Baby Baer

In Washington's Griffith Stadium one night last week 25,000 fight fans yelled themselves limp. It was the first round of Washington's first world-championship heavyweight fight, and there, hanging over the ropes head first, was Joe Louis, the champ. The boxer who had dumped him on to the ring apron was 25-year-old Buddy Baer, baby brother of onetime

Champion Max Baer. Baby Baer, a 237-Ib. giant who towers 6 ft. 6 1/2 in., is 35 Ib. heavier and 5 1/2 inches taller than Joe Louis. But he went into the ring a 10-to-1 underdog.

To see a 10-to-1 underdog belt a champion through the ropes is well worth the price of admission. Those who saw Firpo knock Dempsey out of the ring 18 years ago have never forgotten it. Last week, stung with embarrassment at landing on his kinky head, the champion, up at the count of four, came back--a little groggy at first--to blast the young upstart with all he had. In the second round, he gave Baer one of the most terrific poundings ever seen in a prize ring. Baby Baer took it--and in the fifth round brought the crowd to its feet again when he opened a gash over Louis' left eye.

With blood streaming down his cheek for the first time in his career, the champion went after Baer with the savageness for which he is famed. In the sixth round he weakened the giant with chopping rights & lefts, then felled him as though he were a redwood tree. At the count of seven, Baer staggered to his feet, only to be toppled again with another right to the jaw. Just as the timekeeper counted ten, Baer's gloves slowly left the canvas. Referee Arthur Donovan motioned the fighters to continue. Once more, Baer toppled to the floor--out.

What happened in the pandemonium that followed will be hashed and rehashed for years to come. Many ringsiders claimed that Louis' final punch landed just after the bell. Baer's handlers, swarming all over the ring, demanded that Referee Donovan disqualify Louis. Instead, when the bell rang for the beginning of the seventh round and Baer's handlers refused to clear out or let their boy leave his corner (even if he could), Donovan disqualified Baer, awarded the fight to Louis.

Explained Referee Donovan: "Joe Louis hit Buddy Baer at the bell--and not afterward. . . . Suppose--as some claim, but with whom I absolutely do not agree--that Louis hit Baer after the bell. In that case, it would have been a matter for my own discretion. If I thought Louis did it deliberately [which no one, not even Baer's hot-headed manager, alleged], then I would have had to disqualify him. . . .

If there was no deliberate intent, the most I could have done in such a case would have been to take the round away from Louis as a warning. . . ." Said Promoter Mike Jacobs, seeing the golden lining in the cloud of dispute: "All I can say is that anybody who stays away from a Louis fight this year is crazy. Anything can happen." Louis' next opponents: Billy Conn (June 18), Abe Simon (July 23), Lou Nova (Sept. 17). Then the Baby Baer will probably get another chance at the champion.

"To provide additional aluminum, lead and steel for national defense," Yachtsman Harold Stirling Vanderbilt last week sold his four-year-old, $300,000 Ranger, last defender of the America's Cup, to a Fall River (Mass.) ship-junking firm. Price: $12,000.

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