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Sharkey 4 to 1 Favorite to Beat Scott Tonight

Damon Runyon

Lancaster New Era/February 27, 1930

MIAMI, Fla., Feb. 27.—In this corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have the pugilistic pride of the British Empire and the heavyweight champion of England–Phil Sufling Scott.

(Professor let us have a little of that “God Save the King” business.)

Over here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the Terrible Sharkey Man, of Boston, Mass., defender of the fistic honor and prestige of the good old United States of America.

(Professor give us the same tune over again, only call it “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”)

It’s post time for the second annual muss of Miami. We meet once more under that well-known Florida moon tonight in a nice new pine saucer not far from the heart of the town to see the semi-final of the long drawn-out tourney for the vacated heavyweight crown of Mr. James J. Tunney, formerly Gene.

And before I forget it, let me say that Mr. James J. Tunney, formerly Gene, in the very flesh may be at the ringside giving the gladiators his very iciest stare. Mr. James J. Tunney, formerly Gene, is browsing about these parts and it is barely possible that he may lend the majesty of his presence to the scene.

 Too Sordid for Gene

But maybe not. ‘Tis a sordid, brutal degrading dodge in the eyes of Mr. James J. Tunney, formerly Gene, this prize fighting stuff, and possibly he would be unable to bear it.

However, even if Mr. James J. Tunney, formerly Gene, refrains from attendance, the gathering is bound to be quite a social success. The millionaire inmates of Palm Beach commenced dribbling into Miami yesterday, and a whole posse of ‘em will be in today by train and motor. We will have at least two or three governors on hand, and more mayors and constables than you can shake a stick at.

The red hot sports from Broadway and other points who have been infesting the community all season, and formerly, were running around looking for tickets yesterday. They had laid off the early buying trying to persuade themselves they wouldn’t go, but the call of wild was too much. They will be all there with their beezers in the resin.

I make bold to say that Phil the Fainter for all fiercest efforts of the holder of the American copyright on his endeavors, will enter the ring the longest shot in many years’ history of the sour science in a fight of this importance.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear the boys offering as high as 4 to 1 against Phil, and this sort of price argues the opinion that Phil hasn’t ghost of a show.

Phil Confident Yet

Phil himself, the first English heavyweight since the days of Charley Mitchell to fight on Florida soil in a battle that approximates championship potentialities, remained serenely confident yesterday that he will upset the form. Yes sir and ma’am, the blighter is really confident. It is rumored that Mr. James J. Johnston has hypnotized Phil.

The terrible Sharkey man, of Boston, born John Cuckoshay, or something to that Lithuanian effect, in Binghamton, N. Y., emitted what amounted to a sniff when informed of Scott’s confidence. The terrible Sharkey man obviously considers that thing tonight a mere gallop. He will undoubtedly assault Phil with great violence at the opening bell and endeavor to make it snappy. He is going out there to take a good healthy slug or two at the Britisher before Phil can get his twitching nerves settled down.

“Well,” says Phil, “I saw ‘im fight Loughran, hand hif ‘e tries to chuck ‘is right ‘and at me the way ‘e did hat Tommy hi’ll knock ‘is bloomin’ bean hoff.”

It is hard to believe listening to Phillip’s braggadocio that this is the same Scott who swooned before Otto von Porat on slight provocation. The winner of the fight tonight will take part in final bout for the vacated heavyweight title with Herr Max Schmeling, the Black Uhlan of the Rhine, in June, under the auspices of the Milk Fund, of which Mrs. William Randolph Hearst is chairman. Scott, Sharkey and Schmeling have all accepted terms, despite the poppycock that has been coming from Chicago about the possibility of Schmeling fighting someone else here.

Muldoon Responsible

To the fact that the Muldoon Tunney trophy committee is anxious to get the heavyweight title settled before the end of 1930, Scott owes his chance with Sharkey here. The committee, which is headed by the old Roman, William Muldoon, and the York Boxing Commission, had both nominated Scott, Sharkey and Schmeling as the finalists, and though Scott’s victory over Von Porat was though a questionable foul, it kept the Englishmen in the running.

