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To: LS
Say what you want about Sinatra, but he moved up a few notches in my book for this.

Old news, but he also refused to play some club in Vegas in the 50's unless they accepted Sammy Davis Jr. as his opening act. Sinatra was right about race relations in a quiet, unassuming way.

Schmeling took a huge "career risk" fighting Louis when he did. The Nazis dismissed American Blacks as subhuman apes. Their dominance in atheletics was, therefore, illegitimate, it was like a human competing against a horse in foot race. Schmeling, the European champion was acclaimed by the Nazis as the world's best boxer, Louis was portraited as little more than a trained ape.

Louis was a much better physical boxer than Schmeling, but Schmeling noticed certain weakness in his technique that he felt he could exploit. For Schmeling it was a matter of professional pride. The Nazis opposed the bout on the grounds that it was a lose/lose proposition. They did not want to "legitimize" Louis, nor risk the embarassment of a loss. Schmeling's gamble paid off and he was trumpeted as a an Aryan Ubermensch, an appellation he did little to discourage, nor much to encourage.

Louis learned from his defeat and beat Schmeling in rematch. Schmeling and Louis both served as enlisted men in their respective armies during the War, although Schmeling in an actual line unit. The Nazis had no further use for him as a propaganda tool. After the War they became friends and Schmeling paid Louis' medical bills in the 1950's.

3 posted on 03/16/2008 8:08:52 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (The women got the vote and the Nation got Harding.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Yeah. This is quite an era of colorful tales (no pun intended) for boxing, with the careers of Max Baer (”Jethro’s” dad), Schmeling, Louis, Braddock, then, later, Graciano overlapping.


4 posted on 03/16/2008 8:21:22 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of News)
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