Sport: Battle

Two raddle-faced ruffians glared at each other across a table in a waterfront saloon. The little glasses at their elbows were empty, and a third man, standing over them, asked blandly for a new round of drinks, and took his place at the table. After a whispered conference the bartender was called over. Money changed hands—to each of the ruffians a yellow bill, to the bartender a large wad. And next evening, on a coal barge, or in some lot at the edge of town, the two ruffians met and battered each other with bare fists until one of them fell down. To the man left standing the bartender handed the the wad. Thus were championship prize fights arranged, conducted, once upon a time. And now for many weeks thepremonitory rumbles of a new fight have muttered through the land. All very courteous, to be sure. The party of the first part, William Harrison (“Jack”) Dempsey, the party of the second part, James J. Tunney, and around them a whirl of rumors, complaints, offers, conjectures, and lawsuits. Was Dempsey eligible to fight Tunney before he had fought black Harry Wills? The New York State BoxingCommission thought he was; the New York License Committee thought otherwise, refused to issue a license. Tex Rickard, promoter, thought he was; Padraic Mullins, manager of Wills, disagreed. Attorney General Albert Ottinger was asked to write opinions on points of law that would aforetime have been left to the bartender. Meanwhile at Saratoga Dempsey, growing rapidly browner and harder, continued to train, sometimes slipping off in the afternoon to see the horses run. Forty miles away, at Gloversville, Tunney pounded the bag or jogged over the hills. One day Louis Fink, Tunney’s manager, slipped over to Dempsey’s camp and watched the champion deal briskly with his four sparring partners— Robert Delfino, South American heavyweight, James Saxon, middleweight, James Brown, Negro middle-weight from Panama, Philip Weisberg, heavyweight from Brooklyn. Jack Kearns, Dempsey’s one-time manager, attached the Dempsey Rolls-Royce for sums which he declared stood owing. Then from Manhattan came a surprisingannouncement. Tex Rickard, foreseeing nothing but litigation in New York State, changed the place to Philadelphia, the day to September 23. Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, officials of the Sesquicentennial Exposition, boxing solons of both states, ratified. Dempsey moved his camp to Atlantic City. And sportsmen, feeling that the bout might actually take place, began to cast an eye on the participants. Challenger James J. (“Gene”) Tunney, 27, is generally referred to in print as “the Marine.” Press agents have adroitly pointed out that while Dempsey lolled the War away in a Brooklyn shipyard, Tunney sprang to arms, arrived early in France, stayed late. He gave lessons, exhibition bouts, in various training camps, but was demobilized underweight, with brittle hands. His manager sent him to the Maine woods where he hauled and hewed for a winter and acquired a new jauntiness which he employed effectively against Carpentier and Tom Gibbons. The men he had beaten before that were second raters: Herbert Crowely, Martin Burke, Wolfe Larson, Jack Ambrose, Eddie O’Hara, Whitey Meuzel, Fay Reiser. He did very well against them, this mild marine. A handsome lightheavy-weight, well-built but not particularly strong, intelligent but not brutal, he won the admiration of all the women who saw him box. They heard with interest that he had been born in Greenwich Village. They asked him to confirm the rumors that he had taken a college course in anatomy to help him in his profession, that he liked to dance, that he read Voltaire, that he neither smoked, spat, nor swore. One newspaper declared that he was “a young philosopher.” All hispartisans said he was too nice. . . . Few of his opponents have thought so. Tunney hits hard; he is a sound boxer, does not lose his head in the ring, can stand up under punishment. When he fights, his face sometimes gets puckered up. It never gets nasty. The Champion William Harrison Dempsey—what he eats, wears, says, earns, fears, hopes for, and remembers—has supplied the news-mills with endless grist ever since the blazing day he poked Jess Willard in the stomach. He has never been a popular champion. The “slacker” talk helped to make him disliked; it was abetted by many other things, the fact that he married a moving picture star and thereby enrolled himself among the dilettantes of Hollywood; the fact that he acted in sentimental cinemas; and above all the fact that he did not want to fight Negro Harry Wills have all weighed against him. Furthermore, Dempsey is a lowbrow. His grammar is gummy at the edges; he reads The Czar’s Spy, by William Le Queux, The Spoilers, by Rex Beach, and makes no bones about his ignorance of philosophy. Pinochle is his favorite game, and he addresses his butler as “Babe.” It is said that this butler has irritated Mrs. Estelle Taylor Dempsey. A thin figure with splayed hands and a broken nose, he moves about the halls of his master’s California house with the short, wary footstep that one learns in the ring. He and Dempsey teamed together in the days when trainmen booted them off freights. Those days are long ago for Dempsey; his critics declare that he has softened; it is true. How could it not be true? Only when he is in the ring do those days come back. Then his brows blacken in a manner unbecoming to the hero of a sentimental cinema; his body, muscled like a panther cat’s, seems to ignite with malice, to burn and flash; then his fists reach out, savagely, lethally, to destroy the weaving shape in front of him and get revenge for something he has just remembered, a wrong done, a score that must be evened, something that happened to him long ago.

Tennis

At Forest Hills when Helen Wills announced her withdrawal, animation slipped away from the Woman’s National; to make matters worse a pewter sky settled like a plate over the boggy courts. A glance at the draw made it seem likely that Mrs. Mallory would meet Miss Elizabeth Ryan in the finals and likely also that she would win. Against Miss Ryan, Mary K. Browne might make a bid, but Miss Browne was able to win only four games in two sets, and out came red Miss Ryan to battle brown Mrs. Mallory, just as expected. She soon went back; Mrs. Mallory smashed to victory 4-6, 6-4, 9-7.

Able Babbitts

After a week of tense tennis, the finals of New Brunswick’s championship tournament were reached, at Fredericton. Out of one bracket emerged Mrs. H. R. Babbitt; out of the other bracket, Miss Isobell Babbitt, Mrs. Babbitt’s daughter. With the assurance of a parent and of a onetime All-Canadian Maritime Province and Provincial champion,* Mrs. Babbitt rolled up points; the first set was hers, 6-3. Her blood fired with youth’s impatience, Miss Babbitt rallied to win the second set, 6-1. Nor did she pause at that. It was Mrs. Babbitt, ding, Miss Babbitt, dong, until the latter won again at 6-1, able daughter of a mother of ability.

*The nine Canadian provinces, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan, have each their own Lieutenant-Governor,Parliament and Premier.