On Sept. 20, 1973, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs participated in the first official"Battle of the Sexes" match in Houston, Texas. Riggs had played and defeated Margaret Court in a similar exhibition previously, and Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova would later play in such an encounter.

King won in three sets—straight sets—as 50 million viewers watched on television. Riggs was no slouch, though, just past his prime. Many forget that Riggs actually won Wimbledon once, in 1939—the year The Wizard of Oz landed in theaters—and the U.S. Open (at Forest Hills) twice, in 1939 and 1941. He was also the French Open finalist in 1939. Via ESPN Classic, here he is on venerable CBS news magazine show 60 Minutes just before his showdown with BJK:

Advertising

Allegedly, the man took 135 pills, vitamins and such, a day. I'm not sure what they were, but the jokes write themselves. He states, "I'm gonna live minimum 95, and I'll be challenging you right now that I'll make it to 100." Elsewhere he says matter of factly, "I don't care if I have monogrammed shirts ..." One wonders what the eccentric man, who died in 1995 at age 77, would think of monogrammed attire these days of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and more. The world will never know.

—Jonathan Scott (@jonscott9)