Courtesy of Tim Boggan

Arresting, Louie and his table tennis play doubtless became, but his development as a young player of note was anything but arrested. By 1932 he’d won the New York City Boys’ Club and Inter-Settlement Championships for his age-group. In 1933, from a field of youthful players representing various schools, YMCAs, scout troops, and welfare organizations, in matches played during weekdays after school at Bloomingdale’s Department Store, Louie celebrated, as it were, his upcoming 14th birthday. He defeated the 92nd YMHA’s Arthur Spitzer to win the season-ending NYC’s Metro Junior Championship (8-13 Division).

Then, as a member of the Boys’ Club Team, he began winning matches in the annual NYTTA Round Robin League, crediting Abe Krakauer, whose game Lou once said he’d copied his own after, for having given him “some pointers” (like”Patience is most essential”?). Krakauer, one of Schussheim’s 1929-30 Boys’ Club teammates and Manager of the Game Room at the Tompkins Square Boys’ Club where Pagliaro learned to play, was the runner-up to Coleman Clark in the 1932 Parker Brothers’ American Ping-Pong Association’s National Championship. Thanks to Abe or anyone else, Louie was obviously a quick learner. By the end of the ’33-34 season he and his Boys’ Club teammates (Garrado, Koshak, and Sam Hoffner) had won the NYTTA “B” Division League Championship.

Pagliaro and famous prizefighter Rocky Graziano spent some years together at this Tompkins Square Boys’ Club. One day while there–this was sometime in 1935–Louie realized that his jacket was missing. “He told Graziano about it and within half an hour Rocky came back with Lou’s jacket and told Lou that if anyone ever took any of his things again, ‘I will bust him in the nose.’ After that, nothing was ever taken from him.”

In March, prior to the ’35 USTTA National’s (this was the first that, with the demise of the APPA, combined all the country’s leading players), Pagliaro, whose rapid advancement now warranted him a place among the best players in the NYTTA Round Robin, had as his new Boys’ Club teammates Stan Feitelson (soon to become Stan Fields), Al Goldman, and Abe Krakauer. Together they upset the favored 92nd St. YMHA team of Sol Schiff, Abe Berenbaum, Art Drapkin, and Emil “Babe” Graetz to win the “AA” Division League Championship. “Hard-hitting’ Pagliaro, now 15, beat Schiff and Berenbaum, the favorites, along with the Midwest’s Jimmy McClure, to win the upcoming National Championship!

And, just before the Apr. 3-5 Chicago National’s, too far of course for young Paggy to attend, in the NYC Metro Open, Lou 23, 15, -11, 26 again topspinned away Schiff, who was about to defend his National title, then stubbornly took Berenbaum, who was about to win the Championship in Chicago, to 5. Said one observer, “Lou’s low height helped him, for he could hit the ball chest high rather than waist high.” Said another, “So small is he [Pagliaro] that he almost has to jump into the air to…drive [the ball,] and how he can drive!”

Although Louie lost in the late-April N.Y. State Championship to Graetz, he was fast developing that high-arcing forehand that in their 1939 Table Tennis Comes of Age Schiff and Cartland would call “a stiff topspin loop.” Lou came into the ball with “tremendous force” and then followed through by bringing his racket “almost directly up in the air” and “way over his head.”

Pagliaro’s first Intercities was at Chicago’s Lake Shore Athletic Club in Jan., 1936, and he and his teammates–Berenbaum, Schiff, and Jimmy Jacobson, 1933 APPA National Champion–along with their non-playing Captain, Topics Editor and soon to be U.S. Team Captain to the ’36 Prague World’s, Sidney Biddell, drove the 900 miles to Chicago over “sleet-covered and blizzard-swept roads.” As it turned out, their victory there demanded a similar perseverance, patience, and maybe a little luck.

In winning the Championship they defeated Indianapolis 5-4, and Chicago and St. Louis, 5-3. Lou’s record was 5-3, but his losses were all “good” ones, for he was beaten by those who’d be selected for the U.S. Team to Prague–the Indianapolis ’34 APPA Champion McClure (12-0), and the St. Louis stars Dick Tindall (12-2) and Bud Blattner (9-4). Blattner, however, though he’d come back from 17-8 down in the second to beat Louie two straight (and would beat him in straight games again in the follow-up American Zone tournament), wasn’t at his best because he’d suffered food poisoning the night before play started.

