Last week's obituary of Ingemar Johansson brought back a few memories. Live long enough, and it's hard to believe I was around in 1959, well on my way through P.S. 22.
The track guy Frank Litsky somehow wrote the NYT obituary, and not Dave Anderson. Dave's retired, but did have a Super Bowl story in the paper last Sunday. Litsky may have had the story on file, I don't know. It's a great obit, and like any great obit, an era comes alive while telling about someone who has left this one.
When Johansson beat Patterson it was a blow to the American sports ego. Americans were supposed to be heavyweight champions. The sun revolves around the earth. Since Joe Louis defeated an entire European nation, the heavyweight champion was supposed to be an American. Even while trying to learn to write a complete sentence that had a subject, verb and object, I knew that. Swedes skied, they weren't supposed to box.
Patterson fought with what was called a peek-a-boo style. He kept both gloves up around his face, almost as if he was afraid to get hit, and wanted no part of what he was very good at. Looking back, it might now be hard to believe that that style could win matches. But it did. And Patterson of course went on to beat Johansson in the next two fights.
(I saw Patterson fight the Argentinian Oscar Bonavena in the early 70s at Madison Square Garden, in what was a bit of a comeback fight for Floyd. Oscar fought flat-footed and was awkward, throwing heavy punches off the wrong feet, but still a worthy opponent. As a build up to that fight the Garden showcased free sparring sessions at the Felt Forum that I got to see on my lunch hour. During one of these sessions several members of the Argentina navy, officers and enlisted men, came in from a warship that was docked in the Hudson. No doubt who they were for. When the fight finally did roll around, Patterson put on a show and nearly flattened Oscar in the later rounds. He was awarded a TKO. It was exciting. How the hell did Ingemar beat him years before? He couldn't have beaten him that night.)
If Johansson doesn't look like a white George Foreman in the above photo, I don't know who does. Apparently Ingemar enjoyed life and is described in the obituary as a student of female anatomy. Straight As. Come to think of it, certain movies that I later became aware of always had a Swede in a white coat with a chart and a pointer nearby. It wasn't always skiing.
At my age then, however, I wouldn't have been aware of Ingemar's world outside the ring. And likely, not many others were either. The celebrity, tabloid, online world hadn't yet arrived. So, if Johansson stayed up late and ate cherry cheesecake until it came through his mouthpiece, I'm sure not many people knew about it. Word didn't spread fast.
Apparently he did pretty well for himself financially, and didn't go out without resources. Like Foreman, he seems to have had an affable nature that served him well. He may not have been selling grills at Christmas time for a company that specializes in the gift product, but at one point he was making enough money that he moved to Switzerland to keep the tax bit down.
It's a great picture that I had never seen before. He knows how to be happy, because he was of course once The Champ.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/sports/othersports/01johansson.html?scp=1&sq=Ingemar%20Johansson&st=cse
http://onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment