March 8, 1971

It's not a date that ever had an icon on the calendar from Bill's Murray Street liquor store in Flushing. And 50 years ago today the date was also on a Monday. A Monday in March in 1971 probably brings to mind few events to most people. But it was 50 years ago today that Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden for the heavyweight championship, two undefeated heavyweights meeting in the long-anticipated bout, each getting $2.5 million. I don't know how much that is in today's money. Alert readers? 

It was also the day Aqueduct opened for business after their winter hiatus. There was no winterized inner track in those days, and the Big A was idle since mid-December. I didn't attend both events, but I did get to go to the one in the evening.

I once read a piece by Leonard Koppett, a sportswriter for the NYT who claimed that everyone has their own Golden Age in sports, a ten-year span that forms most of their memories. Your ten years is different from my tens years, and they don't necessarily begin and end within decades. Just 10 years starting anytime.

I'd have to say my Golden Age started sometime in the very late sixties when I became a season ticket holder for the Rangers, and went into the late '70s when our first daughter was born in 1978. Always a sports fan, but that period I lived at Madison Square Garden and Aqueduct and Belmont.

The Ali-Frazier I fight was my first boxing match. And there were many more after that; closed circuit, in the theaters, the Felt Forum, Sunnyside Gardens, Madison Square Garden. I always laugh when the chief architect critic for the NYT comes on duty and promptly tells the world that the Garden has got to go to make way for a better train station. How's that working out for you?

The three tickets I had gotten for Ali-Frazier I were received in the mail. Twenty dollars each, last row Blue Seats. My father, myself, and a friend from my job, Robert Ciago went. When the fight was announced I wrote to the Garden, got the tickets in the mail, and kept them in a desk at home while the build-up for the fight reached media fever pitch. I was holding onto gold.

I still have my ticket stub somewhere. The fight program had Ken Norton on the card, in the program, but he was substituted for. There is no March 8, 1971 fight listed on Ken's boxing record.

I remember there was a fellow in one of the prelims, perhaps making his pro-debut. John Closshey, a NYC Sanitation worker. I don't remember if he won, But I do remember reading when he passed away from cancer a short time later.

Ali-Frazier I was more than a memorable evening. It was a watershed moment in my life, and probably narrowed the estrangement just a bit between myself and my father. 

The early '70s were when the Rangers were not just good, they were great. In the '70-'71 season they lost only two games at home. There were ties, as there were in that era, but they won. They beat the prior year's Stanley Cup champions to get to the finals in 1972, only to be bested by a superior Boston Bruin team propelled by Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. The Bruins were great too that year.

I came of age in the '70s. I went to the races 33 times in 1971. I still have the notebook I kept of every wager I made then. Always small, but always betting. I was at Belmont for the three Triple Crown champions in the '70s, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed. Secretariat's Belmont can still give me goose-bumps as I look up from this computer and see the classic 1973 photo of Turcotte looking over his left shoulder at the tote board to see how fast he was going. Very fast. No one since as fast. And now the friend I was with has passed away.

Fifty years is a long time. Look back fifty years from 1971 and you've got 1921 and Warren Harding is president; my father was six. Look back fifty years from 2021 and Richard Nixon is president and I'm 22 years old.

I already knew the NYT wasn't going to have anything in the paper about the 50-year anniversary of Ali-Frazier I. How could they? I'm sure no one on the paper today was working at the paper then. Red Smith, Dave Anderson, Arthur Daley are gone. Died. Anyone who might remember covering the fight is my age or older, retired somewhere.

In fact, when I started to write this it hadn't yet occurred to me it was 50 years ago. I remember March 8th so clearly, I forgot that if you subtract 50 from 2021 you get 1971.

Frank Sinatra was taking photos from all corners of the ring apron with his Nikon, moving around outside the ring like the referee Arthur Mercante was moving around inside the ring. Mercante would later say both fighters threw and withstood punches he had never seen before. Both fighters were in the hospital briefly after the fight. Fifteen rounds, the championship distance of the era. The NYT the next day carried a front page photo of Ali sprawled out on the canvas from Frazier's 15th round left hook, the hook he had been pounding Ali's jaw with all evening. Unanimous Frazier.

Burt Lancaster was always just outside the ring as well. Lots of tuxedos. Mayor Lindsay wasn't even at ringside. He was some 15 rows back. Astronauts had better seats than he had. I wonder now if a young Donald Trump was there. He'd probably tell us he was. Lots of people always told people they were there who weren't.

At the introductions before the fight Johnny Addie didn't try and tell you who was there. He just said, "everyone's here." I know I was.

If they were there, they'd remember that it's 50 years ago today. My Golden Age of sports.

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Note: Caught up with Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, and there on Page A4 was this picture that commemorates the 50th Anniversary of The Fight of the Century. While others failed to mention it, yes the WSJ remembered.

The photo shows a statue of Ali and Joe in Feasterville, Pennsylvania being kissed by Weatta Frazier, daughter of Joe. Appropriately, Joe's throwing the left hook that conquered so many opponents.

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