The attempt to revile William Harrison Dempsey, the Manassa Mauler, as a fresh contender for his old title will probably not get very far, as the winner of the Milk Fund bout is certain to be proclaimed heavyweight champion and if the new champion runs to championship form he probably will not defend his title for a long, long time.

Confronted by a weak “top” Frank B. Bruen, vice-president and general manager of Madison Square Garden, and serving as the promoter of the Sharkey-Scott bout, tried to strengthen it with a sort of international show. He took the bout that the New York Commission kicked out of the big town—Campolo vs. Johnny Risko—and made it his semi-final. Behind that he has Pierre Charles, heavyweight champion of Belgium, fighting Tommy Loughran, former light heavyweight champion.

Also, he has Edward James Maloney of Boston, in a ten-rounder with Moise Boquillon of France, and Raul Blanchi, another Argentinian in a four rounder with Bill Daring, formerly of the United States Navy.

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New York Should Fight for a Boxing Arena

Damon Runyon

Washington Herald/June 10, 1930

NEW YORK, June 9.—Mr. Bill Carey, president of Madison Square Garden Corporation, has been convinced of one thing by the Sharkey-Schmeling fight, which is that New York city must either have an arena specially constructed for expositions of the manly art or big outdoor spectacles must be abandoned in these parts.

I am inclined to think that as a result of Mr. Carey’s observations, the Garden Corporation will have a new open-air arena. The Milk Fund Show of 1930 is the first big outdoor show even closely approximating a sellout that Mr. Carey has encountered since taking over the presidency of the corporation, and it has taught him the disadvantages of baseball yards for these affairs.

Would Draw Million

In an arena built for boxing and of sufficient capacity, Sharkey and Schmeling would have drawn well over $1,000,000. I mean such an arena as would insure every client a fair sort of view of the proceedings regardless of location. Such an arena as the old timber saucer that the late George Tex Rickard built on Boyle’s justly celebrated Thirty Acres in Jersey City.

In such an arena, the Sharkey-Schmeling thing would have sold out before you could say John R. Robinson. And it would be a pleasure to sell the tickets to the clients. Mr. Carey can see that the future loss to the Garden Corporation on big fights held in ball yards, just through the absence of clients who would be there if they knew they could get decent seats, may be very large, indeed.

Of course, there can be no loss to the Garden on the Schmeling-Sharkey thing, as it is for the benefit of the Milk Fund, but the fights that come after this are bound to suffer because of lack of proper housing. It is an injustice that cannot be avoided under the circumstances, that one fellow who pays $25 for a ticket can sit in the first row and another who pays exactly the same amount must peer at the proceedings from the thirtieth row, or worse.

But what are you going to do about it?

As a matter of simple justice to the remote client, the expedient has been tried of pricing the rear ringside rows at a figure below the front rows, and the clients promptly disdained the cheaper seats, though they will buy them if they are the same price as the front rows. Your client is peculiar in that he thinks the price difference is not so much a matter of justice to him as it is a class distinction of some kind.

Baseball yards were not built for boxing. The manly art went into them on a large scale when it became apparent that the specially constructed arenas introduced by the late George Tex Rickard were too expensive and too risky to life and limb. But in New York, at least, the owners of the baseball yards have made the rental so high that it would now be economy to build a fistic bowl, especially counting the difference in attendance that the bowl would make.

In New York, the baseball owners demand 10 per cent of the gross receipts for their yards for a single fight and do nothing whatever—not one little thing—to promote interest in the fight or assist in the handling thereof. They just snatch their 10 per cent. I am told that in other towns, especially where there is but one baseball yard, the rental is even higher.

In New York, the owners of the Giants and the Yankees pool their interests on fights, and other events held in their yards. That is to say, if the fight or football game is held in the Yankee Stadium, the Giants ownership gets half the rental price and vice versa. The system has driven at least one big football game that meant millions of dollars to the city outside of New York and it is bound to produce a big fight arena.

