Evening Star Newspaper, March 22, 1937, Page 14

Jeffries’ Backers Have Strong Argument in Ranking All-Timers SPORTS. THE EVENING STAR, W/ HINGTON, iy MARCH 1937 SPORTS DEMPSEY, JORN L. | HIS CHIEF RIVALS Jim Had Flock of Quahtles to Consider in Rating of Best Heavies. BY GRANTLAND RICE. OS ANGELES, March 22 —Fight fans like to argue—among other things—about who was the greatest heavyweight cham- pion that ever lived ments on this score that I've ever heard—and I've heard plenty of them in the years I've been pounding the sport trail—the three leading candi- dates for the distinction were John L. | Sullivan, Dempse: James J. Jeffries and Jack ns, Jim Corbett Jack Johnson have their adheren too. But, in the main pretty evenly distribut L., Jeff and Dempsey. The fact that each of them was a puncher may have had something to do with this, because the fellow with the grand s ways has the crowd on his side I don't mean only in "‘.A ing. Babe Ruth i nd Maurice d among John e the fellows you'll re- vou've forgotten most N use thi b skill plus t have been or punchi that Sullivan; Jeflries an drew the most chee of sheer glove 8D e power and ly-legged Fitz was pre and good, Sullivan a Diamond Star. COLom Well, they had pi that. But, in ad ition to | and color, they had and courage—and j thing else th: t ah ut ev dominated his er The ultimate an- swer—which is almost get, stripped of prej 1 speak of a Sull I speak of a § because the S knew was a paunchy old man vears so that he moved I have sound testi- from those who nstance—knew in his prime t he came roaring the age of 22 or ‘When had speed, an who van I mony concerr —Ilike Jack Do; him when he w That is, when fi out of Boston at thereabouts, tall and w about 195 po He was Ir but lithe. H hard as nai ie had the m of an all-around athlete, because he could run the hundred about as fast as any man of his time and he could play ball so well that if he hadn't turned to prize fighting instead he might have been a big leaguer. Corbett }ound a Shell. E thing chiefly remembered about him was the terr force with which he belted out S oppo- nents with hi hand, but those who saw hi talk, to this day, of the b speed with which he threw his punches with either hand. Wh did he lick? Well, maybe some of them were fat old men who wouldn't be allowed in a r to- day. But all he had to fight, and is th pretty well w dence that comes down to us is that on Bny given night he would have done just as well against better men. He was beaten at last by t est boxer the heavyweight ever has known. But that night at New Orleans John L. was 34 yi old, had been living at a fast pace for 10 years—and hadn’t had a serious ring eng ¢ for four years. Against Corbett, Sullivan had noth- ing left but courage, and that wasn't enough against a your fast and superbly cond | ynent—not after a few rounds had been reeled off. rs nt Dempsey—and Big Jeff. THE Dempsey of the years from 1919 to 1923 was a magnificent figure | in the 2. He overwhelmed the ! n, and beat them urious punching. He hting man to whom the rules—mat- tered, save the urge to stretch his foe on the canvas in the s time. He swept throug weights of his era and stood alon seven years until, past the peak was impaled on Gene Tu hand at Philadelphia. It al be difficult to make any one w him in the full flush of h believe thay there ever was weight who was his superior. But what of Jeffries? Not, of course, | the fat and faded Jeffries whom John- | son dropped in the scorching Reno | heat in 1910. But the Jeff: who | won the championship in less than a dozen fights. The Jeffries who, at 22, was 6 feet 115 inches tall, about 200 pounds, had a ter in either hand—and cou punch so well that Fitz, a mighty | hitter, cracked both hands on him, trying in vain to bring him down. Undoubtedly, heavyweights around in Jeff's than in any other time in the history of the ring in this country. Fitz, Corbett, Ruhlin, Sharkey, Choynski and a half dozen others were all active, all at their peak—or close to it. But Jeff went through the pack, beating nothing—in a heavy- fic 1 take a and ruining the best that could be | tossed into the ring with him. He was easy to hit—but hard to hurt. He could fight all night—and no matter how in some of his contests with better boxers, he could win in a punch—as he did against Corbett at Coney Island. The best of the three—of the lot? I don’t know. But it seems to me that there is a lot to say for those whose choice is Jeffries. (Copyright, 1937, by the North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.) GIANTS’ R0.0KS QUAKE Jackson at Hand, Ready to Grab Talent for Jersey City. GULFPORT, Miss—New York Giant rookies will be watching their step for the next few days. Travis Jackson, manager of the Jersey City farm club, which trains here, has both eyes peeled for talent, and he expects to get it before the Giants move on. % & In all the argu- | and | the vote is ?