Marty Reisman

Martin Reisman (February 1, 1930 – December 7, 2012) was an American table tennis player and author. He won the U.S. Men's Singles Championship in 1958 and 1960 and the U.S. Hardbat Championship in 1997. He advocated the traditional hardbat style of table tennis.

Reisman was active in New York City's table tennis community for decades. He was nicknamed "the Needle" for his quick wit and slender build. In his 1974 memoir The Money Player, he wrote that top table tennis players had to be "gamblers or smugglers."

Early life Reisman was born on February 1, 1930, in Manhattan, New York City, to Sarah (Sally Nemorosky) and Morris, an Ashkenazi Jewish couple. He grew up on East Broadway with his older brother, David. His father worked as a cab driver.

At the age of 15, he placed a $500 bet on himself at a national tournament in Detroit with a man he thought was a bookie. The man turned out to be the head of the United States Table Tennis Association. Police officers escorted Reisman out of the tournament. They hit balls with frying pans and the soles of their sneakers. His fifth medal came in 1952 in the men's doubles with Douglas Cartland at the 1952 World Table Tennis Championships. He lost, however, in an early round to the Japanese player Hiroji Satoh, who was one of the first players to use an improved paddle with a rubberized foam sponge layer. Satoh went on to win the Men's Singles title.

Reisman won 22 major table tennis titles from 1946 to 2002, including two United States Opens and a British Open.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he ran the Riverside Table Tennis Club on 96th Street, just off Broadway. The club had many well-known patrons, including actor Dustin Hoffman, chess prodigy Bobby Fischer, and author Kurt Vonnegut.

Later life Reisman became the oldest player to win an open national competition in a racket sport by winning the 1997 United States National Hardbat Championship at the age of 67.

He was a flamboyant figure, known for regularly wearing fashionable, bright clothing, accompanied by his signature fedora and Panama hats.

In 2008, he appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. Fellow guest Matthew Broderick mentioned Reisman while talking about his ping-pong hobby. Letterman then revealed Reisman was in the studio, emerging to perform his signature trick of attempting to split a cigarette with a ping-pong ball live on stage.

Reisman was president of Table Tennis Nation at the time of his death in December 2012.

Personal life Reisman was married twice, and had a daughter, Debbie, with his first wife, Geri Falk. His second wife was Yoshiko Koshino.

Death Reisman died on December 7, 2012, at the age of 82, in New York City. The cause of death was heart and lung complications.

Autobiography

Reisman's autobiography, The Money Player: The Confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Player and Hustler was published in 1974 by Morrow.

In popular culture

The 2025 movie Marty Supreme directed by Josh Safdie, although not a biographical film, features the fictional lead character "Marty Mauser" (Timothée Chalamet). Mauser is a Jewish table tennis hustler from the Lower East Side who was loosely based on Reisman.