Not Wanted for Fights

But regardless of the rental, the ball yards are not suited to fights. You cannot arrange the Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds for a pugilistic exhibition so that all the clients get a proper view. The vast stadia erected in Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities are even worse than the baseball yards, as the clients of the Dempsey-Tunney fights well know.

The only football stadium in the country that would be ideal for a big fight is Yale’s Bowl. And you can imagine what Yale would say if an ambitious promoter tried to secure the Bowl for a big fight. Yale merely wishes to enjoy prize fighters as lecturers, not as exponents of their real art.

When the Schmeling-Sharkey match was in the making, representatives of the Milk Fund discussed with Mr. Carey the feasibility of constructing a special arena for the fight, because it was believed that in such an arena it would draw well beyond $1,000,000 a theory borne out by the present sale even against the disadvantages of the Yankee Stadium.

One obstacle to the arena was lack of a suitable location, though several were considered, including one on the Long Island city of the Fifty-ninth Street. Another very decided obstacle was the fact that a timber arena would not be permitted on any location that the clients could reach. And it was obviously out of the question for the Milk Fund to build a steel arena for this one fight. So it was back to the ball yards, and the vexing ticket tangles inevitable to the location.

Germ is Planted

But the germ of the open-air arena has been planted in the mind and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it broke out in a rash of building before the end of the year. The rental at 10 per cent of the gross that Madison Square Garden Corporation has paid the ball yards the past couple of years would have paid for a big start on a fine outdoor structure.

I say the potential loss to the Garden in not having an arena isn’t on fights the size and strength of a Sharkey-Schmeling battle. It is on lesser drawing cards. For example, a bout between Jimmy McLarnin and Young Jack Thompson might draw $200,000 in a ball yard, but it would surely pull $250,000 in an arena.

The same thing goes for bouts such as the proposed Mandell-Singer affair, and a score of others that might be named. The only drawback to a regular fight arena is perhaps the fact that it can be used for few other events. However, bicycle racing isn’t a bad dodge in these parts, if I may judge from the ever-prosperous appearance of the king of the saucer game, Mr. John Chapman.

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Expert Wants Old Methods Brought Back

Damon Runyon

Lancaster New Era/October 16, 1930

NEW YORK, Oct. 19.—I note in the public prints that today, Saturday, is to be given over to deception, and fraud, and cunning by many of our college footballers. For example, there’s Harvard and the Army.

It is related from Cambridge that the Harvard team, somewhat crippled in the vicinity of the backfield and the line, too, will depend upon divers and sundry forms of football legerdemain to lick the soldiers from up the Hudson.

From West Point comes stories that gridiron black magic, designed to keep the football hidden as much as possible, is to be employed against fair Harvard. And from other points of the compass we have tales to the same general effect that this and that team is going in strong today for mystery and sleight-o’-hand.

What I say is we ought to have more of that old fashioned public football, in which the pill is on view at all times except perhaps when the boys are piled on top of it. It seems to me that this skullduggery that is being planned for today on all sides is a bad example to the college youth. It may sow the seed of larceny in other forms. The first thing you know some of these footballers may turn out to be judges.

Ball in Full View

Personally, I like the old time football they used to have at Harvard, when no attempt was made to be surreptitious with the old leather pumpkin. In fact, they made a great public display of it in those times. They would bring it out on the field in full view of all hands, and lay it right down on the ground, where, in the haze of a pleasant fall afternoon, it would stand out like a tombstone in a wheatfield.

It was as if Harvard was saying to the enemy:

“Well, here she is, boys! Here’s the football!”

 And then all Harvard would do would be to wheel up some fellow like Charley Brickley, and scare the stuffin’ out of the boys the other side. But they didn’t hide the football–no, siree Bob! They wanted everybody to see when Charley was approaching, football in hand.

