Some of my friends are great sports fans and although I currently have little or no interest in sports, when I was a girl I was a walking compendium of sports knowledge. My father and brothers were all sports fans and I was under their influence. I can tell you all about the starting lineups of OSU basketball teams in the 60's, baseball trivia (just last week my brother asked, "Do you remember Rocky Colavito?" to which I could recite his stats!) and boxing information!
Several times in playing Trivial Pursuit with the "youngins", they think they will be able to "bring me down" in the sports category. However, most of the sports questions are about sports history. One Thanksgiving, Joshua and I were playing against a team of FIVE! We were ready to win the game and of course the opposition chose the sports category to try to defeat us, knowing that neither Joshua nor I had any interest in sports and thinking that they would prevent our victory! The question was what pitcher refused to play in the World Series on Yom Kippur. I paused dramatically, rolled my eyes, tapped my fingertips on the table and sighed, before screaming, "SANDY KOUFAX!" [How easy was that? Sandy Koufax was the love of my life as a teenager!] One of my nephews asked, "HOW do you know these things?" My brother Kenny said, "She knows everything BEFORE 1968--that's when we lost her!" That's when I began dating Gerald and his only sports interests are car racing and golf. I don't even want--or need--to pretend an interest in those activities.
Another thing my friends find amazing is that I was a boxing fan (since I'm a follower of Thoreau, Gandhi, and Dr. King). I can recall watching the Friday Night fights; I can still remember the the theme songs of the sponsors. I remember Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Archie Moore, Floyd Patterson, Ingemar Johannsen, Willie Pep, Sandy Saddler. We especially liked the middleweights: Sugar Ray, Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer and Bobo Olson.
At Rockwell, one of my workers, Mike Ancona, was also a boxing promoter! Everybody at work seemed to have "another job"!
One of my guys told Mike that I was a boxing trivia expert (Hey, I'm no Dr. Joyce Brothers-- the boxing expert on $64,000 Question--but I do o.k.)
Ancona walked up to me and asked, "Who beat Tony Zale for the championship in 1949?" I answered, "Edith Piaf's boyfriend Marcel Cerdan." Ancona told me I was amazing. [was he amazed that I knew Cerdan or that Cerdan was Edith Piaf's lover?] I asked him, "Did you JUST see "Raging Bull?" I told him that as a girl I had red boxing gloves with "Rocky Graziano" on them (photo above). Boy, that dates me!
Mike gave me a tee-shirt with Ancona Promotions on the front and "Rocky Raypole" written on the back!
1 comment:
Have you seen the new Mark Wahlburg boxing movie? It's supposed to be based on a real-life story. Since I don't know anything about boxing you'll have to let me know about the "cinema verite" (see, you old Francophile, I do know some French!)
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