![]() Go away.” Later in the afternoon, we had a cordial chat about his role as the “official adjudicator,” but he was hard to draw out. (Sherman’s nickname refers to the soundtrack of gastrointestinal disturbances that often punctuate his games.) When Wolitzer introduced us, Sherman covered his ears with both hands and huddled near a wall. Joel, is a legendary player and a former world champion who figures prominently in “Word Freak,” a pungently written best-seller by Stefan Fatsis about the competitive Scrabble subculture. His assistant director, Joel Sherman, a wiry bachelor from the Bronx known as G.I. The diner’s owner, Ira Freehof, runs the tournament. Players were drifting in from a hearty breakfast at the Comfort Diner, on West Twenty-third Street, armed with leftover carbohydrates. A high-school marching band from New Jersey, wearing Polish folk costumes, was disembarking from a tour bus with a clatter of drums and cymbals. A light rain was falling, and the Avenue had been closed to traffic for the Pulaski Day parade. His mother, in Division 3, invited me to watch them play their final games, and we arrived at the venue, a loft on lower Fifth Avenue, a little before nine o’clock on Sunday morning. Meg Wolitzer, the novelist, had signed up for the three-day event with her son, Charlie Panek, a thirteen-year-old eighth grader who was competing in Division 4, the lowest tier, but was holding his own against adult rivals. ![]() The 2008 Big Apple Scrabble Tournament took place on a weekend in early October.
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