The Union Times

Death In The Boxing Ring

Two months ago Jimmy Doyle died the day following a ring beating he received from Sugar Ray Robinson, welter champion. Since then, padded fists have killed youngsters in New England and Cuban rings. Boxing is the golden horned black sheep of sports. Still, football has caused many more deaths than the old black sheep. In one season, 1931, 50 youths died in football warfare.

Legally and morally there is a hypocritical attitude toward boxing. Immediately a slugger dies under blows the killer is held on technical "manslaughter" charges. It doesn't make sense.

I don't believe any fighter ever deliberately tried to kill another fighter. Nevertheless, boxing is the lone sport where the sole aim is to pour physical damage on the other guy.

The law recognizes this and sanctions it as a sport. Okay. Why, then, do they arrest a boxer for killing an opponent, since it is legally an accident? Arrests never follow football fatalities, although broken necks can usually be traced to the fateful play.

The last fighter I saw killed in the ring was Ernie Schaaf. His opponent, the light-hitting man-mountain, was not to blame. Six months previous, Schaaf was slammed unconscious for two hours in the closing seconds of a fight with Maxie Baer. He nearly died then.

The autopsy showed that Ernie had suffered from pin-point hemorrhages since the Baer brawl. He had also weathered a pneumonia attack. He wasn't fit to fight, but who could tell? Nobody, not even himself, probably.

Fighters never know when they are to kill or be killed. Max Baer's blows killed Frankie Campbell, brother of Dolph Camilli, the ball player. Max, without knowing it, was actually battering a corpse propped up by the ropes in the fourth round. At least so a spectator told me.

LUTHER McCARTHY

Once I saw a future heavyweight champion, Jess Willard, then unheard of but who had killed a man in a ring, fight Luther McCarty, regarded as a coming champion. Luther was to die in the ring before becoming champion, however.

McCarty, superbly muscled, had the fight at Calgary he fought a supposed setup, Arthur Pelkey. McCarty collapsed during tame boxing in the first round. He died on the canvas eight minutes later. A coroners' jury reported "no blow caused it". Yet death was due to a hemorrhage of the brain. Certainly a blow caused it, but what are you going to do about it?

FIGHT COMMIS. NO HELP

Boxing commissions. Aren't they helpful? Too much politics, son.

Jimmy Doyle narrowly escaped death a year before the Robinson disaster. A severe brain concussion from a blow. Officials knew all about that when he prepared to battle Robinson. Yet they let him fight—and get killed.

Considering the number of battlers engaged, comparatively few boxers die in the ring. Shuddering heaven must watch over them kindly. Not with the cynical optimism of Stanley Ketchel's manager when he heard Stanley had been shot and lay dying.

Ketchel, a wonderful middleweight champion, was fanatically courageous. When he went down he always got up. Usually the other fellow wound up senseless. Except the time the farmhand plugged Stanley with a bullet. The great fighter didn't get up that time.

And what did his cynical manager say when the far away news came Ketchel lay dying?

"Start counting—he'll get up!"