Dr. Louis C. Wallach squared off in the waiting room of his select dental parlor, feinted with his left and thrust his right briskly into the ribs of your correspondent.
“That’s the kind of punch that does damage,” he said, rather unnecessarily. “A sharp punch with velocity. These new heavyweights are so muscle-bound they can’t do anything but shove. Some of them like Lasky and Hamas are improving with every fight. The rest of them are bums. That’s why I’m sure Maxie Baer could take any of the new crop in four rounds.”
Dr. Wallach’s theory about the modern heavyweights is not very new, but it has the weight of authority. Dr. Wallach was a professional puncher himself once, and he punched under the name of Leach Cross. He punched with such good effect that his physiognomy is unmarked, except for a couple of scars about the eyes. He was one of the most successful practitioners of the theory of velocity.
NO SPEED IN FISTS
“Velocity is speed plus weights,” explained Dr. Cross, as he prefers for business reasons to call himself. “I’ll show you again. No? Well, you see what I mean. The big boys haven’t got any velocity in their dukes. Baer should catch up with all of them before the fights go very far and then he stops them. Look at his last fight with Kingfish Levinsky.”
This diagnosis of Baer and the latter’s fighting achievements corresponded so closely to the diagnosis of Mr. Baer himself that the doctor might be suspected of having conversed with Max Adelbert in the immediate past. But he hadn’t. He was quoting from his own book.
ANOTHER INFERIORITY COMPLEX
“Baer looks to me like the kind of guy that can do everything pretty well,” said the doctor. “You know what I mean—swim, play tennis, act, and all that kind of stuff. I got an inferiority complex that way. What I mean, when I see a guy play the piano, well, my feet start moving, and I say, ‘I wish I could play like that.'”
At this moment a patient entered Dr. Cross’s select dental parlor, looking far more like the victim of an inferiority complex than the doctor did. It was a cavity case.
“Be with you in a minute,” said the doctor, “I’ll make it painless —strictly so.”
When he resumed the conversation, the doctor’s mind had wandered to his favorite subject, lightweights.
MODERN LIGHTWEIGHTS
“This Ross is a good kid, fast, clever and a good puncher,” he said. “But he’s not in McLarnin’s class. McLarnin is a great puncher and he’s harder to hit than you think. That’s the way with good punchers. They stand wide open, like they were saying ‘come on and hit me.’ You come in, and the next thing you know it’s Thursday.
“A good puncher seldom gets marked up. Look at McLarnin’s face. Look at mine. The reason is that the other fellow stays away from a puncher, doesn’t flick or jab him. It’s too dangerous.”
The doctor hasn’t much respect for the lightweights of today. Ross is fair. Amber and Fuller are mediocre. Sammy Mandell was fair and Al Singer was a pretty good boy, but they didn’t touch the lightweights who fought in Leach Cross’s time.
BENNY LEONARD GREATEST OF ALL
“Of course Leonard was the greatest of them all, the kind of fighter that comes up once in a generation,” mused the doctor. “But there were great ones in my time and I fought nearly all of them. Gans, Bat Nelson, Packy McFarland, Willie Ritchie, Freddie Welsh, Ad Wolgast, Charlie White—well, no, not Charlie. I beat him and I never had so much respect for any fellow I beat. Same with Wolgast. I don’t know why.”
For Dr. Cross’s money, the toughest man to fight was Packy McFarland.
The most celebrated of Leach’s fights, of course, was the one with Dick Hyland in San Francisco. The dentist from the Ghetto was pale and sick that day, but he held on for forty-one rounds before Hyland put him away. The doctor meditated about that one a while before turning the conversation back to Jimmy McLarnin.
AMONG THE GREAT
“McLarnin is a combination of four or five of the greatest lights and welters of all time,” he said. “The guy can do everything, but most of all he can punch. I like a puncher.”
The doctor remembered the cavity case in the other room. Before attacking the bicuspid in question, he made another final offer to illustrate the theory of velocity. It was declined.
“No?” queried Dr. Cross, turning away reluctantly to answer duty’s call. “Well, you see what I mean. Weight plus speed will win every time.”
DID YOU KNOW THAT…
Benny Kaplan, British featherweight, did what no other European boxer was able to do against Freddie Miller, of Ohio…The Jewish lad from London held the American to a draw recently…At one point of the fight Miller was saved by the bell from inevitable defeat…Irving Eldridge, of the New York Ghetto, is the East Side’s best bet to emulate the fistic deeds of Sid Terris, Ruby Goldstein, Al Singer, Charley Rosen and other products of that neighborhood.
In twenty-two pro fights the Jewish boxer has scored ten knockouts…He has won thirtyone consecutive amateur victories…Art Lasky arrived yesterday from California for his fight against Jimmy Braddock at the Garden on February 1…Co-promoter Mike Jacobs, the ticket magnate, believes the Ross-Klick fight in Miami on Thursday will gross $40,000 or more…The moment Klick steps into the ring he will be a suspended pugilist in the eyes of the State athletic commissioners…The penalty is for meeting Ross, a suspended title-holder?…
SCHOLASTIC TRACK NOTES
Barney Hyman, master puppeteer of the scholastic track, pulled the strings in the Stuyvesant meet last Saturday and produced another winning team performance…Jewish track and field men at this meet walked off with most of the honors…Sam Arkin, a backyard shotputter for years, won the twelve-pound novice shot put with a heave of forty-eight feet…Milt Rosen was second in this event by only three inches…Barney believes the latter will do better than fifty-two feet before he graduates…
Bob Liman and Larry Marcus placed one-two in the novice high jump…Hymie Reich came in first in the 100 yard dash…Abe Zebrak’s record-breaking win in the quarter (the Lincoln husky did 52.4) was the result of tactical changes. He runs inclined and breaks to the front at the very start…Marty Glickman, Madison sprint ace, was nipped on the first leg of the sprint relay by an Evander runner, but the city champion is rounding into shape and should be as good as ever in the P. S. A. L. championships…
HAVE YOU HEARD THAT…
Alex Levinsky, in his first game with the Chicago Black Hawks, assisted in two scores…Manhattan meets N. Y. U. in a return match at the Heights gym…However, because of the 19-18 Violet triumph, the fans want the return match to be held at the Garden, where 16,000 customers can be handled…Only 1,500 can be packed into the Heights gymnasium…The Jewels, who clinched the first half title in the American Basketball League, accounted for their sixteenth victory in twenty-two starts last night. The Brooklyn team remains intact with the same lads who composed the 1931 St. John’s wonder team. Gersen, Shuckman, Begovich, Kinsbrunner and Posnack are still first-string men…
Slott, Poliskin and Bernstein are three newcomers to this superb floor aggregation, making it an all-Jewish team…The rest that the City College basketball team is taking from active competition may prove the turning point of its hitherto sluggish campaign…The boys are taking a three-weeks respite in order to tackle their exams…Immediately after, they start a six game schedule, winding up with N. Y. U., Fordham and Manhattan…N. Y. U. is the traditional rival of the Beavers on the court and to all appearances should smother the Lavender five…However, the three-weeks’ rest may work wonders for C. C. N. Y.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