* RECEVED COLDLY ! Braddock Spurns $350,000 them—and the evi- | weighed | nch | there were more good | time | far behind he was | Feature Fighter TEDDY LODER, New York welterweight, who collides with New York's Wer- ther Arcelli in top spot of card 11! Joe Turvzcr" Arena tonight. * SCHMELINGOFFER Inducement to Battle Max in Germany. BY the Associated Press, EW YORK, March 22—Max | Schmeling sewed another | patch on the heavyweight | cr 1t today with a $350,- 000 offer for Champion Jim Braddock | | to defend his title in Berlin, but for | | all the stir it created among those con- | cerned it might as well have been 50 cents. The champion, through his manager, Joe Gould, turned down the offer be- | cause it wasn't up to his previously set | minimum of $400,000 Madison Square Garden, which was ed $50,000 by Schmeling to release | the fight to Germany instead of pro- | moting it here on June 3, cold- shouldered the propasition pending completion of its plans for legal action against the Braddock-Joe Louis bout in Chicago. | Schmeling accompanied his offer | with an ultimatum to both Braddock | | and the Garden, Tomorrow Is Deadline. l:rmER it is accepted by tomor- | row,” he stated through his | American representative, Joe Jacobs, ‘or it will be withdrawn. In that case, | we Will go into training for the June and will stand on our contract ’Iln new offer, made by Schmeling | behalf of the Deutsche Halle A. C. | Of Berlin, was $100,000 more than the | first guarantee offered when Der Maxie arrived from Germany. The money would be deposited in any bank outside of Germany or the United States stipulated by Braddock | and would be free of tax in Germany. | Schmeling explained the German gov- | ernment has no interest in the ngm‘ and that its only concern is in per- | mitting the guarantee money to leave the country tax free. Gould said that in addition to $400,000, the title holder would insist on an American referee and an Eng- lish judge. Garden Waits on Court. CHMELING also will have to| i straighten things out with the | | Garden and Promoter Mike Jacobs ' !*o there will be no legal complica- | tions,” the champion’s manager added. The Garden, however, held to its| policy to have nothing to do with the | the matter until its court action is set. | The Garden holds contracts of both | Schmeling and Braddock for the June | 3 fight. After those contracts were | signed Braddock disregarded them and signed to meet Louis in Chicago late in June. Col. John Reed Kilpatrick | refused comment on Schmeling’s lat- est move except to say the Garden's suit is not yet ready for court filing. If the Berlin deal falls through, Gould said, Braddock will follow his schedule of opening his Wisconsin training camp in about 10 days to <Mrt conditioning for the Louis fight. O’DONNELL PINMEN HIT Take Final Block for 10-Game | Match Win at Baltimore. Special Dispatch to The Star. BALTIMORE, Md., March 22.— O'Donnell Grill bowling team from | Washington won the final block and | with it the 10-game intercity match | from the local Kelly-Buick team here yesterday. The O'Donnells had a 10- game total of 6,250 to Baltimore’s 6,229, In the final block the Grill team shot a five-game total of 3,078—27 more than Kelly-Buick. Krauss led the Cap- | ital contingent with 643. MACK SEES A’S IN TRIM Cuts Drill After Win in Which Turbeville Hurls Route. MEXICO CITY.—Satisfied that his Athletics were rounding into playing condition, Manager Connie Mack ex- cused all the players from practice today. George Turbeville became the first Mackman to pitch a full game, twirl= ing a 7-3 victory over the Agriculture team yesterday. ROUGH ON RUFFING Must Prove He Is Ready Before Yanks Will Let Him Sign. SEBRING, Fla.