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LOUIS-SCHMELING II  Max Schmeling and Joe Louis weigh in for their 1938 rematch. |
BITS AND PIECES THAT ENRICH
THE LOUIS-SCHMELING STORY
of TheColumnists.com
In “Beyond Glory…” his story of the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling relationship, David Margolick did a Herculean job of research which provided fascinating tidbits that enrich the story of the “…World on the Brink.”
Here are some of them:
The colorful, enigmatic, clownish Max Baer
“was said to have promised his mother that he would never
fight a black man. But this was the same man who had also said
he would fight the Twentieth Century Limited if there were enough
money in it.”… Baer sometimes signed autographs, “Max
Baer--Palooka.”
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When the idea of a triumph of a black man was predicted by some to possibly produce violence in the populace, bombastic ring announcer Harry Balogh introduced the Louis-Primo Carnera principals, saying:
“I wish to take this opportunity of calling upon you in the name of American sportsmanship--a spirit so fine that it has made you, the American public world famous. I therefore ask that the thought in your mind and the feeling in your heart be that, regardless of race, creed, or color, may the better man emerge victorious.”
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Before the lucrative Louis-James Braddock fight, the Chicago Tribune wrote that Louis was supplying “vitamins C, A, S, H” to an undernourished sport.
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A week before the second Louis-Schmeling fight on June 15, 1938,
Cincinnati’s Johnny Vander Meer pitched the second of his
consecutive no-hitters.
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These celebrity predictions were provided by the New York World
Telegram before the fight: “On the Yankees Tommy Henrich,
Frank Crosetti and Joe DiMaggio picked Louis, while Lou Gehrig
and Red Rolfe chose Schmeling.” George Halas, Dizzy Dean
and Henny Youngman picked Louis. “So did Edgar Bergen, but
Charlie McCarthy picked Schmeling.” When Babe Ruth picked
Schmeling the odds against Schmeling fell.
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After Schmeling’s defeat “in one neighborhood in Nuremberg, Germany the silence was broken by the sound of someone taking an ax to his radio.”
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On the Berlin underground a man was overheard to say he felt bad about Schmeling’s ordeal. “Yes, Schmeling may have almost been killed, “ his friend replied, “but Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony lives on.”
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After Schmeling’s adviser, Max Machon, threw a towel into
the ring to stop the fight, Daily Mirror reporter Murrray Lewin
grabbed the towel and later cut it into squares and had Louis
scribble his name on each piece. Margolick adds, “The towel
reputed to be the one Machon threw, now in the Smithsonian Institution,
is almost certainly an imposter.”
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Upon Louis’ triumphant return to Chicago, he watched a Negro League doubleheader. Between games he and Olympic sprint hero Jesse Owens competed in a 60-yard dash. Owens conveniently tripped and fell down at the start and Louis beat him to the tape.
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After the fight the principal Polish-language paper in Poland said that what the fight proved was that Jews must recognize the symbolic value of sports, and stop treating its athletes as stepchildren. “Let’s not disrespect good fists, developed muscles and everything that is not intellectual.”
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Eleanor Roosevelt worried about Louis’ finances. “We congratulate him,” she wrote in her newspaper column a few days after the fight, “and hope that he has some wise member of his family who takes his money and puts it away, so that when he no longer has any opponents he will be able to do something else to make life interesting and pleasant.”
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted March 3, 2008.
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