Jan 18
2 min read
The Peculiar Truth about the Ping Pong Hustlers
- In the mid-1960s, two young men, David and Jonathan, attended Goddard College, a liberal arts school in rural Vermont.
- They traveled from college to college hustling unsuspecting people for cash. Here’s how.
- David and Jonathan would play ping pong against one another, and David would always win… because Jonathan would secretly let him.
- David would then goad onlookers to beat him at ping pong for money. But he had one stipulation. The challenger had to beat Jonathan at a game first for the same amount.
- Jonathan, a slight fellow, seemed easy to defeat.
- But David failed to mention that Jonathan was the New York State ping pong champion of 1964, one of the best players in the country.
- He could win even when he spotted a competitor 15 points.
- The hustle succeeded over and over, and David and Jonathan split the winnings.
- David went on to Broadway fame as a playwright who wrote American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and other successes.
- Jonathan became a standup comedian best known for his animated series on Comedy Central in the 1990s.
- They are lifelong friends David Mamet and Jonathan Katz.
Dan is the author of over a dozen novels. His latest is Tight Five.