At the early Apr., 1936 Philadelphia National’s, Pagliaro, seeded #5, was upset in the 8th’s, 18 in the 4th, by Sandor Glancz, who for the second straight year was part of a Coleman Clark “Circus” Tour of U.S. cities with his friend and former World Champion Doubles partner, Victor Barna, 5-time World Singles Champion and, as expected, the Open winner here in Philadelphia. In the Doubles, Pagliaro and Feitelson lost, also 18 in the 4th, to deep-defender Jack Hartigan (a USTTA official who could actually play) and the visiting Englishman Adrian Haydon, a former World semifinalist, the current English #1, and later the father of future Wimbledon Champion Ann Haydon Jones.

Pagliaro was ranked U.S. #6 for the ’35-36 season, and when next year’s Newark, N.J.’s National’s came round he was seeded #7, so he was still paying his dues. USTTA Ranking Chair Reginald Hammond admitted he was “fixing” or “re-fixing” the usual East vs. West Draw by putting the Easterners Schiff and Berenbaum in the same half. But he wanted McClure and Blattner–they’d just won their second World Doubles Championship–in the other half to break the deadlock they were in for the season’s #2 ranking (Schiff, having had the best U.S. Intercity record plus an incredible World’s, would be #1).

And Pagliaro–where in the Draw was he? Maybe nowhere….But having “survived a wild [5-game] session” with Philadelphia’s Gene Smolens in the 16th’s, he was faced again with Blattner whom he’d been losing to. But this time he upset Bud, the #2 seed, and may well have turned the St. Louis teenager’s mind and heart away from table tennis toward professional baseball and the big league player he’d become. By block-returning Bud’s serves to his backhand (something apparently he hadn’t tried earlier), Lou could get his powerful forehand going before Bud’s–which in this case, USTTA anti-pushing regulations to the contrary, certainly made Louie’s trap shot an “offensive” rather than a “defensive” stroke.

Paggy’s opponent in the quarter’s was the visiting Standa Kolar, the 1936 Czech World Champion, who’d not been very impressive on his U.S. Tour (Louie had beaten him the first night). “I am the World Champion,” Kolar would say when someone had chided him for a Tour loss, “I don’t need to beat anyone. But at the U.S. Open, when I have to, I will win.”

And maybe he would, for, though he’d been -10, -19, 15, 15, 18 almost fatally slow in adapting to Jacobson’s unorthodox attacking strokes, he did right himself. And in the quarter’s, after he’d lost that first game to Pagliaro at 9, and people were saying that the lower 6″ net gave the N.Y. mighty mite a walloping advantage, since the ball came at him at eye-height or at least chest-height and so offered him more line-of-sight coordination, Kolar took over the offense and quickly turned the match into an 8-point game.

However, it was not runner-up Kolar but another visitor, Hungary’s famous three-time World finalist Laszlo “Laci” Bellak, who won our 1937 National’s. Laci also teamed with Kolar to take the Doubles title–over the World’s best, McClure and Blattner, who, in a clutch semi’s (-17, 20, 14, 20) had knocked out Paggy and Berenbaum.

Bellak, his usual serio-comic self, also won the Eastern’s from Kolar–though Laci, too, found himself down 2-0 to Jimmy Jacobson before rallying. It was said that, in addition to having a good backhand block, Jacobson, if given the opportunity, could steadily roll 50-100 balls, and that he was no longer as “soft” as he’d been with the 6 and 3/4″ net. Earlier, Jimmy had done his usual number on Pagliaro, despite the fact that just the week before Louie had won the N.Y. State Championship over Johnny Abrahams.

The Jan. 8-9, 1938 St. Louis Intercities was an especially important tournament for the still U.S. #6 Pagliaro, for a player’s performance here (in Lou’s case, “after a two-day sleepless bus ride”) counted so much toward making the U.S. World Team. Paggy’s teammates were Schiff and, to the dismay of officials, Abrahams. Johnny, back in May, had been suspended by the N.Y. Metro TTA, supposedly for a year–after which, denied a ranking (he might well have been in the Top 12), he reportedly began taking boxing lessons. This was definitely a young man who before the season was over people were betting on–betting he wouldn’t behave.

