in an E.S. Lowe travel peg set. (Similar to the magnetic set of today. At CNNY there were few Masters including Soltis and and a Chemistry teacher from England who was the Chess advisor. Also a few wannabees Grand Masters. One player I recall went to Europe to play. I was made the treasurer of the Club since I was good at negotiating funds for the Club. I was also the editor of the Chess Publication. Which I started. I have to figure why Reinfeld, and Fine of an earlier generation never started a publication. But from reading Fine maybe the depression had something to do with it. They needed money, they wrote chess books for. Fine as he wrote indicated there was no money in Chess, and became an MD and later a psychiatrist. Reinfeld taught chess at CCNY or so Wikipedia indicates. But I never met him. Nor did anyone else at the club. He never showed up at the club if in fact he was teaching. but his books as were Fine's were in the CCNY library. A lot more books than Dover, Tartan, or Mckay ever printed. There were tournament books, and a book on Keres which it appeared was written strictly for Grand Masters. Never reprinted. Not the same book as Keres and Fine wrote years later for Dover. I believe the 4-6000 membership above may be a bit high.
I have to guess a lot less. CCLA the Postal Club was separate from USCF.
USCF did have its own Postal Tournaments. One player I beat was someone who appeared on PBS with Shelby Lyman during the Fischer-Spassky match.
Chess Life by the way use to give all the games of USCF matches, and many games from International matches many with notes. commentators were Keres, and Euwe. Up to the 60's NYC (Manhattan) had dozens of bookstore. There was a bookstore row. Chess books galore.

Skwerly, Just read your article on Fischer---very interesting. I thought your statement that he was put in jail for playing chess was misleading and so was "Also let us not forget that he won that match, as well, proving that he was indeed still the biggest dog at the chess board."

Winning the match with Spassky in 92' did not prove he was the biggest dog at the chess board. There were a hundred chess players rated higher than Spassky in 92'. There was much criticism about the quality of the games.

It was still the match in 72' that made fischer such a draw and, of course, the mystery of the man.

I think everyone who knew Fischer as a youngster probably felt he had problems. Look at the famous interview of Fischer by Ginsberg when Bobby was eighteen. He's down on women, he's down on Jews, He's down on gays, he doesnt have any close friends---"I dont need close friends" he says.

He doesnt watch tv because of radiation. he admitted he was already into Hitler. This was Fischer at 18!

LOL yea, good points. While Spassky was not a big threat by 1992, he also didn't just take a 20 year break! Fischer was a prodigy at the game, and I guess the point of the article is not to mix up the Deadly Gamesman with his eccentric thoughts and behavior. His chess is still beautiful, his attitude never was, necessarily.

You call Fischer a prodigy---and I'm sure no one will disagree with you. But what is a prodigy? Of course you must be strong at a very early age, but how strong and how early? There is no doubt about Reshevsky, Capablanca, or Morphy but Fischer was somewhat older than those guys and his published uscf rating of 2168 in April of 1956 (13 yrs) doesnt seem to place him in the prodigy class.

Kasparov may have been stronger at 13 than Fischer was at 13---was Kasparov a prodiigy? Karpov at 12 was accepted into Botvinniks prestigious chess school---was he a prodigy?

Boris Spassky first drew wide attention in 1947 at age ten, when he defeated Soviet champion Botvinnik in a simultaneous exhibition. At age 11 he was a candidate master---was Spassky a prodigy?

What exactly is a prodigy ? How young and how strong?

Well, I guess that anyone who, in their early teens, is making headlines and then goes ON to become world champ, would qualify as a prodigy. No?

I don't think there is any hard and fast rule for chess prodigies, but I wouldn't think I'd get too many arguments if I called Fischer one .

Prodigy defined, as by Dictionary.com: a person, esp. a child or young person, having extraordinary talent or ability: a musical prodigy.

Here is Encyclopedia Britannica---prodigy

"a child who, by about age 10, performs at the level of a highly trained adult in a particular sphere of activity or knowledge. In this sense, neither high intelligence nor eccentric skills by themselves qualify a child as a prodigy. Rather, it is the capacity to perform in a recognized area of endeavour in such a way as to receive broad acclaim that defines the prodigy."

Bobby Fischer at 12 was rated 1700 and playing and struggling in amateur tournaments. Sergey Kajarkin was a Grandmaster at 12.
Some players seem to be born with chess skill and some players have to work hard at it. Fischer had to work hard at it, Arturo Pomar and Daniel Yanofsky did not,

Joel Benjamin says in American Grandmaster p11---Fischer did not truly come into his own until fourteen and fifteen, when he earned the International master and grandmaster titles, respectively.

But, you are correct, no one is goint to argue with you when you say Fischer was a prodigy. In fact, Fischer himself thought of himself as a prodigy---I heard him say so in an interview.

I'm pretty sure it was the interview in the park.