Too Early to Tell

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It goes back to Christmas Eve, 1948, to the night when Brownell, drowning some of his grief over the way the champ had spoiled Brownell’s boy, Keno Morris, wandered into a Third Avenue gin mill and found Junior Franklin. That’s when it started, Christmas Eve. And it ended last night. Or maybe it began last night. It is maybe a funny quirk that it should start on Christmas Eve and end in St. Nick’s Arena, and on a million TV screens.

It’s a good class. You have to give it that. Bob the Fitz fought in it. So did Tunney and Grek and Siki. So did Slapsey Max, and rough, willing Lesnevich. Keno Morris ran right up through the class until he hit the top man. And got spoiled. It happens that way. That last punch that leaves a bruise on the face, but also makes a deep hole in some hidden part of a man’s spirit — and the juices run out.

Brownell saw it happen to his boy, saw it happen to Keno. Everybody saw it. Keno could have gotten up again. That squat chunky body wanted to get up. But the champ, chest heaving, lounged in the neutral corner, the lips spread around the guard in a superior and confident smile. Micky Brownell still thinks that it was partly that grin that kept Keno’s pants pasted to the canvas until the ten count, and the boos. Those boos weren’t exactly fair, because right up until that thirty-fourth second of the ninth round Keno had carried the whole fight to the champ.

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