But it wasn’t any indiscretion of Johnny’s that was causing consternation among Ranking Chair Hammond and the USTTA Committeemen present. First of all, they had incredibly little time, for they had to name the World Team immediately after the tournament. Last summer, the Association’s Executive Committee, angry at Ivor Montagu of the English TTA and ITTF for suspending Ruth Aarons, decided not to send U.S. Teams to defend their Swaythling and Corbillon Cup Championships at the ’38 London World’s, and so had no objection to a Jan. 8-9 date for the Intercities. Afterwards they changed their mind, but now of course this Intercity tournament was much too close to the Jan. 12th sailing date for the Jan. 24-29 World’s.

To further complicate matters, because of what Hammond called a “ridiculous” N.Y. Tryout (from a consistently uncooperative N.Y. affiliate?), both Berenbaum and Bernie Grimes (who was kept off the U.S. World Team last year despite a perfect 12-0 record at the Intercities), were very conspicuous by their absence. Granted a premium was put on past performance, were they both, without playing here, and without regard to anyone else’s record here, simply to be given carte blanche to go to London? And where the hell was the traveling Stewart Trophy? New York, winners last year, had misplaced it.

It turned out that, going into the deciding New York-St. Louis tie, St. Louis players Garrett Nash and George Hendry had perfect 11-0 records and were in contention both for the Outstanding Player Award and the honor of being on the U.S. World Team.

In the first match of the St. Louis-N.Y. final, Hendry and, as one fellow put it, his “curiously surviving push game in this age of hitters,” produced more heroics, more hometown cheers by beating Pagliaro 15 and 14. “Paggy tried to get through, but couldn’t,” George said later. However, that was the only win for St. Louis, for Abrahams (11-2) downed both Nash and Edwin Woody, Paggy (10-2 with a loss to McClure) took out Nash (11-2) in 3, and Schiff (9-2) reflected that young Hendry (12-1) “in appearance and style of play” was so much like World Champion Richard Bergmann that Sol just did beat George, 19 in the 3rd.

Hammond said that both Hendry and Pagliaro had the “sound game and absolute courage required for international play.” He emphasized that 18-year-old Pagliaro “now has an all around game. No longer is he the terrific hitter that could be made helpless with a heavy chop or blasted from the table if his opponent beat him to the hitting.”

So, after last minute hours of deliberation, our ’38 World Men’s Team was McClure, Schiff, Hendry, Pagliaro, and, since Berenbaum, U.S. #1 in ’35 and ’36, really hadn’t much of a current record, Grimes.

Because 16 teams were entered in Swaythling Cup play, the field was divided into two 8-team round robins. As it happened, our 6-1 record would not put us out of contention….

We opened with a 5-2 win over Germany–but had difficulty because of Dieter Mauritz, the German National Champion for 1936, ’37, ’47, and’49, and in ’65 the elected head of the German Association, the DTTB. He beat both McClure and Grimes in 3 and gave Schiff, whom some thought the best player at these Championships, 20, 18 trouble enough.

Pagliaro played only one meaningful tie in this round robin and that was against England, whom we beat 5-1–with McClure losing a -19, -20 match to Ernie Bubley. As if still hearing the cheers of his Tompkins Square Boys’ Club buddies who’d helped raise money for his trip and gone to that Aquitania pier to see him off, Lou came through in his first World’s matches with two gutsy wins–over the graceful lawn tennis player Eric Filby, -20, 19, 16, and over Hyman Lurie, a player capable of “brilliant spells,” -18, 15, 20.

Another little test for us came from Poland–but though “Alex” Ehrlich (who again would be the Singles runner-up) downed McClure and Hendry, his long reach didn’t extend to beating Schiff, and we got by them 5-2.

Austria 5-3 stopped us. Karl Schediwy was a relatively weak third. But Alfred Liebster, playing in his 11th straight World’s, stood tall, won all 3, and 19-year-old Defending Singles Champion Bergmann, though losing to McClure’s steady drives and picks, won 2. Schiff had an -11, -22 moment with Liebster, and Hendry had a 8, -19, -7 glorious chance for an upset over Bergmann. But, since we couldn’t beat this Austrian team, we were apparently out of it.

