New zip in the old game indeed. Shit is called cocaine, yo.

On this day 21 years ago, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced that pitcher Vida Blue would be suspended for the remainder of the season due to his conviction on cocaine charges from the previous November. Blue had missed the season to that point serving a jail term.

Vida Blue was Doc Gooden long before Doc hit the stage. As a 22-year-old phenom in 1971, Blue won both the A.L. Cy Young and MVP awards, going 24-8 for the A’s with a 1.82 ERA. He won 20 games in two more seasons, but he also lost 19 one year, and though he did not plummet with quite the trajectory of Gooden and the Straw, it was close. What once seemed like a certain Hall of Fame career was ravaged by blow.

Like Gooden and Strawberry, Vida’s problems with the high life have plagued him long past his baseball career. His most recent stint at rehab was in 2005, after violating his parole from a 2004 DUI conviction.

July 25th, 1902. James J. Jeffries, The Boilermaker, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, fights Ruby Robert Fitzsimmons in a much-anticipated rematch at the Arena in San Francisco. They touch gloves, and it’s on.

Jeffries, a Goliath of a man, had won the heavyweight title from Fitzsimmons three years prior, developing what became known as the Crouch to counter Bob’s lanky, long-armed left hook. It worked like a charm. He finished Fitz in the eleventh of a bout scheduled for twenty.

Three years later, Fitzsimmons, a fiery Cornishman, was out for revenge. Rumors abounded before the bout that Fitz planned to fill his gloves with Plaster of Paris. “Let him do it,” Jeffries replied. “I’ll flatten him anyway.”

In retrospect, such confidence was understandable. Jeffries went into the fight a solid 219 pounds of muscle, while The Ruby One weighed in at 172, which was heavy by his standards.

Still, Fitz gave a good account of himself, fighting with fury in the earlygoing of what was a surprisingly bloody affair. Neither man much cared for the other. Fitz in particular loathed Jeffries and yearned to regain the title that he had taken from Gentleman Jim Corbett back in 1897.

But it was not to be. Jeff was too big, too strong. He had his way in the middle rounds before unceremoniously disposing of Fitzsimmons in the eighth.

Ruby Robert would continue fighting until 1914, winning the light heavyweight title and, towards the end, the much sought-after Australian heavyweight crown. Meanwhile, Jeffries had only two more bouts in his prime, retiring undefeated before his comeback in 1910, at the age of 37, to try and unseat Jack Johnson for the honor of the white race.

But that’s another story.

I was stuck in some merciless traffic on the BQEzzo this afternoon, and so I turned on Mike and the Dog just in time to hear Mike welcome Giuliani to the show to talk about the ARod crisis. (Dog is out of town).

Now normally, I must say, the idea of listening to Fransesca and Giuliani suck each other’s dicks on the radio for a quarter of an hour would make me sick, particularly when the process also involved the Mayor giving ARod a long-distance reacharound.

Today, however, the whole thing hit me a little differently. Giuliani impressed me. Say what you will about Rudy, but the guy is no fucking fraud as a Yankees fan. Mike gave him a little love on the Mayor for President front at first, but after that it was strictly baseball. Rudy more than held his own. He took the politic position on ARod’s struggles of course – go easy on the guy, booing doesn’t help, we’re all on the same team, etc. But then, he starts whipping out shit like, “hey look, Matsui and Sheffield are out of the lineup – that’s a couple hundred RBI’s missing behind ARod,” and then “hey remember Jeter a couple years ago, opened the season in a funk? guy was hitting like .160 in June…” and then, “people always say he didn’t hit in that Red Sox series… look at games 4 through 7… NOBODY hit in that series but Matsui.”

And I’m like – damn. If he decides not to run for President, he should take Michael Kay’s job. I mean, maybe someone was feeding him that shit, or maybe he hit the books before the interview, but I doubt it. Giuliani can go fuck himself for all I care about his politics, but I have to give the devil his due. He’s proven himself more worthy of that Yankees cap he wears than just about any politician in my lifetime.

Lance Armstrong is impressed with this Floyd Landis guy and he doesn’t care who knows it. Shit, he thinks so much of him, he’s even considering inviting him to ride for Lance’s Discovery Channel squad, where Landis once toiled as one of Lance’s minions in the early part of the decade.

