In a Garden

During the second preliminary fight before the Braddock-Farr match at Madison Square Garden last week, a brawling broke out in the press row at the ringside. Promoter Mike Jacobs, hastening through the crowd of spectators, police and opponents, irritably declared: "We're having a damned sight more fighting outside the ring than in it! We have a full house. I suggest you gentlemen save those fisticuffs for some night when we don't have such a splendid attendance!"

The gentlemen in question were Ed Van Every, sports columnist of the New York Sun, Jimmy Powers, sports editor of the Daily News and Jack Miley, a former Daily News sports columnist. In brief and in sequence, Mr. Van Every had hit Mr. Powers. Mr. Powers had hit Mr. Van Every. Mr. Miley had hit Mr. Powers. Mr. Powers had hit Mr. Miley. For the first blow, Mr. Van Every had this explanation: "Powers swiped a story from the Sun, written by Herbert Gorem and used it in his out-of-town column. ... I asked him if he denied swiping the article. . . He called me a liar so I slapped his face." Mr. Miley said his belligerence arose from befriending Mr. Van Every.

But that was not the whole story behind the Garden free-for-all. All last fall blood was bad between Jimmy Powers and most of the rest of the usually amiable press corps that covers most of the world's biggest sporting events. Some of this bad blood spilled over a fortnight ago when Editor Powers devoted his Daily News column to a biting parable about "Snow Mike and the Seven Dwarfs," plainly identifiable as Promoter Jacobs, two members of the State boxing commission and five sports writers, among them Mr. Van Every. Fairy-tale-teller Powers related solemnly how the Seven Dwarfs had promised Snow Mike "they would all 'take care' of her. All but 'Grumpy' Barker. Grumpy warned them some day some one would find out they were supporting Snow Mike and they would be punished."

Next day Dan Parker, sports editor of the Hearst Mirror, retaliated with his own fairy tale which began: "Once upon a time there was a dwarf named Screwball Bowers. Now, Screwball wasn't like other dwarfs. He was dwarfed only from the neck up." Parker's parable went on to belittle Screwball Bowers' sports knowledge, questioned his sincerity and significantly wound up with a reference to a tale that had been going the sporting rounds for some time: "He was also honest in the case of Jack Smiley, who wrote a column for Screwball's paper ('the Daily Snooze') until he got too good and met the fate of all who dare make the Screwball look like what he is--a five-letter word rhyming with drowsy. After putting in a lot of research work on it, Smiley turned in a story on a prominent prize fighter, which Screwball thought too good to use in his own paper. So he held it out, sold it to a magazine and pocketed the proceeds. . . ."

And that is the rest of the story of what last week's ringside battle was all about.

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