The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-05
(Reg. U. s. Pat. off, BY JACK CUDDY

New York, Aug. 5-(UP)-Some- one remarked that Chalky Wright was a pickaninny during the Civil war. Another disagreed, claiming Wright - current featherweight champion had been a mess boy with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan hill.
 Nate Lewis, the bald eagle of Chi cago's Michigan boulevard, ignored the congregations about the colored champions age and declared:
 Wright has a good chance against young Allie Stolz at the Garden Thursday night, because fighter is as old as he feels. If you don't believe it, I'll tell you about Stock ings Kelly, the oldest professional fighter ever knew"
 NeWspapermen, who had been dis cussing Wright's non-title 10-round- CT with Lightweight Stolz, gave the green light to ancient Lewis to go ahead. Bespectacled, bald-headed Nate, who has been kicking about the fight game as trainer, manager and promoter for more than 50 years, and now pilots Lightweight Leo Ro- dak, cleared his throat and began the tale of Stockings Kelly.
 Polish Boy
 Many years ago, I'm promoting at Gary, Indiana" Lewis said. "In those days Gary had big Polish population and I have young Po- fish preliminary boy named Stanley zelinsky who is a great card be- cause he is rough, tough slugger of the Galento type.
 Also at this club, I have a gen. eral second - handling the bottles, steels and so forth-named Stock ingS Kelly, who had been good lightweight in his day, but who is now about 50 years old and hasn't fought for at least IS years. On the side Kelly is managing some youngster, and he asks me if can put him in a preliminary. I say the only prelim that's open is with Zelinsky, in the first bout, but don't want to put nobody in who might knock out Zelinsky and ruin him as a drawing card Kelly says his boy can't knock out nobody = yet. So I accept the boy for zelin- sky.
 Well, it's fight night, and we have good crowd, so I come out of the office in front after estimat- ing the dough and I'm looking LID and down the street to see if more fans are coming when I hear the gong ring, and I know the first pre- linn is on. So I go inside.
 Scared
 T have strong heart - never had stroke or anything in my life but I almost drop in the aisle when take look at the ring. ze- lnsky is in there, alright, throwing punches in all directions, but his opponent isn't any boy. It's 5O- year-old Stockings Kelly, looking as If he had just jumped off slab in the morgue-what with his being Withered by age and scared white.
 T totter down to the ringside, to the accompaniment of fans num- bling, 'Wot ta heck!' It's because they all know Kelly and how old he IS. So l don't know what to do. Kelly is running backwards, throw ing left jabs at Man Eater Zelinsky, who is swinging all over the place and aimin' to kill the old gaffer. This keeps up for about two min ] utes while I'm tryin' to figure out what to do. Then, all of a sudden, old Stockings Kelly sorta lunches up and throws right. It is one of the most perfect rights I ever saw. It hlts ZelinSky on the chin and knocks him cold. When zelinsky is counted out, the crowd goes wild in admiration of old Kelly. Fans rush the ringside and climb in to shake ms hand. They slap me on the back ana say l am a genius as a pro- moter.
 Loyalty
 Finally Kelly gets to the dressing room and I say Wottinell is the meaning of this. He says his boy don't show up for the fight and he doesn't want to disappoint me and the crowd, so he 'borrys' a pair of trunks and goes in to fight. him. self. He says he was scared stiff and he got so tired running from zelinsky that he couldn't have kept on his pins for the rest of the round. So he decided to risk every thing and throw right v in des- peration. He was more surprised than zelinsky or me.
 Ever since then I never took too much stock in fighters age" Lewis said. And he concluded:
 T don't know whether Chalkv Wright is 30 or 40, but he's good fighter and don't sell him short