Steve

Burri on Sports (B.S.)

--As reported by Summer Sanders of Fox Sports Net's 'Sports Lists':
When told that he was making more money than President Hoover, Babe Ruth replied, "Well, I had a better year."

--As a big fan of 'The Tour de France' since 1979, I was elated to watch Lance Armstrong with his unprecedented sixth straight title this past summer. (Many thanks to OLN for televising them!) His well documented victory over widely spread cancer was incredible in itself, but returning from a possible death bed to participate in the Tour and winning by such margins is truly unbelievable.

But OLN has recently been responsible for a reminder of another American sports legend. About a week ago, I saw their airing of the story of Greg LeMond. LeMond, the only other American to ever win the Tour, was accidentally shotgunned in the back during a hunting trip after winning the Tour in 1986. Pellets were removed from his liver, kidneys, and intestines to help save his life. Two pellets were left in his pericardial sac and more than 30 pellets remained throughout his thorax, abdomen, and legs. After years of rehabilitation and failure, Greg LeMond returned to top form and won the Tour in 1989, and again in 1990. His strength waned and retired in 1994 after being diagnosed with mitochondrial myopathy.

So what is with these Americans, rising from their death beds to earn international championships? Now if we can find basketball players that are now at death's door, we will be able to field a team that could win the 2008 Summer Olympics! Or maybe, just maybe, the NHL could be inspired to make such a comeback.

--German Heavyweight boxer, Max Schmeling died on February 2, 2005, at the age of 99. Schmeling won the World Heavyweight Title from Jack Sharkey in 1930 on a disqualification, and lost the rematch to Sharkey in 1932 on points in 15 rounds. To most Americans, however, he was best known for his two bouts with 'The Brown Bomber', Joe Louis. After his first match with Louis in 1936, Hitler's Nazis used the 12th round knockout victory for 'Aryan supremacy' propoganda. Schmeling was knocked out by Louis during the 1st round in 1938, suffering a broken vertebra.

In spite of heavy temptation in the face of evil, Max Schmeling retained high integrity:

'While this loss did not ingratiate him with high-ranking party members, it was probably his personal life that undermined his status with the Nazi party. Despite repeated warnings from officials, the boxer openly associated with Jews. Schmeling was married to the Austrian film star Anny Ondra, and there were a number of Jews in her production company; further, Schmeling's trainer, American Joe Jacobs, was Jewish. In later years, Schmeling's actions during the “Kristallnacht” pogrom of November 9, 1938, when he sheltered two Jewish boys in his Berlin apartment, were related to the press.
Schmeling's refusal to abandon Jewish friends cost him the sympathy of the Nazi regime. During World War II, when many German sports heroes were given favoured treatment, Schmeling was assigned to the parachute forces. He was injured in 1941 during the German airborne invasion of Crete.' (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2003)

Max Schmeling befriended Joe Louis and often gave him money when Louis hit hard times from poor financial management and heavy problems with the IRS. He paid for Louis' funeral in 1981 and continued to aid his widow financially after The Brown Bomber's death.


--Prefight weigh-ins for championship heavyweight boxing matches are often more entertaining than the bouts themselves. It is not uncommon for one particular heavyweight to be involved in more than one such incident. Here's the dialogue reported in one such incident:

"As far as I'm concerned, the only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself."

"Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."

The combatants were Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley!

Vidal and Norman Mailer also had such prefight run ins. Mailer headbutted Vidal on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971, and years later, after a drink throwing incident, Vidal's significant other, his boxing 'second', offered to fight Mailer. Mailer replied, "My fourteen-year-old son could take you!"

Ye gods! 'The Thrilla in Vanilla!'