Then, surprise, England, who’d lost only to us, won an unexpected 5-4 victory over the Austrians. Bubley, ever determined, -7, 19, 9 came from behind for a big swing win over Helmuth Goebel (he and Bergmann had been finalists in Doubles in ’37 to McClure/Blattner), then downed Liebster, 19 in the 3rd.

Ernie, bless him, was an eccentric from London’s East End, of a kind you don’t see on the world scene anymore. Back when he began to play in earnest, he was a stage violinist, and so some said that, ever since, he’d taken to wearing a glove on his left playing hand to protect his fingers and/or to give him a better “feel”; others said he had the medical problem of an excessively sweaty hand. England’s great player Adrian Haydon acknowledged Bubley’s lack of fluid strokes, his “rather ugly style,” but correctly affirmed it’s the player’s record that counts. Another commentator put Bubley’s game into better perspective when he spoke of his “fine half-volley defence, an extremely heavy forehand chop, and a most effective backhand flick.”

According to today’s tiebreaker rules, based on the percentage of matches won and lost among the three contending teams, the U.S. (8-6) would have finished ahead of Austria (9-8) and England (6-9) and advanced to the final, where they might have successfully defended their Championship. However, since there were no tiebreaker rules in effect in 1938, there had to be an additional round-robin Play-off among the three top finishers to determine a finalist.

In this Play-off, England, with 5-1 losses to the U.S. and Austria, was never a factor–though Paggy, described in the Press as a “dark little fellow with the quaint agility of [tennis star] Bitsy Grant,” might still remember that, after having had four match points, he lost that 26-24-in-the-3rd match to Bubley. (Ah, what a different Game it was then–reportedly during one deuce exchange the players hit the ball a combined 140 times).

Louie did not play in the climactic tie against Austria–which, with Grimes taking Hendry’s place, we again lost 5-3. We might have won it, but as the U.P. reported, “Bergmann beat McClure with magnificent deep defense and a final net-cord shot after Jimmy led 16-11 in [the] 3rd.” Schiff, too, had a good chance against this young Richard, the Lion-Hearted, but lost -20, 18, -7. Many another day we might have taken this tie, but today we dropped six out of seven 19 or deuce games–and so Pagliaro and the others were denied a Swaythling Cup final, perhaps a Championship.

In the Singles, only Schiff made it to the quarter’s–where he was beaten by Hungary’s Tibor Hazi. Afterwards, according to a British columnist, Sol “looked tired and ill” and said he’d lost 15 pounds during the strenuous week. Paggy advanced easily over Kolar, who’d clobbered him in our ’37 U.S. Open. But he was no match for Vaclav Tereba, conqueror in an earlier tournament in Prague of his even more famous Czech teammate, this year’s eventual World Champion, Bo Vana.

In the Men’s Doubles, Pagliaro and Grimes had a good 5-game win over the Germans, Mauritz and Helmut Hoffman, and a satisfying 4-game win over the English team of Seaman and expatriate Gilbert Marshall, Men’s Consolation winner, who back in ’35 had played Swaythling Cup matches for the U.S. Then they lost in 5 to the stylish Filby and Lurie. McClure and Schiff, meanwhile, kept advancing through a series of spectacular 5-game matches to snatch the final from Barna and Bellak.

In the English Open at Blackpool that followed, Paggy, like Schiff and McClure (“suffering from blistered feet”), lost to the ebullient, crafty Bellak, who with England’s Wendy Woodhead had just won the World’s Mixed Doubles, and who here would reach the final before losing to Barna.

“I love to travel,” Pagliaro had said, so no wonder he and Grimes took advantage of a chance to go to Scotland to play. Those watching ‘The Mighty Mite” were as youthfully enthusiastic as the Edinburgh reporter describing Louie in action: “The body, leashed till the very last split second, lunged suddenly forward, the arm flashed over, and the ball, hit with uncanny timing, simply screamed down the table.”