Indian Strategy

I imagine that Harvard got sick and tired of that hidden football business ‘way back yonder in the early football, football times when under his Carlisle Injun poked a football under his sweater and ran from here to Cape Cod for a touchdown in the cool o’ the evening when running was good.

In fact, as I recall hearing of the circumstances, Harvard let out an awful yip about the redskin biting the dust behind their goal posts with the football sight unseen. The Harvardian squawk became so loathsome to the football authorities that they hauled off and changed the rules, so that never again could an Injun, or anyone else, hide a football under his sweater, back of his bridgework, or in the slack of his trouserloons.

Possibly it was the Injun artfulness that nauseated Harvard with concealed football, and made open-board dealing more fashionable at Cambridge for a long spell. I am really surprised to hear that Harvard is going back to taking ’em off the bottom, and using a gimmick in its football play.

I hear talk of fake laterals, and other forms of the old phonus-ballonus around Cambridge that gives me quite a turn. ‘Tis sad to think that the shell game has reached the campus where once Eddie Mahan used to take the football, hold it aloft like Liberty’s upthrust torch, and scoodle about to touchdowns.

Mahan Was Supreme

Now, there’s a chap that always appealed to me—Eddie Mahan. I loved the publicity of his method. You didn’t have to beat about the bush with the football when Eddie was around, or sneak through the back way, or tiptoe up the alley. You just handed the football to Eddie, like a sheriff serving a subpoena, and away he went, advertising the fact that he had the football every jump. And what good did it do the opposition to know that Edward had the football, my little rah-ra’s? What good did it do ’em, I repeat?

Not a lick?

In fact, so far from doing them any good, it was more apt to do them harm. It was calculated to increase blood pressure.

Sometimes the quarterback wouldn’t even bother to call the numbers when he wanted Eddie to have the ball. He would merely announce, in the languid Harvard accent common to Harvard quarterbacks:

“Let Mr. Mahan have it.”

Football was public property in those days. You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know what the Harvard lads are going to do with the football. To tell you the truth, it was generally known in the Summer that Mahan would be in charge of the football for the Harvards most of the Autumn.

Game Very Mysterious

Now they’ve got fake laterals, bogus formations, undercover passes and one thing and another, all tending to make the game very mysterious, indeed. I wish we could get another Mahan at Harvard (chorus from Harvard “so do we!”) that we might try a little experiment to show up the foolishness of concealed football. We would put a red lantern on the football and a siren, too, and let Eddie run with it with the horn going full blast. The clients would see that markers wouldn’t make any difference.

It ought to be a mighty mysterious pastime one way and another at Cambridge this Saturday with both Harvard and the Army going in for the now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don’t stuff. There is grave danger that they will both be hiding the football so much that they will lose it entirely. You can’t play a football. you know.

Still, come to think of it, I have seen some Harvard football teams do that, too. Of course they were not teams that included Eddie Mahan. They were teams before and after his time. I have seen these  Harvard teams play entire football games without a football.

The reason they did not have a football during these games was because the other team had it all the time.

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Form of Gallant Fox in Preakness Will Make Him Derby Favorite

Damon Runyon

Lancaster New Era/May 10, 1930

BALTIMORE, May 10.—“Here comes Sande! Here comes Sande!”

Across the green vale of Maryland, in which rests old Pimlico race track, the cry rose from 40,000 throats yesterday afternoon. Out of a winding reel of bright color, far up the sunlit track, a white jacket splashed with red spots like blood was not to be mistaken.

“Here comes Sande! Here comes Sande!”

The cry was like an echo, so often has it rolled across the Maryland landscape.

Two hundred feet from the wire and “Doc” Cassidy’s Crack Brigade in front with George Ellis pounding his polished sides, when here came Sande, master horseman of his time, with a real race horse under him in Gallant Fox.

Sande “Lifts” Him Over

The shrewd hands of the great Sande seemed to lift his mount over those last few yards of ground. Now the red-hooded head Gallant Fox was in front and moving on and as the pair raced under the wire, the Fox had three-quarters of a length the best of it and the East had a real hope for the Kentucky Derby. From the turn into the stretch the pair had raced almost head and head for the $50,000 stake and not until the last couple of jumps was Crack Brigade defeated.