“We’ve always been interested in Floyd, he’s a damn good rider,” Armstrong told reporters yesterday. “We would take Floyd back. We have pursued him for some time now.”

Floyd must be so honored. I mean, Lance Armstrong knows a talented rider when he sees one. You can’t fool Lance, no way, no how. A guy wins the Tour de France, Lance thinks to himself, “Lance, that guy who just won the Tour de France… that guy can ride… he should be riding for Lance.”

In other news, Lance also announced that he’s starting a baseball team, and that he’s interested in this guy Albert Pujols from St. Louis. Thinks he’s a darn good player and would be happy to let him play for Lance.

Armstrong lauds successor Landis (BBC Sport)
Armstrong: Team wants Landis (Miami Herald)

July 24, 1952, 54 years ago today, Czechoslovakian distance-running legend Emil Zatopek won the 5,000 meters at the Olympic Games in Helsinki. In doing so, he completed the second leg of what may be the most astonishing athletic feat of the 20th century.

It was a thrilling race, as Zatopek went from fourth to first on the final curve, outsprinting the leader, Great Britain’s Chris Chataway, who two years later would help pace Roger Bannister in his historic four-minute mile.

Earlier in the Helsinki Games, Zatopek had won his second consecutive gold medal in the 10,000 meters, so his victory in the 5,000 made him only the second man in Olympic history to win those two races at a single Games.

Of course, he was not finished.

Rumors abounded in Helsinki that Zatopek would attempt to run the marathon and complete an almost unthinkable distance-running triple. After the 5,000, Zatopek was coy with interviewers. Having learned that his wife, Dana, had won a gold medal that day in the javelin, he told reporters, “The score of the contest in the Zatopek family is 2-1. The result is too close.”

Emil, whose contorted, pained expressions when he ran made him seem always on the verge of collapse (“I was not talented enough to run and smile at the same time,” he explained), had never run a marathon in his life before the 1952 Olympics. Nevertheless, he won it with ease. No one before or since has won the three long distance races at a single Olympics, and no one ever will. You choose your record – DiMaggio’s streak, Ripken’s streak, Gretsky’s points – all will be equalled before Emil Zatopek’s triple at the Helsinki Olympics.

Ricky just lose that number
You’re gonna have to call somebody else,
Some other fighter, with a pulse

Ricky just lose that number
You don’t want Arturo on the phone
Because your big Gatti payday
Just got blown…

Gatti defeat is a blow to Hatton (BBC Sport)
Baldomir’s gain is Hatton’s loss (The Sweet Science)

Oh it was a painful sight, Thunder going out to rain his storm on Carlos Baldomir and effecting little more than a summer shower. This Baldomir has a chin to be noted. Gatti landed a few left hooks on the Argentine in the first round that would have felled many a hippopotamus, but elicited from Baldomir not so much as a “you got me” headshake. At that point, I knew this night would end badly for the blood-and-guts king.

After getting tattooed by Baldomir’s right for seven rounds, in the eighth it seemed like Gatti suddenly decided to listen to Buddy McGirt and get on his bicycle a bit, snap the jab, avoid the center of the ring. Lo and behold, he won the round, the only round I had him winning all night.

Going into the fight, conventional wisdom had it that, as the quicker fighter for perhaps the first bout of his career, Gatti would box Baldomir, establish the jab, use the ring. The very idea is hard to imagine – Arturo Gatti up on his toes, moving in and out, staying away from nuclear exchanges. This is not the Thunder that we have come to love.

The Thunder we have come to love showed up last night, and spent the majority of the evening getting his face rearranged until finally ending up on his ass. The eighth round showed me that Arturo might actually have won the bout on points had he taken the sweet science approach. But this was Boardwalk Hall, these were his blood-and-guts fans, and he is Arturo Gatti. He threw caution to the wind for the umpteenth time and paid a dear price for it. As always, he took his ass-beating like a man. Let’s hope it’s his last.

p.s. Looks like Paulie Malinaggi’s jaw is healed.

Pee Ree Weese, born 7/23/1918

Don Drysdale, born 7/23/1936

for the mighty Curtis Stevens got knocked out.

