Posted By:
Paul MuchinskyGet ready for another lecture. This is pure boxing, so if you are not a boxing fan, keep scrolling.
I spent over 16 months researching the items in the boxing book. Lots of INCREDIBLE detailed records on boxing. I couldn't believe it. There are round by round records of fights from over 100 years ago! Also, unlike baseball, where there are "dabblers" and guys with "some interest" in the sport, boxing guys exist at two levels: all or none. And it is not baloney. The "all" guys REALLY know their stuff. In writing the text for each pin, I researched each fighter so as to give the reader some understanding of the fighter in question on the pin. I had the pleasure and honor of befriending one of the very best "all" guys, a professional boxing historian. He graciously agreed to copyedit my writing. In return, I gave him advice on publishing HIS book on boxing. He knew boxing, I knew book publishing---that was the trade. How deep are these guys into their knowledge of boxing? Like this. I would write (based on a careful analysis of records), "X defended his title 19 times". Wrong, Paul. It was 18. "The fight against Y was considered to be a non-title defense, just a fight." OK, how about this one. Heavyweight champ X has his last fight in 1904. He is challenged to defend his title in 1905. He says, "I won't fight Y; I hereby announce my retirement from boxing". Question: "In what year did X retire--the year of his last fight, or the year he announced his retirement?" For light-heavyweights on down, year of last fight. For heavyweights, year of announced retirement. Very subtle word meaning, but fully accepted as "standard operating procedure" by boxing historians. Thus, the proper wording word be this: "Welterweight champion X fought his last fight in 1952." "Heavyweight champion X announced his retirement in 1952".
But in my opinion, the grand prize for liguistic precision and correctness revolves around Rocky Marciano. This is very serious among boxing historians, and quite frankly, is a page I wouldn't mind seeing ripped out of the boxing books and adopted by professional baseball historians. But I found the Marciano story to be in a class by itself, a combination of lore, respect, psychic karma, and ordained symmetry. The board member's comment about Marciano triggers telling this story. Marciano retired from boxing with a unique record--the only undefeated heavyweight champion in history, a career record of 49-0. Total perfection.
Several years after retiring from the ring, Marciano and a few friends board a private plane to fly into Des Moines, Iowa. The flight is the day before his 46th birthday. Weather is bad, the plane crashes, all on board are killed. Records indicate the clock on the plane stopped at something like 11:51PM. The question: How old was Rocky Marciano when he died--45 or 46? The wreckage of the plane was found several hours after the plane had gone down. All on board were dead at the time of recovery. Here we go.
1. Was the clock on the plane "slow"? Some witnesses reported the plane went down "a little after midnight". If so, it was "the next day", Marciano would have died on his birthday at age 46.
2. Was the clock on the plane correct? If so, and all passengers died on impact, Marciano died a few minutes before his 46th birth DATE, and thus died at age 45.
3. Was the clock on the plane correct, but Marciano (and some or all of the others) did not die on impact. If Marciano survived for a few more minutes (enough to reach midnight), he died on his birth date, and died at age 46.
Trivial, who cares, what difference does it really make? These questions are not unimportant to the professional boxing historian. The general consensus is Marciano "died on his birthday" (I think the date was September 6, but not positive). A few historians assert he died the day before his birthday, or at age 45. But they are in the small minority. What is the significance of the exact time of death? I think it relates to some sort of divine karmic connection between having a perfect (and uniquely so, for a heavyweight) boxing record (not a single loss) and a sense of perfect symmetry in leaving this world on the same date you entered it. A few historians have uncovered records of other boxers who had perfect career records (beyond some minimal number, so a career record of 1-0 would not count). However, heavyweights have a stature, aura, and panache that puts them in a special place in boxing. The reigning heavyweight champion is considered to be the "best" boxer at the time, capable of beating any (champion) fighter in any lower weight class (I clearly believe this to be true as well). So history indicates Rocky Marciano died at age 46. He therefore died on his birthday. He died on his birthday because either the clock on the plane was slow, or with the same strength and courage he showed in the ring, he did not die on impact, and even death had to wait for "The Rock" to finally succomb. The story is far better than the truth, whatever it may be (which is not to imply the truth is different than the story). Can any board member think of any baseball player who had a life (or death) event that, while potentially of an ambiguous nature, produced a resounding uniformity of opinion? The only one I can think of was that once upon a time Abner Doubleday was credited with inventing baseball. Subsequently I believe modern baseball historians have come to agree the game pre-dates him.
Paul
02-03-2008, 10:48 AM
Paul, have you plugged your boxing pin book yet?
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