Six lengths behind the front runners was Snowflake, a filly owned by Walter J. Salmon, who has twice won the Preakness.

The time of the race was 2:00 3-5, which is slow for the Preakness distance, but it didn’t seem slow to the mob watching the ding-dong struggle.

Gallant Fox had a lot of bad luck and Sande had to take him away to the outside of the field at the first turn to get a decent running position.

Tetrarchal, of the Howe stable, which also had Gold Book in the race, got off in front and led the way clear around to the back side with Crack Brigade in close attendance on him.

Sweet Sentiment Weakens

Sweet Sentiment, from the Seagram Stable of Canada, lay third the first time past the stand, but Sande moved Gallant Fox in that hole on the first turn. He closed a terrific amount of ground to get there, coming from almost last.

Then Earl just rated his horse along with Crack Brigade, letting Tetrarchal do the running. This nag died away before the turn into the stretch, when the battle narrowed down to Crack Brigade and Gallant Fox.

The best horse won, but the finish would have delighted our noble visitor, the Earl of Derby, who bred Light Brigade, daddy of “Doc” Cassidy’s horse.

William Woodward, president of the Harriman National Bank of New York and owner of Gallant Fox, saw his horse win and afterwards went into the stand to get his trophy. Only recently Gallant Fox won the Wood Memorial Stakes in New York and is now favorite for the Kentucky Derby next week.

The cheers yesterday were for Sande. Never a more popular jockey straddled a horse. He stood in the weighing-in stand after the race bareheaded and grinning and the crowd yelled again and again. The great rider retired about a year ago on account of increasing weight and raced his own stable, but, finding that unprofitable, he came back this season to ride one of the best horses he ever had under him.

Pays $4 Straight

Gallant Fox paid $4 straight, $4.30 to place and $2.90 to show in the mutuels. A surprising price. Reports that he had sulked in his last workouts probably kept some from betting on him, but he carried a world of money just the same.

The mutuel price is about even money straight and thirty cents above that a place. Behind Snowflake, the third horse, the rest of the field was pretty well strung out. Michigan Boy was fourth and Armageddon, second choice with the bettors, was away back.

This was the fortieth running of the Preakness, which started in 1873. Oddly enough, it was the first time Sande ever rode the winner in this race, though he had won many other big stakes.

Gallant Fox No. 1

Gallant Fox had No. 1 on his saddle blanket and Earl Sande’s shoulders were draped with the red-spotted white jacket of the Belair Stud, one of the oldest breeding farms in Maryland. A scarlet cap was on the head of the one-time king of the ace riders as he went bobbing by in the post parade.

Never a finer looking steed went to the post in the Preakness than the favorite. “Doc” Cassidy’s Crack Brigade was another good looker. The Doctor has a gaudy -light blue jacket and orange sash with orange sleeves and cap.

The pink of the Salmons was about the most familiar colors in the race. L. Schaefer wore them on Swinfield and A. Robertson on Snowflake. There 18 rarely a Preakness that the New York real estate owner doesn’t have a starter.

The Whitneys were missing—Harry Payne and the Greentree. Nothing from the Bradley Barn or the stable of McLean, the Washington publisher. No Wideners either.

Governor Ritchie got a big hand from the crowd and a gush of “My Maryland” from the band as he climbed the steps to the judges’ stand to see the race and present the Woodlawn Vase, the old trophy that goes to the winning owner, who always gives it back. Someday an owner will get everybody very angry by lugging the vase home, but the average owner would be quite contented with the $52,925 that was first money today.

The sun was getting low behind the stand when the bugle brought the horses to post, where Jim Milton, the veteran starter and his assistant awaited them. At that time the proletariat had taken so much of Gallant Fox in the machines the last betting showed him at even money. Armageddon, the Jeffords Man o’ War, kicked up a row on reaching the barrier. He is a bad post actor, and -the other day they had to let the jockey, dismount and walk Eaby, the jockey, dismount and walk the steed around, then remount in the starting stall.