Words: Chris Isenberg
Photos by: Alex Tehrani (2005)

I went to the Hammerstein last night to see Broadway Boxing in the smaller ballroom upstairs. I wasn’t expecting too much. The monthly show exists primarily as a vehicle to develop promoter Lou DiBella’s stable of fighters. Even accounting for the TV rights (it’s taped), DiBella complains that he usually loses money. In the long run, he hopes that one of the fighters he builds up at Broadway and retains under exclusive contract will make it to a big payday. Because today’s boxing marketplace is so unforgiving of even a single loss, it’s unfair to expect highly competitive bouts in the main events,or at least bouts designed to be highly competitive. You go mainly to schmooze with the aficionados, see a local prospect knock out a hand-picked victim, and maybe catch a punchy undercard.

I went to see welterweight Dimitriy ‘Star of David” Salita (24-0-1 14KOs) and super middleweight Curtis ‘Showtime” Stevens (13-0 11KOs) put notches on what they both hope will soon be championship belts. The two grew up together at the Starret City Gym in east Brooklyn, where, as has now been chronicled by every wannabe tough Jew writer in New York including me, Salita came in as the only Jewish kid in a very competitive, primarily black program and won acceptance (from Stevens and others) by taking his lumps, learning to slip and move to Hot 97, and staying true to his religion and himself. This week’s New York Magazine features the latest retelling of the Orthodox Jewish Rocky saga, and if Stevens hadn’t moved up so many weight classes, he could play Apollo Creed.

In the last year, Stevens has been rapidly catching up to Salita on the hype front. His Brownsville roots, stocky build and knockout pop have led to frequent comparisons to a mini Mike Tyson. He was one of the first fighters signed to Damon Dash and DiBella’s new partnership, and his gangsterfied ring entrance and Brooklyn street cred make him a perfect prospect for a hip-hop boxing crossover.

The first surprise of the night was that Dimitriy’s originally scheduled opponent, James Wayka of Mounds View, MN., (14-4, 8 KOs), was a scratch. The word was that he had been arrested on some kind of alimony beef and never made it out of Minnesota (which seemed a little fishy since it would probably have made more sense to get him after the payday). It was then announced that the emergency replacement opponent, Shad ‘Crazy Train” Howard of Russellville, MO (12-7-3 6KOs) had missed the morning flight and was still in the air.

These mishaps led to an unusual amount of stalling between the preliminary bouts, which led to an unusual amount of socializing in the clubby ballroom upstairs at the Hammerstein. The Broadway crowd is always a racial ragu, especially when a black and a Jewish fighter share top billing. With Dimitriy drawing heavy with beard-and-yarmulke Lubavitch and Curtis Stevens with bandana and flat-brim Brownsville, the room had all the ingredients to make Crown Heights II, but somehow ended up feeling more like an interracial remake of Cheers.

In the row behind me, a black guy listened politely while a jowly Jewish dude held forth on the problems in the Middle East: ‘The Jewish Liberation was only two days old when every Arab country attacked them. Syria, Egypt, Jordan…every one.” By the time Stevens came into the ring at eleven, he was halfway through the Yom Kippur War.

Stevens’ ring entrance is half the fun of seeing him fight. He walked out of the dressing room wearing sequined turquoise shorts and a bandana over his entire face (including his eyes), and when he arrived at the center of the ring, he bent at the waist and swung his clenched fists back and forth just above the canvas in imitation of a gorilla. Finally he unmasked himself, stared down his opponent and sliced his hand across his own throat in a bold gesture that promised swift execution.

Marcos Primera, a 19-15-2 journeyman from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela seemed unmoved. Primera looked to be in his late thirties and he did not have sequined shorts, tattoos, a nickname, or Irv and Chris Gotti cheering for him at ringside. But he did have thirty six fights behind him, and as it turned out, a plan.

The plan unfolded slowly, and Curtis Stevens wasn’t the only one fooled.

