Dear RichieBee

I am a good friend of Joe Hirsch's. He is one of the greatest guys in the world. He confirmed that story related by Kriegel about his and Namath's first meeting. Joe and Joe were roommates for 10 years. If you want to understand how good friends they are, you only need to do the following.....do a search in the DRF archives looking for pieces authored by Namath. That is correct, AUTHORED by Namath. You will find the tribute Namath wrote to Joe when the racing form announced Hirsch's retirement. The racing form used this piece on its cover instead of having any racing articles the day it was published. I can ask Joe if the Joplin stuff is true, although i am getting worried that we are getting off the topic of the pilfering of Monkey Man by Gary Mc. I would also like to add that I have nothing against Gary Mc personally. He seems like an extremely reasonable poster over there. And, of course, I share his taste in music (Monkey Man is a terribly underrated song...suffers from being a cut on an album loaded with hits....the Stones did this song fantastically on the 40 licks tour). Now, does anybody have anything on Dylan and horseracing?