On returning home, Pagliaro didn’t play in the Eastern’s, but, seeded #5 in the East-West “fixed” positioning at the Mar. 24-26, ’38 Philly National’s, he ousted veteran Sam Silberman, coach to U.S. National Champions Ruth Aarons and Emily Fuller, then met the #2 seed McClure in the quarter’s. Lou had a difficult 19, 21, -7, 12 time beating Jimmy, who actually outscored him in points (73-72). Indeed, Topics proclaimed this McClure-Pagliaro match–though the Schiff-Hendry semi’s, won 20, -19, -15, 12, 13 by Schiff, surely had to rival it–the tournament’s “Biggest thriller”:

Dynamite McClure and Dynamite Mite Pagliaro [were] exploding drives at each other. With 1,500 pairs of eyes glued upon them, Paggy drove Jimmy out of position 3 times, then rifled 3 consecutive ungettable cross-court smashes off Jimmy’s forehand corner for the last 3 points and victory.”

In the semi’s, Bellak–the “most brilliant and versatile stroke artist in the game”–won in 4 from Paggy, but was never seriously threatened. Why not? Didn’t Paggy have a good offense? Yes, but perhaps Schiff and Cartland, writing so soon after this match, can give us a hint of what went on:

“…[Bellak] half-volleys the service, half-volleys your fastest drives, sends over three or four fast half volleys in rapid succession, and when he forces an opening comes in and starts his ferocious offensive.”

Laci then went on–with his “exasperating backhand, played with so much sidespin and deception”–to successfully defend his U.S. Open title by beating Schiff in 5.

In Doubles, however, World Champions McClure and Schiff became the U.S. Champions–eliminating Pagliaro and Grimes along the way.

Perversely, you might say, after the National’s, after the announced National Rankings (Pagliaro was #3), tournaments in various parts of the country continued right on, as if the season didn’t really end until June bloomed. In the Tri-State Open at the Broadway Courts, Schiff took out the dangerous Harry Cook in the semi’s, then, after Paggy had eliminated Abrahams, got the better of Lou in the final.

Pagliaro and Abrahams, along with Bellak, Glancz, and Les Lowry, also were part of an unprecedented Tour performance that took place in the Boston Arena on Apr. 8, a night of “snow, sleet and rain storm,” that yet drew over 4,000 paid spectators–the largest crowd in the U.S. ever to watch a table tennis exhibition. But even National Champion Bellak had to play second banana to the “guest” of the evening–former World Champion Ruth Aarons, who encouraged fans to gather on court to photograph her.

Paggy also would appear–with Aarons, current U.S. Women’s Champ Fuller and runner-up finalist, Baltimore’s photogenic Dorothy Halliday, Bellak, and Glancz–in a Warner Brothers’ Clem McCarthy table tennis movie short, shot in Brooklyn, called “Table Manners,” starring entertainer Eddie Foy.

There’d be no plans this upcoming 1938-39 season to send a U.S. Team to the Cairo World Championships–the last (and also the first ever away from now darkening Europe) until after the War. So that meant the annual Intercities had lost much of their prestige–no U.S. Team would be picked from the players participating there. Since Philadelphia only at the last minute reluctantly agreed to hold the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 tournament, and was not offering the traditional hospitality, just five teams, and all closely bunched Eastern ones at that, agreed to participate.

Naturally John Kauderer’s New York Metropolitan TTA didn’t appreciate having maybe only 10 days to prepare. But the Broadway Courts agreed to accept the financial risk of holding the usual 8-man Tryouts, and luckily there were proceeds enough to help send a powerhouse Team to Philadelphia (Schiff, Grimes, Pagliaro, Berenbaum, and Cartland), with Fred D. Thompson as non-playing Captain and, as President Zeisberg in his Topics write-up put it, “Ruthe Brewer as mascot.”

Of course with the Newark, Philadelphia, Camden, N.J., and Baltimore opposition, N.Y. really had no competition–lost only 2 matches out of 22. Pagliaro had the distinction of playing Philly’s Paul Capelle “the wildest match,” with “both hitting everything in sight amid almost continuous applause” until Louie finally won in 3.

N.Y., with reserves to spare, might just as convincingly have fielded Charlie Schmidt, who’d been playing well. In the Dec. 19-21 Brooklyn Open, he’d lost to Pagliaro in the final in 4, after Lou, apparently recovering nicely from his Oct. appendectomy, had disposed of U.S. Boy’s Champ Sy (later Cy) Sussman in the semi’s. And in the Jan. 23-24 Metro Open, Schmidt again had reached the final–where he’d lost to Grimes, after Bernie had escaped Paggy 19 in the 5th. Earlier, Charlie had shown his usual determination in coming from 2-0 down to outlast Schiff in the quarter’s, and then, in what surely must have been a relentless succession of long rallies, had withstood Cartland’s unyielding topspin to beat him in 4 in the semi’s.

