Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-02-16
Jack Sicily Claims That This
Is Due TO Too Much Train
ing Work.

1t is a strange fact that the large
majority of fistic gladiators live
longer than any other class of ath-
lete, says Jack Sicily
The Journal of the American Medi-
cal Association pointed out some time
ago that most of our Yankee sprint
ers die of heart disease frequently
before they are forty years of age.
Instead of building up the body"
says the Journal, ''the prevailing
method of training tends to break it
down."
The Old Time Trainers.
Many of the old-time pugilists live
in full health to a ripe old age, chief
ly because they were properly train.
ed by experienced conditioners. They
did not attempt to rush their man
through terrible pace and keep him
at a high tension all the time. Under
the old system it took from three to
six months to get a man in form to
fight a long battle. Nowadays it's
different. Most of the modern pugil-
istic trainers put a fighter through a
lot of physical torture in two or
three weeks and pronounce him fit
for any distanceA This is true In all
kinds of training work.
Too Much Exertion Bad.
When Mike Murphy, the veteran
athletic trainer, died last May his
physicians declared his end was
caused by complication of diseases,
| brought on by too much cxertion in
his young athletic days.
Pressing the Limit.
| Some of the modern ringmen are
certainly pressing the limit by fight
ing too often. Men like Battling Lee
whisky, who enters contests three and
| four Stimes week. The latter is a
| young fellow, full of steam and gin
ger, but it is only question of time
before he'll have to take a back seat.
The pace he's going at present is alb
solutely disastrous and unnatural
! Jack Dempsey OVERTURNED.
I always considered that game Jack
Dempsey shortened his life by train
ing too strenuously and too often. In
1884 for example, he prepared for and
fought seventeen battles, most of
them hard, cutting. furnishing, finish
ed fights, with skin gloves.
John L. Sullivan Seldom Got Into Con-
dition,
Big John L. was quite the opposite
to Dempsey in his training methods
] Sullivan rarely seldom entered the
ring fit to fight for big honors. The
only occasions I remember him right
for action were when he fought
Paddy Ryan for the championship
at Mississippi City, February 7, 1882;
then again when he met John Flood
on the barge opposite Yonkers. and
when he faced Herbert Slade at Mad
ison Square Garden
When John l.. lost the title to jim
Corbett at New Orleans, he was hog
fat and as slow as truck horse. Blu
Sullivan is very much alive today ant
in full health at the age of fifty-six
while poor Dempsey lays sleeping il
his grave at Portland, Ore.
Some Who Trained Properly.
If you ask me to pick the fighter
who consider trained properly
should select Jim Corbett, a yer!
faithful worker. indeed, but apt t,
overtrain at times; Tommy Ryan, ex
cept when Kid Mccoy fooled him ant
gave him the double cross; Bob Fitz
simmons, very hard, earnest worke
at all times; Frank Erne, Georg,
Dixon, before he broke down from to-
much training and battling; 10,
Choynski, Jem Carney and Bill!
Plimmer, of England; Charley
Mitchell before he hit the whit
lights, Tom Sharkey and some others
OF the modern fighters Shout,
pick Packey Mcfarland, Mike Glib
bons, Willie Ritchie, Leach Cross