—Col. Jacob Ruppert, who hasn’t had a word from his hold- out pitcher, Charley Ruffing, has added another line to his ultimatum. If he reports, Rufus the Red will have to prove he's in condition be- fore he will be allowed to sign, Rup- pert says. Y 1 it AHEARN DISPLAYS INPORTED TALENT Arcelli, Loder Promise Hot Bout, but Attendance Outlook Is Dark. BY BURTON HAWKINS. WO out-of-town fighters will mix tonight at Turner’s cauli- flower crucible in an experi- ment, which Matchmaker Goldie Ahearn hopes will unveil a discovery, but which might explode into a financial fizzle. Feeling Washington’s fistic family is eager to focus its collective glimmers on new talent, Ahearn has imported Teddy Loder from New York and Werther Arcelli from Boston to blend in an eight-round feature fight which might set a new high for action here this season, but at the same time may strike a new low in attendance. Ahearn has violated the first rule of matchmaking in neglecting local color, but then again, that's necessity, since there isn't any local welterweight able or willing to argue with either Loder or Arcelli. He believes action instead of names will entice customers and he's gambling on it. Looms as Hot Scraps. HILE neither you nor I are con- cerned over whether Mr. Loder beats Mr. Arcelli or vice versa, the fight nevertheless stacks up as a rather | hectic debate if Arcelli’s one recent ap- pearance here and Loder's record testify to their respective prowess. Arcelli at least has impressed one native with his fistic ability. Phil Furr, originally slated to scrap with the | Italian, elected to take a ring vacation. | Phil’s temporary retirement is believed | in most quarters to be merely good sense, since Werther disposed of Sid Silas in three rounds and the best Furr ever could accomplish against the Jew= ish lad was a knockout in the twelfth | round. It Furr chooses fo stick to the busl- | ness of plastering walls instead of attempting to paste beaks, which is un- | likely, the quaint District welterweight title automatically will be left vacant. | So, if that's any added incentive, Loder | and Arcelli may be fighting for some sort of champions! Loder a Hard Puncher. A STIFF puncher, the German- % American Loder indirectly is| managed by Joe Jacobs, who is get- | ting nowhere rapidly at present in maneuvering Max Schmeling into a | title fight. Doug Swetnam, who seems to have hit his stride after many years as a 50-50 preliminary boy, will square off with Nick Camarata, Richmond featherweight, in an ' eight-round semi-final. Camarata held Petey Sar- Ton to a draw in Richmond before the world featherweight champion | sailed for South Africa | In a quartet of four-rounders, Frankie De Angelo, local feather- | weight, will meet Joe Letto of Balti- | more; Joe (Palooka) Mathews of Richmond will face Bill Temes, local | lightweight; Sam Bracala, Baltimore | welterweight, will swap swats with Steamboat Bill Robinson of Alexan- dria and Norman Cohen, Richmond welterweight, will trade blows with | Young Tony Ross of Baltimore. | The first punch will be launched at 8:30 o'clock. | | | of AGE MAT MENTOR NEVER WRESTLED Principles of Engineering Used by Oklahoma Coach With Great Success. BY the Assoctated Press. TILLWATER, OKla., March 22— Edward Clark Gallagher—the coach who learned his wres- tling is an engineering labora- tory—still is the miracle man of amateur wrestling. Gallagher—he never wrestled a match in his life—brought his Okla- homa Aggies back today from the national intercollegiate tournament at Terre Haute, Ind.—as he has done | with monotonous regularity the last 22 years—bearing the team champion- ship and boasting four individual champions out of eight. This latest victory is all but lost in the almost endless string that has made Oklahoma in general—and Gallagher in particular—names to be feared in amateur mat circles. Protege is Rival Coach. HE team they dethroned, Okla- | homa University, is coached by Gallagher-trained Paul V. Keen.| Keen's team took second place this vear and two other Oklahoma teams broke into the scoring. This perennial domination by Okla- | homans has been going on for years— ever since Gallagher finished engi- neering school and decided that the principles of leverage could be applied to prove the power of brains over brawn. He took his engineering into the wrestling ring and today his pumls‘ are spread over Oklahoma like a blanket, coaching in high schools and colleges. Gallagher's teams have gone | through 17 undefeated seasons. They | have won eight national intercol- legiate championships in the last 10 | years, six national A. A. U. team | titles and 58 national collegiate and A. A. U. individual titles. Always Keep Ahead. 