For the first few rounds of a scheduled eight, Primera barely threw a punch. He stood almost fully sideways and absorbed heavy hooks and uppercuts from the shorter Stevens. Instead of shaking his head no after a clean shot landed to convince everyone that it didn’t really hurt, Cabrera had the unusual habit of shaking his head yes and making an expression which seemed to say: ‘Oh, Mr. Stevens your punches are so very hard. How will I possibly withstand them?” This affirmative head-shaking should have been a tip-off that Cabrera was playing possum, but especially after a cut opened up under his right eye in the third, his act was very convincing. He truly looked pathetic.

By the fifth, the one-sidedness of the fight and length of time I had waited to see it were combining to make me feel morbid. I had wasted my night to see another bum sacrificed to Curtis Stevens and it wasn’t even going to be a knockout. I floated a discontented theory to my gray-haired neighbor, whose name I didn’t get but who I’ve seen before working corners.

‘Guess he just wanted the free trip up from Venezuela,” I said.

‘No,” he cautioned. ‘If he wanted to flop he could have done it on half a dozen of those punches. He’s got almost forty fights. He’ll do something.”

In the sixth, Stevens, who must have felt like he was fighting a turtle, started to tire, and towards the end of the round, Primera suddenly opened up and punched with both hands, landing long straight jabs and crosses. A dozen self-appointed coaches yelled advice to Stevens.

‘Come on Curt, He got a bullseye right on his eye.”

‘Give him a Danny Jacobs, Curt.”

‘Overhand right when you slip the jab.”

‘Tyson, Curt. Tyson!”

In the middle of the seventh, Primera trapped Stevens in his own corner and began landing his clean, damaging shots. Stevens suddenly looked very small. He dipped low at the knees as if he might buckle and then fired an uppercut directly into Primera’s cup. It was difficult to tell if Stevens had slipped or if he had struck out of desperation, but either way it was a brutal low blow. Cabrera flopped to the canvas in pain, and then crawled on all fours back to his corner. Brownsville found it a little too dramatic.

‘Yo, stop fakin!”

For a moment it seemed like there might be an immediate disqualification, but after consulting with commissioner Ron Scott Stevens at ringside, the referee gave Primera five minutes to recover. If he had been unable to continue at that point, the fight would have gone to the cards, and Stevens would have easily won a unanimous decision. But at the end of the injury time, Primera signaled that he was ready to go on.

In the eighth, both fighters’ cards were on the table. Primera had saved up his resources for one more big round. Stevens was frustrated and tired, but all he needed to do was stay on his feet.

I didn’t actually see the punch that did Curtis Stevens in, even though I had the perfect angle. I don’t think anyone saw it well, certainly not Stevens. A few of the online beat writers huddled after the fight to make sure they had their facts straight. Consensus was that it was a right uppercut on the chin.

Stevens wobbled and Primera half-pushed him to the canvas and the referee called a knockdown. Stevens should have taken a knee and waited eight or nine seconds to clear his head, but there is no mandatory eight count in New York State. Instead he sprang up right away, and Primera moved in for the kill.

‘Curt, tie him up!” “Grab him, Curt!” the self appointed coaches screamed.

Stevens did not or could not do this. Primera trapped him on the ropes again and began lining up and landing short punches to the head. Stevens didn’t move to block or counter, and the referee jumped in between the fighters and waved his hands. It was a good stoppage. Stevens was out on his feet and defenseless.

Brownsville was stunned.

‘Get ready to duck,” my neighbor said.

Primera didn’t have anyone to celebrate with (not even his own corner seemed very happy), but still jumped in the air and pumped his fist. The crowd groaned. Someone threw a beer. Someone else threw popcorn. A kid with a flat brim Mets cap jumped into the ring. Security guys in their black suits rushed in awkwardly, but weren’t needed.

A young girl wearing skintight jeans and sequined white shirt began crying.

‘He cheated!”

She pulled out a cell phone and punched in a number. She could barely get the words out as the tears streamed down her face.

‘They cheated my cousin. They cheated my cousin.”

More cell phones came out. More calls were made. And in a few moments, everyone back in Brownsville knew that Curtis Stevens wasn’t undefeated anymore.

Dimitriy Salita looked slow and very hittable again, but managed a sixth round TKO over “Crazy Train” Howard, who may have wished he had missed the evening flight as well. Despite the victory, Dimitriy’s fans were pretty quiet. Even though it wasn’t their own man that fell, they had seen what it might be like to call home to Brooklyn with bad news.