One-Up on Everybody

Stephen Potter, an Englishman with a long upper lip which is never quite stiff enough to conceal a faintly derisive attitude, is the twentieth century’s revenge for Tom Brown of Rugby. In a series of books (Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-Upmanship) he has taught a large and increasingly articulate following the art of putting one’s opponent, or one’s boss, or even one’s wife or husband, firmly and inextricably behind the eight-ball. As Potter has worked it out, there is always a way of winning without actually violating the rules. He has given an English spin to something which Leo Durocher, erstwhile manager of the New York Giants, learned on the sandlots of Springfield, Mass.—that “nice guys finish last.”

Well, a game is only a game, and all that, and there’s no reason to pretend that you’re sorry for an opponent when he’s thrown out of the ball park because you’ve succeeded in making him mad. The only danger is that the “gambits” and “ploys” of “one-upmanship” inevitably render their employer a marked man. Leo Durocher found that out when Commissioner Happy Chandler bounced him out of his managerial job for nothing more tangible than being “one up” too often on too many people.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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Stephen Potter, an Englishman with a long upper lip which is never quite stiff enough to conceal a faintly derisive attitude, is the twentieth century’s revenge for Tom Brown of Rugby. In a series of books (Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-Upmanship) he has taught a large and increasingly articulate following the art of putting one’s opponent, or one’s boss, or even one’s wife or husband, firmly and inextricably behind the eight-ball. As Potter has worked it out, there is always a way of winning without actually violating the rules. He has given an English spin to something which Leo Durocher, erstwhile manager of the New York Giants, learned on the sandlots of Springfield, Mass.—that “nice guys finish last.”

Well, a game is only a game, and all that, and there’s no reason to pretend that you’re sorry for an opponent when he’s thrown out of the ball park because you’ve succeeded in making him mad. The only danger is that the “gambits” and “ploys” of “one-upmanship” inevitably render their employer a marked man. Leo Durocher found that out when Commissioner Happy Chandler bounced him out of his managerial job for nothing more tangible than being “one up” too often on too many people.