If only he had liked horses

<p>From Vonnegutweb.com:</p><blockquote dir=”ltr” style=”MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”><p><span style=”color: #333333;”><span class=”bulkTitle”><strong><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=250,height=307,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/00vonnegut.jpg”><img title=”00vonnegut” height=”184″ alt=”00vonnegut” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/00vonnegut.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a> Vonnegut at <em>Sports Illustrated</em></strong></span></span></p>

<p><span class=”bulkLead”>Kurt Vonnegut worked briefly at SI</span> until being told to write a story about a race horse that had jumped the rail and terrorized the infield at a local track. Vonnegut stared at his desk for what seemed like hours before finally departing the building without a word. Inside his deserted typewriter was this: ”The horse jumped over the f***ing fence.” </p>

<p class=”bulkText”><img height=”1″ src=”http://www.vonnegutweb.com/ximages/rule_465.gif” width=”465″ /></p>

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<p><span class=”bulkLead”>Vonnegut comments:</span> <span class=”bulkText”>”When the magazine was only a glint in the eyes of Luce Publications, they hired a bunch of sports writers from yokel venues who, it turned out, couldn’t write. So then they hired a bunch of writers who didn’t care or know squat about sports. I was part of that second batch, having gone broke as only the daddy of six kids on Cape Cod can hit the big casino. So I roamed far from my immediate responsibilities at the Cornell Club, then at the Hotel Barclay, where everybody else was an unmarried Cornellian insurance salesman. At Time-Life, we got out an issue of S.I. every week, never knowing when the first real issue would be published. And I quit before that happened, exactly in the manner described.”</span></p></blockquote>