0 NE of Gallagher's former pupils— Coach Art Griffith of Tulsa High —whose teams have won 8 State championships out of 10 they entered, and won national high school tou: ments at Northwestern in 1928, 1939 | and 1930, sums up the situation like this: “Oklahoma boys are just about a | vear abead of the rest of the country | in technique all the time. Oklahoma | teams will show one brand of wres- tling at & tournamer All other teams will watch and say, ‘By goll we'll dote on their stuff, beat 'em next year’ But when Oklahoma teams show up next year they will have changed their technique or developed it just enough to make the year's work their competitors useless. It's | their superior technique that does it.” | CUBS LIKE ROOK TRIO. AVALON, Calif —Manager Charley Grimm of the Chicago Cubs has de- cided to keep three rookies, Outfielder Joe Marty, from San Francisco; In- fielder Hank Majeski, from Eau Cl Wis., and Bob Garbark, catcher, om Toledo, at least until the May 15 deadline. Y AN AND BY GEORGE E. HUBER. LL fishermen have their fa-| vorite fishing grounds. One locality in particular is their | idea of God’s country. It may be a bass hole in an old mill dam; may be an icy cold mountain stream, slippery underfoot and with overhanging boughs to foul the rod, | but it still is the best spot in the' world for their money. Or it may be an offshore section of the coast where their favorite salt water game | fish is found. We have such a spot. It's really God’s country. Down in the southwest corner of Florida is a section known as the Ten Thousand Islands, and the name is descriptive enough. There | literally are thousands of islands, some containing only a few square yards of soil and some stretching mile after mile. They are of shell con- struction and covered with dense growth of semi-tropical vegetation and mangrove trees. It really is an offshoot of the famous Florida Everglades, extending out into the Guif of Mexico. Aside from the scenic wonders of the country, the waters contain a variety of fish seldom found else- where. Twice a day the tide roars in and out between the islands, bring- ing with it practically every kind of fish which swims in the gulf, chief of which is the famed silver king, the tarpon. Fishing Club at Everglades. T IS, in fact, the best place along the whole west coast of Florida to catch tarpon. They arrive there early in the Spring, hang around through- out the Summer, and then dash on around the coast to Texas. They are caught both still fishing and trolling and hardly a day goes by that some silver beauty is not brought in to be weighed, inspected and sometimes mounted. The Ten Thousand Islands have barely been touched by civilizatiop and they are about the only place in the country where commerce has not robbed fishing of its sporting aspects. The jumping-off place for this beau- tiful bit of creation is the little town of Everglades, situated on the edge of Collier County. There sportsmen from all over the country gather dur- ing the tarpon season in the Rod and Gun Club, the walls of which are lined with panels of tarpon scales. On each of the scales the name of the lucky angler has been written, to- gether with the date, weight and other pertinent information, not forgetting the name of the guide. Practically every State in the country and the District of COIuqu‘u represented. > STREAME ‘&'—4 'HIS is the place from which the popular trips around the keys | are made, and the r also start here. Shark River is tk tarpon grounds, as many local will attest. Amohu those trip down there this mo; own Walter McCallum, who ing for awhile from golf mlh to his | second love, fishing rods. With him | will be Dr. Alex Preece, Dr. Paul M. | Stewart and Dr. Paul M. Stewart, jr. | Yes, we envy them | Tarpon, while being the main attraction, are not the only fish caught. A hundred other species abound there, many of which can be caught on a bait casting rod. Jerry Sappington was down there once, fishing when the tide was right, and made 26 consecutive casts, catch- | ing a fish each time. He missed on the twenty-seventh try and called it a day. That's just an example of what can be done, and is only one of the reasons why we think this is the best place in the Eastern U. S. A. for salt water enthusiasts. A slight drawback is the mos- quitoes, which come hot and heavy at certain seasons. To give some indi- cations as to the size of these flying rapiers, the natives down there tell of the angler who went out fly fishing. The larger the fly he used, the larger the fish he caught, so, seeking the ultima thule of his trip, he tied on one of the mosquitoes which he had captured by lassoing it with a 36- thread line. Using this enormous bait, he brou;zhc in a 110- pound tarpon. RELINED Four Wheels Complete FORDS A 50 ‘28 to 36 CHEV. 30 to 32 Plymouth Chrysler s De Soto, 6-8 Dodge, DD-DH Essex, ’29-'35 Willys “77” 15 Other Cars Proportionately Low FREE ADJUSTMENTS! ENERAL BRAKE SERVICE BY PAUL J. MILLER, Jr. ITERALLY swamped by the strong aggregation of amateurs that made up the team of 17 boards for the Agricultural Chess Club in the