New York NY PM Daily 1947 - FultonHistory.com

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the official fuss now being made over the Billy Fox-Jake LaMotta fight. Friday night. Commissioner Eddie Eagan, who saw nothing untoward at the ringside and ...
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PM, TUESDAY,

NOVEMBER

18,

1947

DA to Probe Billy Fox-Jake LaMotta Bout Eagan Holds Up Both Purses; Grand Jury Gets Case Monday

Principals in Boxing's Newest Investigation

By HEYWOOD H A L E BROUN

The power of the sporting press is awesomely demonstrated by all the official fuss now being made over the Billy Fox-Jake LaMotta fight Friday night. Commissioner Eddie Eagan, who saw nothing untoward at the ringside and said so at the time, has held up the purses of both fighters, Decause of newspaper stories written about the contest." District Attorney Frank Hogan will turn the bout over to a grand jury on Monday. A few hours after Eagan made his announcement, Hogan said, "I have read accounts of the Fox-LaMotta exhibition. The sports writers, who are experienced observers, are practically unani- commission as he did in the Grazimous in concluding that it was not ano affair, along with recommendaon the level. If that is true a crime tions for action. has been committed. We shall inLaMotta admitted in his dressing vestigate it unsparingly." room after the fight that he had been "lousy" and that he "couldn't Suspicion Baaed get going." On Betting Odds From Philadelphia Blinky Palermo, Fox's manager, said that in Press suspicion was based partly view of all the fuss he would welon the sorry performance put up by come an investigation but that he LaMotta in succumbing to a TKO felt Fox' conduct had been above in the fourth round and partly to reproach. the weird dance performed by the PM's John McNulty did not see odds. The betting was on a near eye to eye with the other reporters even basis with LaMotta a slight (See His column today) and in supfavorite until the forenoon of the port of this view, some boxing fight, when a flood of Fox money critics point to LaMotta's loss to made the Philadelphian a 3-1 favorthe mediocre Cecil Hudson in Chiite and even off the slate altogether cago as evidence that Jake has not with some books. been the same since making 1 ^ LaMotta, famed as an infighter, pounds for his win over Tony worked in close only in the first Janiro. round. Thereafter the heavy-set, short- LaMotta Took armed Bronx Bull tried a jabbing Fearful Beating dueL with his taK opponent and LaMotta took a fearful beating even spent part of the second round about the head in that fight, in adwith both hands at his sides as if dition to the weakening effects of to taunt his opponent into opening cutting his normal fighting weight up. Fox did open up and LaMotta by about six pounds. was backing away until the finish Fox's win was his 49th knockwhen Fox was pounding Jake at out in 50 fights, the other being a will with both hands. The referee knockout loss to light-heavyweight stopped the fight at 2:26 of the champ Gus Lesnevich. He apfourth round. LaMotta had not peared powerful but somewhat been floored but appeared out on slow in his Friday victory. his feet. LaMotta, who has been called Eagan and Hogan will make septhe "uncrowned king of the midarate investigations. Eagan said, dleweights," was making his 13th "At present there is no legal eviGarden appearance. He had never dence that the contest was not reviously been knocked out and honestly fought b> both boxers to as never been off his feet. the best of their ability." He indicated that the investigation will start immediately and will be Hack Named Manager closed to all save witnesses and CHICAGO commission members. Stanley Hack, veteran third baseman of the Chicago Cubs who was Hogan May Give released as an active player at the Findings to Board end of the 1947 season, has been Hogaa would not say whether named manager of the Des Moines he will call the fighters to testify Cubs, Chicago farm club in the in his investigation. Presumably Western League, the Cubs anhe will turn over his findings to the | nounced yesterday.

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PITTSBURGH It's easy to call "em from the grandstands, but those who do were agreed unanimously today that an automatic safety meant the difference between a breath-taking victory and a stunning upset for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Monday quarterbacks believed that if Steve Owen had ordered the safety from the New York Giants' 2 yard line Sunday, he might have walked off with a 7-5 victory instead of a 24-7 defeat. This was the situation: The Giants were leading, 7-3, with less than five minutes of play remaining and were en route to perhaps the biggest upset of the National League season against the Steelers. Held on their own 48, the Steelers sent Bob Cifers back to punt and that booting beauty

angled one out on the Giant two. Frank Reagan kicked out from the end zone on first down and his punt rolled dead on the Giant 35. The Steelers caught fire from there, scored the winning touchdown with 3:31 left and piled on two more in total elapsed time of 1:48 for the three scores. The feeling was that if the Giants had taken an automatic safety, the resultant free kick from their own 20—probably by Ken Strong—would nave driven the Steelers so far back in their own territory, they never would have made it to pay dirt in the time left. The use of the safety as a defensive weapon is not unusual. George Ratterman, T master for the Buffalo Bills of the All-America Conference, pulled the strategy twice this year in one game to preserve a victory.