Gallant Fox stood very quietly. So did all the others. The assistant starters wrestled valiantly with Armageddon to get him in the stall. Finally the old familiar cry arose, “They’re off,” the age-old war whoop of the turf, and down the stretch came the rolling ball of color.

Official Washington always makes quite an occasion of Preakness Day. Vice President Curtis, who used to be a jockey long ago, was present with a job lot of Senators and Representatives. Mr. Curtis is a steady customer of the Maryland races, anyway. Governor Ritchie, of Maryland, who hasn’t missed a Preakness in years, was on hand.

Part of the overflow crowd went into the field to sit among the little yellow flowers blooming there. The steady march of Baltimore is gradually squeezing old Pimlico into a little oasis of green and white surrounded by red brick dwellings. The street cars running past the plant seem, from the grandstand, to be traveling the white outer rail of the first turn of the track.

The Preakness was the fifth race of the day and as it came up, as the horse players say, there was a rush for the mutuel machines, under the stand where it was plenty hot, especially for the losers. The mutuels today must have “handled” close to $1,000,000 on the race, through the fields were small and mediocre. The $2 machines got the big play. Scarcely anyone goes to the Preakness without making a bet.

Gallant Fox was sent out at 2 to 1 in the first betting, with the Salmon Stable’s Snowflake and Swinfield at 8; the Howe’s Tetrarchal and Gold Brook at 12 and Doc Cassidy’s Crack Brigade at 5. The two Man o’ Wars in the race, Full Dress and Armageddon, were at 20 and 4, respectively. Michigan Boy was 8 and the Seagram’s Sweet Sentiment was 15. Woodgraft, belonging to the Audley Farm, was 10 to 1.

Gallant Fox came out for a warming up with a stable boy on his back and the crowd went “oo-ah” in admiration. The son of Sir Gallahad, 3d, and Marguerite is a beautiful looking thing—a bright bay in color and powerfully built.

The band played one of the football war songs of Annapolis as the favorite in the big race galloped past—then one about “Sink the Army.” I couldn’t see the connection.

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Schmeling Confident He Can Beat Sharkey

Damon Runyon

Knoxville Journal/May 6, 1930

Arrival of German Carries Damon Runyon Back to Days When Jack Dempsey Was in His Heyday; Maxie Shows Signs of Being a Thinker

NEW YORK, May 5.—The suite in the hotel Commodore occupied by Max Schmeling was a striking reminder Sunday of the quarters of Jack Dempsey when the Manassa man mauler was in the heyday of his championship career.

The same magnificence with which the ubiquitous Doctor Kearns used to pitch the temporary camps of Dempsey was there—a big parlor and a string of connecting rooms, very costly to inhabit. Waiters constantly moving in and out with pitchers of ice water, and trays of edibles. A dozen wardrobe trunks scattered around. The telephone ringing in all the different rooms at once.

And in the rooms the corresponding characters that used to infest the premises wherever and whenever the one-time heavyweight champion of the world set up his tepee. Some of these characters were indeed the very same. There was Professor William McCarney, the ol’ clo’ man of fistiana, for example, all dressed up in his Sunday best, and suave and smiling, and gloriously reminiscent, as he lolled in the depths of a big settee.

Even Joe Benjamin, the sheik of the San Joaquin, was there. He had called with his friend Mendel, the golf pants maker, to pay his respects. The California lightweight was a fixture of the Dempsey entourage in the old days. Of course, the ubiquitous Doctor Kearns was not on hand, but taking his place in the cast was Joe Jacobs, with a huge cigar in his kisser, volubly greeting all comers, and retiring at intervals to the bathroom for important conference with some.

