Evening star., 1938-08-06
MOST RING STARS
RISE UNHERALDED
Middle Group Particularly
Notable for Squirt Of
UnknoWns to Fame.
BY GRANTLAND RICE,
Special Correspondent Of The Star.

NEW YORK, Aug. Good hght-
ers seem to come overnight. They
fight around in the small clubs for
q while and nobody pays any atten-
ton to them, and then, all Of a sud-
den, they are In the headlines. Jack
Dempsey came that way and so did
Joe Louis.
The latest Is AL Hostak. They have
known about Hostak in the Northwest
tor the last few months, but he didn't
really crash the big time until he
f1attened Freddy Steele the other
night and took the middleweight
championship from him.
Even now little Is known Of him,
save that he is a terrific puncher.
especially with left hook The list
of men he had fought before he
knocked out Steele doesn't mean any,
thing, with one exception: He knocked
out Babe Risko, former champion, in
seven rounds. But Risko, never any.
thing like greater fighter, was
washed up when he fought Hostak
and had little to take into the ring
with him except his name.
Just tough kid with left hook
until the other highland now mid
dleweight champion Of the world.
That's how fast they come when they
have the stuff.
Middles Soar Quickly.
This seems especially true Of the
middleweight division. Steele was q
pugilistic nobody with a string of
meaningless names in his record until
he gave Vince Dundee terrible beat
ing and stopped him in three rounds,
and then went on to beat Risko
twice-the second time for the title.
Risko, in turn, was a sailor Just of
a battle wagon when he shocked the
fight mob by stopping Teddy Yarosz.
then the champion, in the seventh
round of a non-title fight. In return
bout Risko won the championship on
decision.
Away back in the spring Of 1914
George Chip took on supposed sucker
named'Al Mccoy in Brooklyn fight
club. Mccoy was an awkward south.
paw with no reputation and the match
AoOhCo q co4G touNll lOl S1llp, NllO
had established himself as champion
by knocking out Frank Klaus a few
months before But, in the first
round, Chip strayed into the path
of left hand packed with dyna-
mite-and the sucker was the middle.
weight champion.
They Picked on Thomas.
And back before thau-in 1907
there was good fighter campaigning
through California and calling him.
self the middleweight champion. He
had as good claim as any-and
better than most. The title had been
in dispute for some time, and self
styled champions were fairly nu-
merous, but Joe Thomas and Jack
(Twin) Sullivan were the two most
highly regarded.
Thomas accepted an offer to fight
in Marysville. Calf, and the pro-
moter selected as his opponent .
Polish kid from Grand Rapids, Mich,
via Butte, Mont, where he had been
a dishwasher, bouncer and a ham
and beans fighter. His name was
Stanislaus Kiecal, but he called HIM
| self Stanley Ketchel. and they knew
him in Marysvlle. He had been In
there before and knocked out fell
low named Benny Hart in eight
rounds They knew him in Miles City
and Helena and Sacramento, but
Thomas never had heard of him.
| 1t was the Fourth Of July. and
Marysville was putting on big show
Joe Thomas and this kid Ketchel.
20 rounds. Thomas would win. Of
course. But the kid would give him a
good fght-a fight worth going q
long way to see.
Drawn Bout made" Ketchel.
The kid gave him such a good
fight that, at the end Of the goth
round, the referee called 1t a draw.
Many thought Ketchel should have
had the decision, but he was only q
kid, and Thomas was the champion.
Thomas couldn't believe 1t. He want
ed another shot at the kid-a kid
whose name was known all over the
country overnight because he had held
the great Joe Thomas to draw. They
were rematched for San Francisco in
September, and Ketchel knocked
Thomas out in the 32d round.
Ketchel went on from there. He
knocked out Sullivan in 20 rounds to
clinch his right to the middleweight
championship Within the next year
or so he was recognized as one Of the
greatest fighters that the ring ever
had known, and no middleweight
since his time has come even close
to him.
But the fight that really made him
was that 20-round draw with Thomas
in Marysville-when he entered the
ring as an unknown and left 1t with
his name humming over the wires that
stretched from one end of the coun-
try to the other.
(copyrisht. 1898. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc)