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Show GANS If AS HASTES OF RIMICES (By ED SMITH.) Chicago, Aug. 15. The "old master" mas-ter" is passing and wlih him will pass the colored lighter's guidebook to boxing. ' Joe Gans did much for his fellow colored men who aspired to shine in tho prize ring. He taught them by example, most of all. .Ion Oans was the master of all that pertained to treatness In the prize ring. Like a great baseball pitcher, he had "everything." "every-thing." There wasu't a trick that ho didn't know and couldn't work. There vasn't h single Hue point of the old Queeusbcrry code upon which (hit, onco 'famous colored man badn t wiuk'ed. Cans practically has passed out. 1 Io was the picture of death when ho was in Chicago recently and the phy-tlcians phy-tlcians traveling with this onco mighty man of the 133-pound division haid that he could scarcely live more than a lew hours. He wanted to get t n to Baltimore and see his old mother once more before the eud was reached. Doubtless his constant reduction In weight had something to do with his contracting the dread white plague. Probably late hours and all-night sessions ses-sions at the gaming table had more to do with 'it For Joe was a gambler, gam-bler, Hire and simple. Despite his iiAilve shrewdness and his seeming cunning In other ways, he never could get tho notion out of his head that he could beat the various games, especially the "bones." But while he was boxing and his career went from 1S91 to 1307 b'. invented more "great Ftuff" for others oth-ers to copy than perhaps any lighter, Hack or white. If you are familiar at all with tbf methods of the present day colored fighters, you may have taken note of them that almost all of them bov with tho left arm well extended and the glove open. Note, too, that Jack Johnson belongs to this class. Oani probably was the first man to Introduce Intro-duce that style. He kept the open f.love waving tantalizingly in front of an opponent's face. More than one rood fighter was badly rattled by thN method of combat, tho left 1 "ig always al-ways a blind for the terribli.' right that Gans could slam in at such short lange and with such deadly effect. This system of fighting was extensively exten-sively copied by all of the colored n'hters. and traces of Gans arc to be noted today In the work of Jack Johnson, Sam Langlord, Sam McVcy, Joe Jeannette and others, big aud little. lit-tle. The late George Dixon, who be-f.an be-f.an his career before Gans started nts, also was an inventive genius, but not tho master that Gans afterward proved to be. All of the colored fighters havr their little boxing eccentricities, but most of them are not bard to traco luck to the great colored Baltimore Mo!, the man who always knew hU I iace and was endeared to everybody be ever met, despite the treacherous iMunagment that once mado Joe do thlDgs that were obnoxious to him. Gans was of the most kindly disposition dispo-sition of any of the fighters, and r.ever felt it too much trouble to go out of his way to show an aspirin ; I 'enter just how he w orked this punch or that one or effected this block or that one. In the matter of defense ho wan greatest of all. His style of blocking t-.inl bitting with the t-ame motion, rnd with his skill and force was copied far aud wld but nobody ever perfected to the same degree that Gans diil. Th'y talk about Johnson catching the blows like a man catches base-lulls base-lulls Cans did that 15 years ago. l efore Johnson was ever beard of out s'de of his own family. And he could rmch u blow, too, almost before It was started. Truly he wns tbo only one "Old Master." |