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Show fjllllllllllll'llllllllllllllll.'llllllllllllliu I Speaking o 1 By ROBERT McSHANE S Iom4 by Western Ntwtpopw Union nlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli: TOE LOUIS, the busiest fighter in " the history of heavyweight competition, com-petition, looked like the Louis of old when ho disposed of Buddy Baer recently re-cently In the seventeenth defense of his title. The Brown Bomber has lost little of his sharpness and ferocity. Though a few of his past fights haven't been np to standard, the champ la there with everything neo-cssary neo-cssary when the chips are down. Buddy was a badly beaten young man when he stumbled down the ring stepa and up the aisle leading to his dressing room. But for all that, he vindicated the fighting heart of the Baers. It wai five years ago September 24, 1935 that Max, Buddy's older brother, went down to complete and ignoble defeat at the hands of Louis. Maxie didn't really try he was beaten long before he stepped into the ring. It was like pitting a playful but scared puppy against a lean and hungry wolf. Buddy gave the fight everything he bad. He knocked Louis through the ropes onto the apron of the ring r .'- I ' ' Buddy Baer grins happily as he diu playt the picture of Joe Louis hanging out of the ring in the first round of their bout. during the first round. Blood was flowing from the champ's left eye when the fifth round ended. Then, early in the sixth round, one of Louis' short rights caught Baer flush on the jaw. Buddy reeled around and fell flat on his face in the middle of the ring. It looked like the fight was over. But Buddy was on his feet at the count of nine. Louis connected with his right again and Buddy took another count of nine. When he struggled to his feet it was obvious that he was whipped but it was just as obvious that his courage was unshaken. Foul or Not? As he instinctively tried to ward off the champ's blows, the bell ended end-ed the round. A second later the finishing blow landed on Buddy's jaw, knocking him cold. Referee Arthur Donovan claims the blow landed exactly when the bell rang, ending the round. Newspaper News-paper men at the ringside claim the blow landed a second or two after the bell rang. That controversy, like the Dempsey Demp-sey long-count episode, never will be decided. Of course, it won't become be-come as important a part of fisticuff history, but it will. furnish ammunition ammuni-tion for endless arguments. In this writer's opinion the argument argu-ment is a bit silly. Obviously Baer was beaten. He had absorbed pun- ishment almost to the saturation point And then there's the champion's cham-pion's record in the ring. No breath of scandal has touched Louis. He fights with a fairness that no one questions. Certainly he is out to win, but always according to the sportsmen's code. Buddy, unlike Max, was cheered at the end of the fight. He had done bis best and showed no fear of the dusky champion. In other words, he put up a much better fight than did his older brother. Brother Buddy isn't the type. He isn't a salesman. But be had something some-thing that Max lacked a fighting heart. He went down, but he went down scrapping to the last. During his 17 title defenses Louis has met better fighters than Buddy. Also, he has met worse. Some of the men who climbed Into the ring with Joe were strictly second-raters, built up to championship proportions by plenty of ballyhoo. They figured a beating was inevitable, but their share of the gate receipts convinced them the beating was well worth while. Buddy didn't figure things that way. He believed he had a good chance to take the crown and was determined to do his best. Sport Shorts C A total of 5,433,791 persons attended at-tended American league baseball j games in 1940. National league attendance at-tendance totaled 4,748,100. Detroit, with an attendance of 1,112,693, topped both leagues in turnstile numbers. C Twenty no-hit games have been pitched in the major leagues since 1920. C. Only three aces have been scored in the nine years of competition in New York's annual Hole-in-One golf tournament. |