OCR Text |
Show ROCKY GHAZIANO, the Dead Knd kid from Brooklyn, Is now middleweight champion of the 1 world. Rocky is not what you would call a lovable or a likeable character, naakad with intelll- I - gence and charm. But, he is still the I middleweight champion of Uie toughest division we have. The only active division we , have left. His profession is prize fighting, which is the lowest fnrm of making a ..... i. ...... living. And the toughest. But, it if still his profession. And it is a pro-fession pro-fession that demands certain im- j l..it,int qualities before you reach the top. As we understand the case, Hra-ziano Hra-ziano was barred in New York by j the district attorney's office, with Eddie Eagan of the boxing com- mission forced Into a position he was never too keen about. Grazi-ano'a Grazi-ano'a main offense was a matter of politics. Too many were looking for headlines. This Is a normal situation. situa-tion. As we have said before, Grailano Is not a likeable or a lovable character. char-acter. But he has proved that he CM fight. He doesn't wear a tie and his manners leave much to be desired. de-sired. Hut, he can nail you and hurt you, and that happens to be his trade. The main answer Is that right ' now Graziano is the middleweight champion of the world. There Is no one even close to Joe Louis in the I., i.v.vweinhts. There is no one even close to Gus Lesnevich or Ray Robinson Rob-inson in their class. They are three Robinson Crusoes on a desert island. Hut, outside of Tony Zale, Graziano Grazi-ano still has I.aMotta and Cerdan left, and one or two others. He happens hap-pens to be In the fistic land flowing with milk and honey. And, I believe, be-lieve, he has earned his place to make one of the big killings of his game. He proved both his ability and his gameness against Zale. He had to hurdle the handicap of their first : fight, where he was accused of tak-I tak-I ing a quick powder. He was being PCiUrll Hgillll Wllt'll lit i-amc i''" behind to win. He had to show double dou-ble courage here. Hmi Wafincrs Successor In lining up baseball's all-time stars, you run across one spot that has only one guardsman. Back of the bat you have Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey, Gabby Hart-nett, Hart-nett, Johnny Kling and back in the dim past a great catcher remembered remem-bered as Buck Ewing, a master. In the box we have Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathew-son. Mathew-son. Old Pete Alexander, Carl Hub-bell, Hub-bell, Rube Waddell, Lefty Grove and others. At first we have George Slsler, Lou Gehrig, Hal Chase and Bill Terry. At second there are Eddie Collins, Col-lins, Pie Traynor, Art Devlin and Bill Bradley. In the outfield we have Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Trls Speaker, Joe Jackson Jack-son and Joe DiMaggio. But at shortstop we come to a big, shuffling, bowlegged wonder by the name of Honus Wagner. Wagner Wag-ner has been so far in front of all other shortstops as an all-around star fielder, hitter and base runnerthat run-nerthat no one else has been offered of-fered in comparison. Such names as Herman Long, Hughey Jennings, Travis Jackson, Dave Bancroft and Marty Marion have been given their share of acclaim. But none of these has been even close to Wagner. The Flying Dutchman led his league seven years. He was a .350 hitter. He could steal from 45 to 55 bases a season. According to John McGraw and Ed Barrow, two of baseball's smartest, Hans Is the greatest ballplayer of all time. Who Comes Second? As both put it, "Wagner was a great shortstop a great third baseman base-man a star outfielder a good catcher one of the greatest of all hitters and base runners." Wagner still stands alone at short. But who is the second choice? Who belongs closer to Pittsburgh's Pitts-burgh's brilliant star? Our guess is Lou Boudreau of Cleveland. Boudreau has had to carry the extra burden of handling a losing ball club. In this respect, he has done everything you could ask with indifferent material. Year after year, he has been a brilliant infielder. And this season he has been among the leaders of the American league at bat. For some odd reason, outside of Wagner, few shortstops are .300 hitters. Boudreau isn't Wagner, but he is at least close to a grip on the No. 2 spot, at the agile art of short-Itopping. short-Itopping. He was born in 1917, and entered 1 basebaU in 1938, with the Three Eye League, after two seasons tt the U. of Illinois. Before the year was up, Cleveland grabbed him. He has been bitting around .335. i |