The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-26
By JAMES M. MOORE

By JAMES M. MOORE
 With apologies to all sports writers across the land, and to their kin as well, we make the effort to fill a sports column. It is not our first. We used to write one for a school newspaper in New Hamp- shire that had 83 paid readers!
 We told John that somehow we would write of boxing-our favor ite sport. Our principal claim to any Knowledge of professional box ing is based on the experience gained as result of watching bouts since the age of eight years, or therebeuts. We remember those days when our late father, an avid fan and always accompanied by the late Probate Judge Dennis Slavin, took us to the fights and we were first introduced to Ed (Sharkey) O'Rourke. We hold a definite nos talgic fondness for Ed ORourke and those days when he took your tickets at the door.
 It was the days of our first en- counter with the stubborn partisan ship of the fight fan. It was an unwritten and unspoken agree ment, at the time, between Judge Slavin and our father. never to pick the same fighter in the same bout. The result was that one of the two always had to compromise his better judgment while Stoutly defending the fighter who was dust ing the canvass every round. It went so far, on the part of either one, on occasions, to insist that the boy. knocked down and fiat on his back. after being literally pole axed by his opponent, actually had slipped and struck his head on the floor of the ring. Of course. the referee and everyone else in the audience had failed to note that critical factor To one of our tender years, brought up to respect all elders, compromise of that kind in face of contrary evidence, tested the mettle of ones moral loyalty.
 It was then too we first knew Of George Mulligan, the Waterbury promoter, who has contributed so much to boxing. In terms of measurements of those youthful days George Mulligan should now be about 195 years old. For he was g. man of prestige and dazzling wonder to us then and all that had & timeless element about 1t. Our youthful instincts served us well, however. for we believe today that George Mulligans contribu- tion to boxing is yet matter ol similar respect.
 We remember, of course, the first time we shook the hand of a pro- fessional fighter. That marked a personal millennium never since at tained. We were ten, and now we don't recall the fighters name be- cause the occasion, at it's peak mo- ment, was a blur Of thrills, excite ment and awe. But we can yet re- member the big hand squeezing ours and the gruff but friendly, Hello, son." You can have the White House door-key, or Howard Hughes bankroll, or Ted Williams batting average; but we would swap all for a return of that moment.
 We kept scrap books of course, The cream of the fighters were portrayed in every pose. We had our set favorites and we recall them well: Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Mike Me Tigue and Ace Hudkins. Perhaps 1t is no more than standardization brought on by that aching void that was our boyhood that makes us believe that they just don't make them like those guys, anymore.
 We recall our homemade gym in the cool cellar of the old house, We rigged-up, as a punching bag, an old Navy duffle-bag. It was filled with worn socks, old rags, paper and odds and ends. We later ex- perilnented by wetting it down to give it more weight. It never did dry out and eventually a kind of strange mildeW developed on it's exterior. (It may have been the original penicillin culture for all we know now0 It didn't deter us because we used to rationalize it by pretending it was too much grease put on the face of our inn aginary opponent by an un- ScrupulouS manager.
 There is only one bad feature of training strictly on punching bags. They never hit back! Then you get into your first scrap only to find out that the other guy has two arms and never before were your ears such prominent appendages. We found out!
 Well, there were a lot of other things, too. Most of them happy. Perhaps we shouldn't dig too deep or we shall find the foundation of such a pedestal to be hollow with the dust of memory. What will al- ways puzzle us though is why it was when all of us were in our springtime days, We were so dog goned much in hurry to enter the realm of groWn-ups.
 u.sEzs...u.~z~