Because this season’s fiasco of an Intercities had prevented the best players from the Midwest from competing against the best players from the East, thus causing Ranking problems, the USTTA agreed to Sandor Glancz’s suggestion to hold a three-man round robin East vs. West Match to be played Mar. 9 at New York City’s Hippodrome (later, the site of Madison Square Garden). Schiff, Bellis, and Grimes (not Pagliaro) were picked for the East; McClure, Hendry, and Nash for the West. Because Bellis shone as the hero–he won all three of his matches in the deciding 3rd, the last against McClure with the tie 4-4 and the score 19-all–he would be the #1 domestic seed at the Mar. 17-19 Toledo U.S. Open.

The new Ranking Chair, Elmer Cinnater, in his East-West seedings for the National’s, carried on the tradition of his predecessor Hammond. In the top half it was Bellis (#1) vs. steady St. Louis retriever Bill Price (#6), and Pagliaro (#8) vs. McClure (#3); in the bottom half it was Hendry (#7) vs. Grimes (#4), and Schiff (#5) vs. Nash (#2). However, the three foreign seeds complicated matters; the #1 foreign seed, the ’37 and ’38 Defending Champion Bellak, was (strangely?) drawn into the #1 domestic seed Bellis’s half, though in Paggy’s 8th’s, and the #2 foreign seed, the ’38 World semifinalist Hazi, was drawn into the #2 domestic seed Nash’s half, though in Hendry’s 8th’s.

After Bill Holzrichter’s upset of the #1 Bellis, the 8th’s went pretty much as expected–which meant that Bellak beat Pagliaro, 3-0. Paggy tried to compensate for a non-existent backhand attack with his backhand defense. But he was still vulnerable on that side, for it was only his forehand that had the heavy chop. Perhaps when Bellak said that Pagliaro “should improve his physical condition,” he inferred that, like Vana or Adrian Haydon, Lou should be ever ready to run around his forehand and attack. But, though Louie was very fast of foot and if given the opportunity could come in from deep defense to pick-hit shots, he just couldn’t take the offense from Laci, whose two-fingered grip allowed him to stroke not bullet balls (he lost too much freedom of the arm for that) but deceptive, well-placed drives and beautifully controlled drops.

Bellak, though, was not to win his third straight Open. Against Laci in the quarter’s, Price said that McClure played “the fiercest, most fighting offensive game I’ve ever seen, and as a result he (-21, 21, 22, 20) “blasted the crown off the baldish head of [the] two-time champion.” Then Jimmy “zoned in” against Cartland, after which he was determined “to rush Hazi off his feet.” Championship to McClure.

Bellak and Hazi, however, paired to win the Doubles–though they were almost (19, -19, -16, 20, 19) beaten in the semi’s by Pagliaro and Abrahams who together were able to do what Paggy couldn’t do alone against Bellak–wrest the offense away.

Despite the fact that after the National’s there were more than 25 late Mar., Apr., and May tournaments still to be played, the season’s Rankings were again rushed out (Pagliaro fell to U.S. #6). At one of these tournaments, the Apr. 22-23 Newark, N.J. Middle Atlantic States, both Paggy and his usual doubles partner Grimes lost in the semi’s in close matches. Lou was a loser to Schmidt, and Bernie to Cartland. After Doug had won the final, 3-0, he loaned the as yet unengraved perpetual Filing Trophy to Paul Capelle so Paul (Look what I won!) could impress his parents.

Another significant tournament was the mid-May New York City Master’s Invitational at the Dan Klepak-managed 5th Ave. Courts. “Little Dynamite”–now called “the most spectacular player in New York,” one who never failed to have the crowd with him–took the Men’s Singles and Doubles (with Grimes). In the quarter’s of the Singles, Paggy played another close match with Schmidt–this time was victorious, 19, 20, -19, 20. Then, in the semi’s, he scored a “wild 4th game,” very intense win over Hazi, -18, 18, -19, 24, 17. And in the final he 19, 20, 17 more or less relaxed against the tenacious but predictable Cartland.