Ring Lardner

St. Louis Post-Dispatch/January 2, 1921

To the editor:

I read somewhere a wile ago that wile life in small towns and on the farm was in many ways desirable, still and all a person that lives in a big city, like N. Y. for inst., has many chances to improve their mind which is not enjoyed by the rural population in spite of the chautauquas and strolling players that visits the outlaying districts giving performances of King Lear, Mutt and Jeff and etc., but it was also true that they was a whole lot of city dwellers that don’t ever take advantage of their opportunity and spend their time and money on Fatty Arbuckle and Marion Gish when they might be grabbing off a little culture and refinement for themself at the Public Library or the Museum of Fine Arts or the aquarium and etc.

Well at first I thought how lucky I was to live in a suburb of N. Y. city where they’s nothing worth wile, you might say, that a person can’t get there in a ½ hr. but on 2d. thoughts it come to me that I seldom never profited by my location and as far as acquireing elegants and Polish and etc., I might as well be receiving teller on a garbage wagon in Rumford Corners. So I made a resolution to turn over a new leaf and went right to the phone and called up Tex Rickard and got 2 tickets to the Dempsey-Brennan fight, and as of coarse they was only a very few of my readers that was able to be there I may as well try and tell them a little about it so as they can be obtaining culture second hand you might say.

Most Inspiring Sight.

These educational evenings is generally always held in Madison Square Garden where they also devote a whole wk. every yr. to the 6 day bicycle race between 10 or 12 teams of Belgium, Cuckoo and other birds, than which they’s no more inspireing sight unlest its the Philadelphia Athletics. Well, on this night I and a friend of mine named Arthur reached the Garden a ¼ after 8 but they was all ready several 1000 other diletants there ahead of us. Our tickets said working press so we assumed a rakish expression and stuck a pencil behind our ear and was showed to a ring side seat with no questions asked.

Erudite N. Y. was out in mess includeing many fashionably drest members of the demi mondaine accompanied by their escorts in head waiters regalia. All and all the scene was that made a lasting impression on the eye and nostrils.

Some Fresh Smoke.

We hadn’t hardly had time to locate the different aromas, however, when a man named Joe Humphreys clumb up in the ring and begin announcing where the St. Agnus guild was going to meet and etc. and the gentlemen is kindly requested to refrain from smokeing which seemed to be a signal for everybody to throw away their costly cigars and light a fresh one. They say Mr. Humphreys has been makeing announcements from ring for 30 yrs. without the English language ever even getting a draw with him.

The first bout of the evening was between 2 representatives of sunny Finmark named Marty Farrell and Frank McGuire. Marty had his gloves perfumed and Frank couldn’t keep his nose off them. The old snoot lasted the full 6 rds. but it looked like somebody would half to tell him if the dressing for Xmas turkey was flavored with garlic or bay rum.

Mr. Humphreys next introduced Bartley Madden and Charley Weinert, the Adonis of Newark. I and Arthur decided that they couldn’t be a safer place to trust a romantic young girl than Newark. But maybe Mr. Humphreys said that so as Charley wouldn’t feel out of place alongside of Bartley whose natural charms was added to by the elegant handiwork of some old master amongst tattooists. The ornaments was confined ,to his arms before the bout started but after 10 rds. of it they wasn’t hardly no part of his carcass that wasn’t tattood. At that Bartley done pretty good for a fighter named Bartley, but the bout was slow and some of the birds in the $27.50 seats begin wishing that they had put in another dollar and bought a ton of coal.

A Riot of Color.

The 3d. event was a fight between 2 descendants of sunny Africa which I suppose you might call it a riot of color. One of them, Kid Norfolk, had a whole lot more color and done pretty near all the rioting. When he came in the ring he had on a night cap though they was no chance of his oppt. Big Bill Tate rocking anybody to sleep. Norfolk seemed to realize this when he set down in his corner, and he took the cap off and when you seen him bare headed you couldn’t help from believeing maybe after all Darwin was right. He had his monogram K. N. embroidered on his trunks though as far as I was conserned they was as safe as his tooth brush. Mr. Humphreys introduced him as Kid Norfolk from Baltimore which added a touch of mystery.

Big Bill Tate is Dempsey’s sparring partner in every-day life which I have often wondered whether I would rather have that job or a tumor. Big Bill fights on the side for rest and relief, but he didn’t get neither from Norfolk.

Big Bill stands about 6 ft. 7 in his socked ft. and Norfolk ain’t no bigger than a cutie but he’s even more more of a pest. He kept pokeing Bill in the eye though you couldn’t see how he ever reached up there. They said before the Toledo fiasco that Dempsey couldn’t reach Willard neither. Norfolk’s favorite punch however was a straight left that lit anywheres below the belt and about the only way Bill could of protected himself from a licking was to wear shin guards.

Tate Didn’t Mind Fouls.

Bill might of claimed a foul 8 or 9 times but when you got a all day job like Dempsey’s sparring partner what is a kick in the shins more or less?

Bill didn’t show nothing, and before the bout had went far the crowd was calling him Big Bum instead of Big Bill. Big Bum is a crowd’s pet name for anybody over 6 ft. tall that tries to partake of athletics. Don’t I know?

Referee Houkop which sounds like had drank his ginger ale too fast refereed the main event of the evening which it won’t be nessary for me to describe, as it has all ready been wrote up by better men than I am or Gungha Din either. Mr. Humphreys announced before the bout that the winner was to receive a diamond belt, the gift of Tex Rickard. So Arthur made the remark that he couldn’t think of nothing handier to have around the house and he wished he was Dempsey.

Bill Got a Belt, All Right.

Mr. Brennan got belt in the 12th rd. but they wasn’t no diamonds in it, only stars, and then Mr. Dempsey stood up in the middle of the ring to get his. Mr. Humphreys give it to him and he took a elegant bow a good deal like Willard’s bow when he entered the ring at Toledo. That bow of Willard’s was the 1st. inkling anybody had that they was something the matter with the big fellow.

Well Mr. Dempsey made his bow but the presentations wasn’t over yet. The crowd got up all a sudden and give him a elegant shower boquet of raspberries.

All and all, I felt like it was an evening well spent and from now on I am going to try and go somewheres once a wk. and improve my mind and if I feel like I can spare any of the culture I pick up I will pass it on.