Stud playwright Neil Simon, who died this week at 91 — this hurt me — was a funny guy who didn’t play around.

You can’t halfway do something, even if you’re a genius, and match what Neil Simon, a 100-percent New Yorker, produced. From the mid-1960s until the 1980s, he was to Broadway what Mickey Mantle was to the Yankees. He was the undisputed No. 1 writer in the playwright game. Not just the best player on the team, but the best player in the game.

Today, he’s one of only three people who have their names on Broadway theaters. He has to be the No. 1 comedic playwright of the most recent century, and maybe the No. 1 playwright of the century period.

To read his plays is like listening to music. Lyrical and with a beat, a rhythm. Dialogue unmatched. Perfect words at perfect times.

A lot of great actors — Matthau and Jack Lemmon and Matthew Broderick and dear lord how I loved Marsha Mason — brought Simon’s characters to life. But it was Simon who created them all.

Reading his autobiography and his follow-up autobiography — is the name of it “Rewrites”? — was almost as much of a joy as reading his plays. He wrote on those extra-long yellow legal pads so he could “see” the dialogue better. Again, he was going for music, for pace. He wrote, and managed to stay out of the way.

My friend and DW co-founder was surprised when I told him I’d just found out Neil Simon had died and that it hurt me. Hurt me bad. I guess I haven’t talked about Neil Simon a bunch as he hadn’t had a play produced in a couple of decades. But I’ve read most of his plays twice and some of them more than that. The most recent was last year, “Prisoner of Second Avenue” or “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.”

“Plaza Suite” is good. Nothing beats “The Odd Couple.” The “Brighton Beach” trilogy. “Rumors.”

If you want a fun three hours between games you want to watch this fall, think about reading a Neil Simon play. Some are better than others; writing plays is hard to do. But almost every one is a fun ride. Thank goodness he did all that work so I could do all that laughing.

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