If I'm recalling the group correctly from an evening 52 years ago, on the night of Feb. 26, 1964, four good friends and football teammates followed me from my records room in our home at 12 1/2 Emory St. out the front door and onto the porch. There we took places on "chairs 'n' stairs" as I took to tuning in my gift from last Christmas, a transistor radio.
At last I pulled in the signal from Miami Beach so we could catch the broadcast of the much-ballyhooed Liston-Clay heavyweight title fight. Clay was a brand-new novelty, never seen before by American fight fans (of course, I doubt if 5 percent of fans alive in '64 had ever heard of former champ Jack Johnson, who would have been before their time.)
The brash Clay, known as "Gaseous Cassius" and "the Louisville Lip," was seen as a boastful self-promoter at a time when modesty and humility was accepted conduct for even the brightest sports stars
To place it in proper context, contrast the celebration dances and shenanigans with cellphones and sharpies that are staged for even the most common and pedestrian plays today with legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi.
Lombardi would address his team in preseason: "Men, when you get into the end zone, maintain your dignity and act like you've been there before."
I had purchased an LP at White's Music some weeks before the fight entitled, "I am the Greatest" by Cassius Clay, and we listened to it before the fight, laughing at his antics and his self-aggrandizing poetry: "This is the legend of Cassius Clay, the most beautiful fighter in the world today. It's said he is dashing, got speed and endurance, But if you sign to fight him, INCREASE YOUR INSURANCE!"
While his cocky predictions and braggadocio put people off, he had beaten some good fighters in his climb up the rankings, and he certainly appeared quicker than any other heavyweights by half.
I had been watching the Gillette Friday Night Fights with my grandfather since I was 6, and I had seen a lot of pugs in all divisions, but Charles "Sonny" Liston was something else altogether; other boxers tried avoiding him at all costs.
Henry Cooper, the tough British Commonwealth champion was asked, "Are you going to meet Liston?" His manager quickly replied, "Certainly not!"
"Would you meet Liston if the fight is held in London?" The manager shot back, "We wouldn't want to meet Mr. Liston just walking down the street!"
Which pretty much summed up fistic consensus.
So, one might well imagine the stunned and shocked reaction shared not merely by we five but 90 percent of the world to the end result, officially won by Clay with a TKO in seven. Sonny was real cozy with the Denver and Vegas mobs, having provided "muscle work" for them in the past. Prior to the fight, did a wiseguy whisper in his ear? With odds of 8-1, did someone decide it wasn't Sonny's night?
In the fight's aftermath, I would say the five of us felt like country boys at the big city fair, who had just had an oily stage magician try to absolutely convince us, "YES! He truly HAD cut the pretty assistant in half and reassembled her within a minute - but it may only be done inside the magic box with no one watching."
The conversion to Islam, the selective service evasion, the forced exile from boxing for 31/2 years, all are part of the Mohammed Ali biography/legend and need not be recounted here. Suffice it to say that, like all of us, Ali lived his life as a work in progress, but it was a life lived in the public eye and the many, many grand acts of good, the tremendous charity, all took on a grand and majestic scale as a result of that focus by the entire world. Ali realized early on just what a tremendous force for good and positive social change he could be, and we are all left the better for it.
Back in the '70s, old friend John "Dino" Denis was contracted with four former New England heavyweight champs to stage an exhibition fight of two rounds each with Ali in the old Boston Garden. Jake Brederson, his nephew Ricky Brederson and I caught the train to town, then the El into the Garden. We had nosebleed tickets, so despite admonitions that I'd be caught and thrown out, I walked about in search of more favorable seating.
I could not believe my luck when there was an empty spot at ringside, right in what would become Ali's corner. My strongest initial response to being a couple of feet away from Mohammed Ali was his great size. I swear the man's back was three feet across, and at 6-foot-3, my brain's refrain was, "I never realized he was so HUGE!"
Some week soon I hope to have the time to relate the course of that night, as it will reveal what an incredible showman departed this world recently. In the locker room afterwards, Ali sidled up to Dino and in "sotto voce" asked, "Hey, Denis, you got any black ancestors?" Dino replied, "Not that I know of."
"Well, check it out man! You're just too fast to be completely white."
Rest in the loving embrace of our Lord, Mohammed. Vaya con Dios.
Be good to one another, folks. Until next week, peace.
Tom McAvoy looks back at the past each Tuesday. Contact him at [email protected].