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Eddie Eagan

Bell Holds Up Decision on Bears-Rams PHILADELPHIA National Football League Commissioner Bert Bell said yesterday he had received only telephone reports on Sunday's Chicago BearsLos Angeles Rams football game and that any decision on a hearing on the fracas must await a written report. Bell said he would call a hearing "only if necessarv" and if the reports indicated that anything "out of the ordinary" took place. The game was marked by roughing penalties, the injury to the Rams' quarterbatk % Bob Waterfield, and after-game fist fights. Bell said the five players ejected from the game could be fined under the league rulings. No league action would be taken until the reports from the game's officials were received.

Giants Might Have Used DiMag Loses -* Safety to Beat Steelers By Associated Press

Billy Fox

Bone Chip

BALTIMORE Joe DiMaggio had a l>one chip removed from his right elbow yesterday by Dr. George Bennett at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Bennett said the operation was successful and DiMaggio will be released in a week but with orders to take it easy for a month. "The l>one rested on a nerve and it must have given him terrific pain every time he threw," Bennett said.

Curtis Cup On Again The Curtis Cup golf match between leading woman amateurs of Great Britain and the U. S. will be resumed at Birkdale, Lancashire, England, May 21 and 22, 1948, after a 10-year lapse, the U. S. Golf Assn. announced yesterday. Untitled Document

Thomas M. Tryniski 309 South 4th Street Fulton New York 13069

www.fultonhistory.com

There were nearly 19,000 persons, paid and unpaid, present in Madison Square Garden Friday night for the prizefight between Jake LaMotta and Billy Fox. It now turns out that in all that crowd only three persons took the contest in complete seriousness. The three naive babies were VVolcott Gibbs, drama critic of The New Yorker magazine; Charles Addams, artist who draws those popularly terrifying pictures for that magazine, and me. Some three feet away from my on his hat saying "Gambler," but nose—which means only about four I see him all Summer ahead of me feet away from my eyes—I saw Fox in the mutuel line, and I don't pound tne be-jeepers out of La- think he's there to ask the ticketMotta's head, lefts and rights, lefts seller the way to St. Patrick's Caand rights I saw LaMotta's knees thedral. crumple and get caught on the "They got LaMotta dead on the ropes, which held him up for some floor already," he said. "The odds more pounding. That was in the are 3 to 1 on Fox." fourth, before Referee Frank Fullam stopped the fight. Before that, On the Level. in the second, I had seen that daffy So Help Me look on LaMotta's face, when he Okay. Maybe Miey should have threw his hands down and made a been 3 to 1, on the basis of the ludicrously fierce face at Fox, like records. So help me, at risk of bea kid daring another kid to hit him. ing the most credulous adult in Manhattan, an island noted for Takes the Bout credulous adults, I'll still believe At Face Value that fight was on the level, Fox a I took this all seriously. Confer- better man, and LaMotta unable ring with Gibbs afterward, I found to cope with him. My view of the he had taken the fight at its face whole thing is as simple—or as value. As for Addams, a specialist simple-minded, if you will—as all in creating amusing horror and eeri- that. ness, he believed the whole thing, Only one thing can save me now too, and was a trifle aghast at the from being a laughing-stock for my punishment he had seen LaMotta inability to detect a phony fight, or take. Scaring Addams is something at least my overwhelmingly minorlike frightening the wits out of ity opinion on Fridav's fight. What Boris Karloff, an artist in another could save me would cost a human field. life, to be sure, and would make Imagine my chagrin then, dear the whole thing seem like the end reader, upon reading the news- of a Monogram prizefight picture. papers ever since Friday, to find that the whole fight had been the Scoop McJSulty most palpable fraud, the most ob- Does It Again noxious cheat on the patrons, the The human life would be Jake most evident piece of bad acting LaMotta's. since the Cherry Sisters! THE SCENE: LaMotta's bedAll Those Writers side in the Bronx. Spiritual advisers have just left, and all hope is gone; Can't Be Wrong he is dying of his injuries at Fox'i All those writers can't be wrong. hands. Practically every one of them is a JAKE (Rising with one last feespecialist, accustomed to watching ble effort on his pillow): "Only one fights with eyes keen to chicanery, guy was r i g h t — " He gurgles morfor years. tallv-'McNulty was rightl" He And I still take the fight sericollapses and all is over. ously. I still think Billy Fox was a better man than LaMotta, that Then, in the modern manner, LaMotta made a try at the begin- there would be one more scene. It ning of the fight, found out he would show all the fight writers could get nowhere, and from then outside the bedroom door, nodding on clung to only one thing. That their heads in sorrow. One would one thing was his pride in never turn to the other (it woidd be having been knocked down. Frankie Graham turning to good You can tell me about the odds old Jim Jennings) and he would until doomsday, and 111 still be say: naive. A gambler told me, in fact, "He's done it again! Scoop Mcabout the odds at exactly 8:28 Nulty has done it again!" p.m. The man didn't have a sign Meaning me.