HOPEFULLY, AL DOESN'T SPORT FISH :

Big Money, Big Fish Reel 'Em in at White Marlin Open (Angus Phillips, August 11, 2002, washingtonpost.com)

Recession? What recession?

If Alan Greenspan needed reassurance on the struggling U.S. economy, he should have come to the beach last week to grab a glimpse of the 29th White Marlin Open, where a record 402 gleaming offshore fishing boats chased prize money in the millions.

That's right, millions. On registration day last Sunday, organizer Jim Motsko, who started the Open in 1974 as a local contest with 57 entries and $20,000 in guaranteed prizes, was so busy processing entries he barely had time to come up for air. At day's end he tallied up the proceeds and found that anglers from the Carolinas to New York had ponied up a staggering $2.1 million in entry fees and "calcutta" wagers, much of it in cash.

"Don't worry," he said when a visitor keenly eyed haphazard piles of bags and boxes in the registration tent, "it's already deposited in the bank."

All around was a scene of beer-drinking merriment and fiscal excess.

Doesn't mean we don't need a rate cut... Posted by Orrin Judd at August 16, 2002 8:51 AM