recent interclub tourney, the War Department Chess Club keenly feels that it has endured & public massacre which the soldiers will have a hard time living down, | especially after copping the championship for 1936-7 of Metropolitan Chess Association. Alexander Sturges has whipped the Aggie boys into a smooth- playing club of chess enthusi- asts that is the envy of lesser groups in the District. Dr. George W. Hervey and D. S. team | Burch have developed team competi- tion to the point where there exists | the maximum of interest with & min- |imum of personal friction All in all, the Aggics have done a swell job, and it bodes ill for a local club that without careful pre aration engages them in a in excess of 15 boards. Local-National Comparison. JT IS true that the United States has the gre st players in the world as a small ip. But the largest number of class A and master players probably may be found in a foreign countr In recent years America has produced no world champion, but the United States, with a team of five, has won consecu- the last three interna- nal team tourneys of the In- ternational Chess Federation. In Washington the Munitions club the | | contemplate other interclub banles.’ team match ray have the best five-man team, but when it comes to the largest number of strong amateurs in the Megtropolitan Chess Association, then no doubt the honor lies elsewhere— probably with the Department of Agriculture Chess Club. Other Clashes Planned. JELATED with their victory against the war champions, the Aggies Meantime, within their group a | club championship tourney is in prog- ress. The club is divided into three sections, and within each section there | is a tourney. Winners of the section tourneys will meet in a final match for the club title. Undaunted by their defeat at the hands of the Aggies, Capt. Earl Kunkle says the War C. plans to meet every chess mup in the District in an interclub fray. The next match will be against the Omar Khayyam Chess Club of George | Washington University, headed by | Mahmood Taher and Jean Henderson. The college unit is relatively new, but in its short duration has enrolled threescore players. Individual scoring: Fine Scores Against Russians. Agriculture C. C. vs. War Dep't. C. C. RASSLER BAXTER WORKS UP VENOM. Master Villain Will Vent It | Upon Giant Davis in Thursday Bout. AVERNE BAXTER, who caught the sit-down strike fever re- cently at Turner’s Arena, and | who rapidly is making local mat fans forget such comparatively tame figures as Dillinger and Karpis, for grapplers, Baxter now is consid- ered one of the foremost villains in the game, if that's any distinction. He has revised the usual climaxes completely and the aliered scrint is paying dividends at the box office. A: a drawing card, Baxter cur- rently is Promoter Joe Turner's fav- orite, having jammed the grapple cen- ter on three successive occasions, Hisg unorthodox tactics surpass any em- ployed by the other bad boys of the caulifiower world and both he and Davis recently have been disqualificd for carrying things a bit too far, Davis a 265-Pounder. I)Avm with 265 pounds draped over his frame, is a former V. P, I. foot ball star and wrestling promoter. | He was disqualified for treating Ed will unveil his villainy here Thursday | night against Wee Willie Davis, Baxter's brief strike was the result of a feud with Tony Wakeman, WOL sports announcer, who to blows with the snarling pachyderm during the course of an interview at the WOL studio. Baxter became childish about it and refused to budge until Wakeman was removed from the ringside. - Baxter Pleases Promoter. A MEDIOCRE journeyman until he decided to display a total disre- | gard for whatever rules are in vogue tinues to add to his long string of foreign scalps At Moscow, Fine encountered six Russian masters and the Hungarian internationalist, Andre Lilienthal, to wine five games and drop two. W dispatch does not s losses were In the open champior for women at the | Club, New York Cit New chess | con- | EUBEN FINE, youthful Yorker who is playing among the Soviets by invitation, of Astoria cham] t nered three straignt victories | card, with nearly came | | l Meske too roughly and last week easily disposed of Jim Coffield. Four preliminaries complete the hief Little Wolf meeting Matros K nko in a semi-final re- stricted to 45 minutes, and Han Barber facing Marshall Blackstock and Henri Piers t. with Floyd Marshall in 30-minute matches. Ane other match is in the making The first elbow will be crooked at 8:30 o'clock. 0 \ EARS AGO IN THE STAR. 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