The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-03-12

fight. Many thanks for evervtbin,
Johnny Greco"
Dear Johnny Greco: The allow.
is a fair letter and l shall trv ~
answer it with equal fairness hit
without pulling any punches. You
ask me to convey, publicly"
your thanks to the U. S. Army
Medical Corps captain who treates,
you in the dressing room, so !
take it you have no objection to
my making your letter public.
You mention the half-forgotten
ring tragedy of Ernie Schaaf
which resulted from a bout fought
IL years ago this Saturday night.
That was long before your time,
Johnny. l saw it and knew con-
siderable about it. Maybe too
much. Maybe not enough.
Without direct reference to the
Schaaf-Carnera fight or reflection
on it, however, let me point out
that not even the finality of death
provides final proof that things
are as they seem. Or, as they
should be. If a player had been
''beaned" in the 1919 World Series
and died as result, it still would
have been a crooked World Series.
If one of the Brooklyn College
basketball players, who admitted
taking a bribe to throw the game
with Akron, had gone to Boston
and played in that game and slip
ped, or been knocked down and
suffered a fatal fracture, 1t would
have been deeply tragic. But it
could not have changed the fact
that he was a participant in the
larceny.
In the case of boxer, you have
been in the game long enough to
know, Johnny, that a fellow who
hasn't trained is in greater danger
Of injury than one who has. Which
is what I have been working up
to-the fact that you had a sad
and disastrous experience along
that line last Friday night.
You write that your stoma or
has been troubling you for some
time. Yet on the afternoon of the
fight, you treated yourself to a
sea-food dinner, or late luncheon,
complete with CLAIMS and shad.
The sort of food that no athlete
in his right mind would dream
Of eating before a tough contest.
You say you couldn't breathe
right after the second round. /
can well believe it. l talked with
the captain, who treated you in
Shor's restaurant couple Of
hours after the fight. He told me
that you had not digested one
morsel of the food you had eaten,
and that the wonder was that you
could have lasted through ten
rounds of anything. Even ten
rounds OF shadow-boxing, or a
walk of ten laps around the block.
Now. Johnny, I know you're only
% and that you've been boxing pro-
fessiona1ly only since 1910. also
know that you are not the first
fellow, nor will you be the last,
who has eaten or drunk the wrong
thing at the wrong time.
Yet you are old enough and ex-
perienced enough, John, to know
as you did-that you were going
into the Garden to fight before
1900. That those people were go.
ing to pay close to 500, 900 to see
you and that a stable portion OF
that g per cent, l BELIEVED was
coming to you.
You also knew that thousands of
others were going to be reading
about and listening on the radio
to what you did. And if you had
thought about it, and your letters
to me have shown that you can
think, you would have realized
that you were representing more
than Johnny Greco, the boxer.
You represented your family in
Montreal and the fans in Canada
who have followed your career
with interest, as 1 happen to know.
In broad sense, you even repres-
ented the friendship and good will
that exist between your country
and ours.
You represented the fellows with
whom you soldiered in the Canad-
ian Army. Some of whom perhaps
heard the short-waved story of this
fight in a freezing dugout Or snow
banked fox-hole in Belgium, from
where they are fighting a life and
death battle for what they believe
to be right.
Having received a private's pay
in the Canadian Army, you can
figure out more accurately than I
now many years, if he escaped
death, it would take such a SOL
der to make what you made last
Friday night. But let's guess
roughly Is years.
You ask me to disregard side
whispers. l always
am happy to do that. Have been
almost a lifetime OF writ
ing sports. Because believe in
sports. ] believe in you, in Bobby
Ruffin. in all decent young fell
lows who fight a2d play our
games-until contrary facts are
forced upon me.
Your first two fights with Ruiz
fin were first class. The one last
Friday night suffered from what,