Re: R.I.P Uncle Bill (342 Views)
Posted by: JohnTChance (IP Logged)
Date: May 09, 2025 06:14PM
Bill Spillane - known as “Billy the Sheets” in my circles - was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I first met him around 1985, the year Spend a Buck won the Derby, just as I was starting to use ThoroGraph. That’s forty years ago! Time really does fly.
Back then, I wasn’t much of a gambler. My interest in horse racing began while making a film about Monmouth Park’s leading trainer, JJ Crupi, for PBS. Monmouth had a unique appeal, so I started taking the train from Penn Station to the Jersey Shore, picking up ThoroGraph booklets from Jerry Brown’s office in lower Manhattan beforehand. At Monmouth, a tip to an usher secured a prime box seat. When I asked about the ThoroGraph representative, that’s how I met Bill. The first thing he said to me was, “Are you a pro?” Haha.
Over the next decade or so, Bill and I became racetrack friends. Our box, and the boxes surrounding ours, became a gathering spot for handicappers, trainers, owners, Monmouth officials, and assorted characters and crazies. If you were anybody at Monmouth, you came by those boxes. Every day was an education.
For several years, when he had a car, Bill offered to drive me to the track. I’d take the train from Manhattan to Newark, meet him there, and he’d drive us the rest of the way. After the races, he’d insist on dropping me off at my Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, never accepting my offer to save him the traffic and tunnel hassles and let me off in Newark.
Before ThoroGraph, Bill worked as a hot walker for a New Jersey trainer. He wasn’t from a privileged background and didn’t have much money. Then one day, he told me he was expecting a big money settlement. The previous winter, while working at Gulfstream Park, Bill had been in a serious car accident. With support from star trainers Shug McGaughey and Tommy Skiffington, he won his case.
After that, a change came over Bill. In our train rides down to Monmouth, instead of diving into the Daily Racing Form and ThoroGraph sheets as usual to handicap the card, Bill suddenly started reading The Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily! He fashioned himself some kind of Wall Street player! A big-wheel investor! It reminded me of that Honeymooners episode where Ralph Kramden inherits a parrot named Fortune. “Billy The Sheets” the business mogul!
He asked me for investment advice, and I suggested blue-chip stocks - choices that would be worth millions today. But Bill had other ideas: baseball cards and maybe buying a horse. Sigh. I never found out what he did with his settlement, or if he indeed received the full amount.
Finally, I have many memories of Bill at Monmouth, but one stands out: Haskell Day, the track’s biggest day. The place was packed, top horses were running, and therefore Bill’s ThoroGraph booklets sold out fast. Bill even gave his own copy to a customer. Later, Bill Finley, the New York Post racing writer, came looking for a booklet. With none left, he and his brother looked desperate, like addicts waiting for a fix that’s been denied. Ultimately, Bill Spillane borrowed a copy for them, and we watched as Finley shouted out numbers while his brother frantically scribbled them onto napkins. Two grown men, in jackets and ties, on the floor of our box, on their hands and knees, sweating and anxious over ThoroGraph racing data - it was an astonishing sight to behold. As John Lennon once said: “You shoulda been there!”
Rest in peace, Bill.
Back then, I wasn’t much of a gambler. My interest in horse racing began while making a film about Monmouth Park’s leading trainer, JJ Crupi, for PBS. Monmouth had a unique appeal, so I started taking the train from Penn Station to the Jersey Shore, picking up ThoroGraph booklets from Jerry Brown’s office in lower Manhattan beforehand. At Monmouth, a tip to an usher secured a prime box seat. When I asked about the ThoroGraph representative, that’s how I met Bill. The first thing he said to me was, “Are you a pro?” Haha.
Over the next decade or so, Bill and I became racetrack friends. Our box, and the boxes surrounding ours, became a gathering spot for handicappers, trainers, owners, Monmouth officials, and assorted characters and crazies. If you were anybody at Monmouth, you came by those boxes. Every day was an education.
For several years, when he had a car, Bill offered to drive me to the track. I’d take the train from Manhattan to Newark, meet him there, and he’d drive us the rest of the way. After the races, he’d insist on dropping me off at my Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, never accepting my offer to save him the traffic and tunnel hassles and let me off in Newark.
Before ThoroGraph, Bill worked as a hot walker for a New Jersey trainer. He wasn’t from a privileged background and didn’t have much money. Then one day, he told me he was expecting a big money settlement. The previous winter, while working at Gulfstream Park, Bill had been in a serious car accident. With support from star trainers Shug McGaughey and Tommy Skiffington, he won his case.
After that, a change came over Bill. In our train rides down to Monmouth, instead of diving into the Daily Racing Form and ThoroGraph sheets as usual to handicap the card, Bill suddenly started reading The Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily! He fashioned himself some kind of Wall Street player! A big-wheel investor! It reminded me of that Honeymooners episode where Ralph Kramden inherits a parrot named Fortune. “Billy The Sheets” the business mogul!
He asked me for investment advice, and I suggested blue-chip stocks - choices that would be worth millions today. But Bill had other ideas: baseball cards and maybe buying a horse. Sigh. I never found out what he did with his settlement, or if he indeed received the full amount.
Finally, I have many memories of Bill at Monmouth, but one stands out: Haskell Day, the track’s biggest day. The place was packed, top horses were running, and therefore Bill’s ThoroGraph booklets sold out fast. Bill even gave his own copy to a customer. Later, Bill Finley, the New York Post racing writer, came looking for a booklet. With none left, he and his brother looked desperate, like addicts waiting for a fix that’s been denied. Ultimately, Bill Spillane borrowed a copy for them, and we watched as Finley shouted out numbers while his brother frantically scribbled them onto napkins. Two grown men, in jackets and ties, on the floor of our box, on their hands and knees, sweating and anxious over ThoroGraph racing data - it was an astonishing sight to behold. As John Lennon once said: “You shoulda been there!”
Rest in peace, Bill.
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