OCR Text |
Show I SPORT LIGHT , Ex-Champs Criticize Present Crop I By GRANTLAND RICE ' THE FAR-AWAY PAST moves up with today in laying down a heavy barrage on the boxing game of 1950 and 1951. Jack Dempsey, among others, has been outspoken in criticism. There is another old-timer out here at Burbank who was a pretty fair heavyweight in his ' J! V A""',f day and time. He is yA now 76 years old f? jjfa.Jk '? and he has already tTi beaten one tough f&j rap from being I' -J f paralyzed. His p& name Is James J. rVk'H Jeffries, and he won YQH I the heavyweight jlk J championship from iimnA Ar g 0 D Fltzsimmons Grantland Rice just 52 years ago. Jeff picked up this crown in his 11th professional fight, an astonishing performance . when you figure the deep value of experience in boxing. But Jim Jeffries was probably the finest athlete that ever won and held the title. He was over 6 feet tall and he welgbed around 212 pounds at his best fighting weight. But he) could run the 100 In 10 seconds and he could high Jump ciose to 8 feet. There are many who still think that the Jeffries of 1903 was the greatest heavyweight of them all. His unfortunate return to the ring-fat, ring-fat, partly bald and out of condition, condi-tion, removed part of his earlier greatness, just as Joe Louis is slowly slow-ly shucking off his earlier fame by his later performances. Ex-Champions Left There are still more ex-heavyweight champions left than ex-presidents. ex-presidents. For one thing boxers get started in their 20's. Presidents are usually 50 or 60. It takes longer to make a President than it does a champion. The list today from ex-champions shows Jim Jeffries, Tommy Burns, Jess Willard, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Jack Sharkey, Max Schmel-ing, Schmel-ing, Primo Camera, Max Baer, Jim Braddock and Joe Louis. This makes a total of 11 survivors. sur-vivors. Since the reign of John Lawrence Sullivan which lasted until 1892, only Jim Cor belt, Bob Fltzsimmons and Jack Johnson have passed from this hectlo earthy show. All together, togeth-er, Including John L. Sullivan, there have been 16 heavyweight champions of the world. Ezzard Charles is the last on the list. Who is the best of the lot? Suppose Sup-pose we arrange them in order Jack Dempsey must be set on top as the best offensive fighter of them all. Jack Johnson heads the list as the greatest defensive ringman. Jim Corbett was all odds the best boxer. Gene Tunney was the best trained. Jeffries and Dempsey were the hardest to hurt. Both Fitzsimmons and Louis were a strong mixture of good boxing box-ing and hard hitting. Jim Braddock rated high in the matter of ring ftrtlirO CTA Vnil HOn'4 ea inn vw.tnU Jeffries, like Dempsey, can't see the present crop of fighters. "They are not willing to train or learn," he said. "They don't know what hard work means I mean such things as five or ten miles on the road every day, long before a fight. Jim Corbett trained and worked over eight hours a day, before he fought me at Coney Island. Few of these fellows today get In the shape needed to make a fighter." I saw Jeffries work out around 1903. At that time there was no other fighter in the t world close enough to make a contest. He was big, fast, strong a high class boxes and a hard puncher. But above all you couldn't stop him 'with an ax. He was far improved over bis showing with Sharkey and his first fight with Corbett. Gentleman Gentle-man Jim told me years ago in their second meeting that Jeffries Jef-fries was the better boxer. The old fellow still has Jeffries Barn with Its amateur fights, its wrestling and its training center at Burbank. But it's a far call to his Fitzsimmons fight In 1899. A trifle better than half a century. And that's a long time In the fight game. Ask any fighter. about the others. Max Baer could have been a great champion if be had liked his game. Max didn't. These sixteen champions form a strange human medley. e The Lemon Grove Baseball's best pitcher over the last three years is now working his system into shape swinging at a golf ball and traveling many miles a day over various Los Angeles courses. You may recall the fact that Lemon is baseball's only big league pitcher able to win 20 or more games the last three seasons. Lemon blew himself to 23 games last season but with any luck be might easily have reached 30. In addition to being a star pitcher pitch-er Lemon is also one of baseball's better long-distance hitters. He could also be one of baseball's better bet-ter outfielders. "Ted Williams tells me you are the toughest pitcher he has to face," a golfer said to Lemon recently. "That goes for me, too," Joe Di Maggio said. It might be added here that Joe Di Maggio agrees with Lemon about golf as a training game. "A ballplayer needs his legs as much as he needs anything else," Di Maggio said. |