Bobby Fischer dies

I remeber being a kid when Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spasski for the world chess title. I remeber the thing being televised, which, looking back, seems a bit odd. Yes, it was the cold war days, and it was a battle pitting a young individualistic American against the cold product of an assembly-line like system in Spassky...or that's how it was portrayed....but we sat around watching chess on TV, each move followed by a good 10 to 15 minutes of analysis by some expert. It's pretty close to watching paint dry.

This morning I saw that Bobby Fischer died, which only made me think...wow...whatever happened to that guy? Then I read the article and thought...OK, he dropped off the celebrity radar screen because he was a loony. I wonder if chess does that to people, or if very eccentric people are drawn to chess....back to the age old argument...are we born that way or are we made that way by our environment. In either case, I didn't know much about him before reading the article (I was 14 or 15 when he won the title), and after reading it, I can't say I'd hold him up as an example I'd want my kid to emulate....but he sure had his 15 minutes of fame, for being captain of the chess club.