No Privacy Here

The last was a peculiarly Dempseyesque touch. No one was ever able to find privacy in any of the many rooms that Kearns always had at Dempsey’s disposal in a hotel. Only the sanctity of the bathroom afforded freedom from eavesdroppers. Many an important deal in Dempsey’s behalf was consummated in the bathroom by Doctor Kearns. ‘Twas in the bathroom of your operative’s apartment in the Great Falls Hotel, in fact, that the conference was held which decided the fate of the Dempsey-Gibbons battle at Shelby.

A little Dachsund was rolling around the floor of the Schmeling suite Sunday. He had brought it over from Germany for a newspaper friend. You could kick up a purp somewhere around Dempsey’s rooms. A score of newspaper men were talking to the Black Uhlan of the Rhine—or at least they talked to him when he held still for a minute. He was up and down, and back and forth, shaking hands with newcomers, and answering the telephone, or just pacing the carpet with all the restlessness of the Dempsey of a few years ago.

Reminds One of Jack

“My, my,” remarked Joe Benjamin, glancing around at the mob. “It’s just like the old days. And how that guy resembles Dempsey before Jack got his beezer lifted! I never saw anything like it. He moves around a room like Dempsey. Well, if he can only fight as good as Dempsey when Dempsey was his age, I feel sorry for Sharkey.”

Tom McArdle, the pudgy matchmaker of Madison Square Garden, leaned against a table listening to the chatter. Frank Bruen, general manager of the Garden, called early to say hello, and incidentally to ask the Black Uhlan about fighting for the Garden corporation next year if Max win the heavyweight tlte, a point on which Frank got no satisfaction.

Mike Jacobs peered in for a moment. Herman Black, the baron of Atlantic Highlands, sat with a pitcher of water at his elbow, from which he imbibed heavily. Mushky Johnson, the young trainer of gladiators, was acting as a sort of major domo, assisting the callers out of their coats, and into them. Schmeling’s own trainer, Max Mahon, listened eagerly to the chatter, and said nothing. All day long a string of visitors passed through the rooms. It must have been something of a strain on the Black Uhlan, but he kept smiling cheerfully, and talking volubly in his broken English.

Has Rhineland Accent

Max has an accent that reeks of the Rhineland, but it is easily understood after you get the hang of it. Moreover, he quickly assimilates conversation addressed to him in English. In fact he talks more English now than he does German, even to his German callers. When a business proposition is put to him in English he has to revolve it around in his mind awhile, possibly to translate it into German for his own reflection, but for ordinary conversational purposes his English suffices.

He has a world of personality, which is perhaps another way of saying charm. His cordiality is natural. He loves the crowd as Dempsey loves it. He likes the bustle and stir in his hotel camp. Around Tunney’s diggings there was always an atmosphere of restraint. Around Sharkey there is a peculiar air of surliness, and even hostility. The Black Uhlan has that thing which is so rare in human beings, popular appeal.

He seems very confident he will beat Sharkey, and after Sharkey he would like to fight Dempsey. The vague possibility of Tunney returning to the ring was suggested to him, and Schmeling’s eyes brightened. Would he like to fight Tunney? Ach, yes! That would draw a lot of money. The Black Uhlan has an eye to business, you can see that.

Max is Ready to Go

He asked many questions about Sharkey’s battles with Loughran and Scott. Did he box them, or did he fight them? Obviously Schmeling wants to find out as much as possible about his opponent. He is a bit of a thinker, is the Black Uhlan. He expressed himself as anxious to get started to work for his battle under the auspices of the milk fund on the night of June 12 as quickly as possible. His appearance indicates that he has done some little training already, but he said the most important thing is to become acclimated.

“I never saw the guy fight,” commented Joseph Benjamin after he had gotten a good load of the German, “but he acts like a fighter who looks like a fighter. I’ve seen mighty few champions that didn’t look like champions. And this fellow’s got it. My my, how he reminds me of Dempsey!”

And the sheik of the San Joaquin fell into deep reflection. Possibly he was meditating on the last time he saw Dempsey, which was when the Manassa Mauler pegged a big right hand at him, severing a large, and large, and beautiful friendship.

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