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Show j RETIftEO ATHLETES m NEVER II M I: :l ' I !! ; No Matter What the .Sport, Two p ' or Throe Years' Absence it .' , Makes Difl'erenec. , , , WEFKRS. TOD SLOAN AND .J i ; j . SULLIVAN GOOD EXAMPLES , :!" li ! Great Hll'ort Bciiiff Made to 'fl 1 Gain Satisfactory Line j 'I on .left'. il.J ' 'I . ;s'rJW YOPK, Nov. G.Do they over iJ, ' ; eomo back? s IT, Think it over. Did you play tennis Ijlf up lo livo years ago, and then give it r , , up? Wcro you n protly pood shot with ': ji a rifle live years; ago, and givo it up7 f! Did you play football up to tho timo ;' . ,' . you "loft Echool, fivo years ago, and '' ! then conflno your interest in tho sport f , ' to watching a game, from tho grand , stand onco a year? Did you wrestle a - ' j. bit or box a li tt lo or do a little sprinting sprint-ing or a littlo lone; distance running ; j- ' fomo iivo yoars ago, but pass thorn all 1 ? . mt for business? If'. . If you did any of theso things, do you J, ' think any amount of training would , make vou as good today as you wore i : (I before 'you quit tho particular sport in t' j! ' which you were interested.' j ' 1 j ' Thousands of good men have tried f " i it and no 0110 has over conic back into jr ' i tho old time form, whether his forto j I was tennis, or rowing, or swimming, or 1 1 . shooting, or wrestling, or boxing, 01 r': riding or anvthing else. ' , ' All this, of course, loads up to the question as to whether or not dim Jct- ; fries can ever be as good again as ho " ; i was fivo years ago. J lo may look as S well and feel as well, but will his eye i . i work as qnicklv as it used to? Will i his fecfc carry him around tho ring as ",' . fast as they did when ho was the ! champion of tho world? his arms , m shoot out with tho same force that they ,' j ' did live years ago? ' ,, Six Years' Best. ' - As a matter of fact, it has been six ' ' vcars sinco .lim .Jeffries had a real light. That was on August 1-1, lOO.'l. , i when bo put dim Corbet t awa.y in ten J rounds in San Francisco. One year and - , two months later he had his littlo two- ' ' round bout with Jack Monroe, aud ho 1 had spent vorv littlo timo actually ' training for that encounter. He didu t have to; tho fight was "in" before the men got into tho ring aud Jeff know it. Still nt tho last minuto ho wanted lo ask for a postponement in order to gel into a littlo bettor condition. And so vou sec, if Jeffries fights tho negro at all it will bo noaror seven voars than livo siuco ho has dono any hard work. Han a man stay out of the gamo all that timo nnd bo as good as ever, oven though ho has led a temper- alo life? Can ho? Hardly. May Not be Samo Old Joff. Of course, there is this to bo considered. con-sidered. Jeff may not have to bo the Jeff of old to whip Jack Johnson, but closo students of the gamo liguro that ho must bo at his very best to win from the giant colored man, who is a groat fighter. There is another thing to consider. Whilo Jeffries has led n tempcrato lifo during tho past six years ho has led an easy one. very fow days havo found him out of bod 'beforo nearly noon. He i grew fat aud lazy. Always good natured, ho would rather sit. around and talk than get into a pair of trunks nnd jvork. ('an a man throw nsido the habits developed in six years of idlc- ness all of a suddou and bogin all over again? Well, let's seo what others havo dono along tho samo lino. Tod Sloan, after a long period of rest from work in tho. saddle, was allowed al-lowed to rido down at Now Orleans. Uo got eomo good mounts, but everj' stablo boy at tho track put it on him when jt c.ahio to riding a race. His oyo, his judgment and his skill had all vanished. Host Ruined Ainos Rusio. Then thcro was the cuso of Amos Tlusie. JSvorvbody remombers tho Giants' famous pitcher who quit tho gamo, aud after a long rest ho had shown no signs of not being as good as he over was he tried to cot back iuto the diamond game. What was tho result? re-sult? Every old batter who couldn't hit the side of a bam took a crack nt Rusie's twirling, ami tho onc-timo king of them all went back to work in a lumber yard at $.1.50 a day. Bonnie Wcfers was one of the greatest great-est sprinters the world ever saw ho ran 100 yards iu 9 4-.'i seconds less than twenty-seven times and was positively unbeatable in his day. Ho easily outran out-ran men liko Maybury, Rush Long and Burk in the short races and performed prodigious feats of speed. A few years nftor his retiroment "Wefers tried to ro-gain ro-gain his old time form, but i'ouud out that tho old snap wns not in hia .stride He could sprint tolernblv well, but ho lacked just enough of his former dash to koop liim from regaining his former place as the grcntest short distance man on earth. There aro many distance runnors who havo gone through tho snrno cx-pcrioneo cx-pcrioneo that Wefers had. None of them havo ever quit the gnmo and "conic back" again. Vacations Aro Costly. It is the same story in every other lino of professional and amateur sport. A man who takes care of himself and keeps at tho gamo may iinvo many years of success whether it bo at tennis ten-nis or football or running or baseball or fighting or anything else. But let him give up tho sport, sta3' out of it for a time and then try to bo a champion again, and whero does he get off? Lveryone knows the answer. King champions who have tried it and failed are too numerous to mention. men-tion. The trouble, however, with most fighters has been that they havo tried to eomo back after they were bcaton, and after a long poriod of dissipation. Jeff has never been beaten, and ho has uever dissipated, so you can't exactly comparo him with ,r Young Porbott" and Terry McGovorn aud the other champions who tried lo eomo back and couldn't connect. . Tako the case of .lolui L. Sullivan. The old fellow fought .laho Kilrain and beat him in soventy-four rounds in Richburg on July S, 1SD2. Thcu fol: lowed a long period of rest threo years and two months and then Jim Cor.bett put the champion out of the running in twontv one rounds at Now Orleans. No 'one has ever come back yet. Think it over. Does Jeffries have to come back to beat Jack Johnson 1 j If ho docs havo to, can he 7 |