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Show Athletes Who Defy Years & ' OS & Jim Flynn Is an Example By DAMON RUNYON. New York, March 10. WALTER TKAVIS, the grand old man of golf, has retired, but Eddie Plank, the Travis of baseball, and Jim Flynn, the Plank of pugilism, are going on. lu the thirty-eighth year of his age, and in the sixteenth year of his fighting fight-ing service, Flynn stops one of the toughest and most promising young heavyweights heavy-weights that has come along in some time, and does it in a single round, too. Pretty good for an old boy, with age-brittled hands, and a couple of hundred bitter battles behind him, hey, what J Jack Dempsey, the fellow Jim knocked cold out in L'tah, weighs more than 200 pounds. He is about six feet one or two inches tall and perhaps 22 years of age. He came on here some months ago and bested Andre Anderson and John Lester Johnson in ten-round bouts. Andre wasn't much, but John Lester Johnson is that slippery, slashing Harlem black that few heavyweights care to tackle. He is the L'evinsky of the colored brigade. John, the barber, thought so well of Dempsey that he signed him to a contract, which Dempsey promptly broke, returning to his old L'tah home. , He came on here again, and made up with John, the Barber, just a few weeks back, onlv to once more do a lammister alter John had dressed him up like a horse ami' buggy and ironed the wrinkles out of his stomach. Flvnn arrived here a couple of weeks ago from Missouri, expecting to fill some eastern engagements, but was loaded right hack on the trnin tho next dav and sent to Utah to fight Dempsey, ?o he had little time to -get readv. Many of our fistic folk figured tho aged one a mere set-up for Dempsey, but, instead, James proved a set-down, also u setback. Our Aged Athletes. OF COURSE, Jim is not really old in years, but T.S figures pretty close to senility in an athletic way. He is probably now the oldest man actively j pursuing the fistic pastime. lie is four years younger than Eddie Plank, and bcL'nn fighting the pamo (Continued on Following Pago.) Athletes Who Defy Years tiS tj S6 & Jim Fiijnn Is an Example (Continued From Preceding Page.) year that tho Gettysburg man took up his first professional engagement 1901. Plank was then 25 years of age, and Jim was 21 .both making rather late starts on their athletic careers. Honus Wagner is 43, and he got going in a professional way when he was 21 years of age. Some might argue that the very fact that these men made such comparatively late starts is responsible for their continuing on past the allotted athletic span, because they were physically matured when they began their life-work, life-work, but 3'ou;can disprove that theory by a hundred other cases. The first record or any fighting by Bob Fitzsimmons shows he was 18 when he started. He made his last appearance in what was reputed to be a regular fight at the age of 52.- His ring service covered closo to thirty-four years, so Flynn will have to keep going until he has enough long white whiskers to pad a set of ring ropes if he hopes to equal that record. Nap Lajoie closed out a twenty-year stretch in the big league last season, and is taking up a minor league -managerial career. He should continue down there as an active player for some yoars to come, and he is now as old as Plank. Beside these chaps Jim Flynn seems quite youthful, but he is none the less the grand old man of fistiana. The Effect of Food. NATE LEWIS, the bald eagle of Michigan boulevard, has a mighty unique theory concerning Fred Fulton. Nate is manager of Charley White, the lightweight, and of Carl Morris, tho S-apulpa sapling. He is one of the very few managers we have ever encoun-tered encoun-tered who can talk about a fighter not an" inmate of bis personal garage. It is a pleasing trait. "Fulton Is a wonderfully improved fighter," said Nate yesterday. "Most of the improvement has come within the last few months. It is easy to account for it. Up to that time Fulton had found the fighting game very tough picking. I'll venture to say there w-ere days when Fred did not know how he was going to get the next meal for his family and for himself. "Naturally he was constantly worried, and pretty much discouraged. Then he got hold of a little money, and was able to provide for his folks. The cloud of worry lifted, the plasterer immediately began showing improvement in form. He fought with more zest. He was able to concentrate his mind on the business at hand, and tho result is apparent. , "To my way of thinking, Fulton is one of the most graceful fighters we have ever had," continued Nate. "He is the very acme of pugilistic arace I mean when he is in action, of course. Outside the ring he looks like a bihick Inside of it he is the perfection of form. He is what I call a great fistie stylist' Of course, I think Morris can beat him, because he has done it before but that opinion detracts nothing from Iilton's form." ' |