Sonny & Co.

The heavyweight championship of the world did a lot for Sonny Listen, considering how briefly he held it -- one year and five months, to be exact. For one thing, he learned how to sign his name to checks and things. And he fell in with a classy circle of friends and business associates.

Last week, one by one, Sonny's chums and associates paraded before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly in Washington. There was Sam Margolis, a pudgy, pious Philadelphian, who freely admitted his friendship with Blinky Palermo, who, as everyone knows, is a friend of Frankie Carbo, who in turn is nothing less than elite--at least in his line of work.

(He is currently serving a term of 25 years in federal prison for extortion.) Asked how Sonny happened to sign away 55% of his interest in his personal-promotion company (worth an estimated $100,000) to Margolis, Sam puffed on his cigar and patiently explained that Listen had run up a tab of "thousands of dollars" in his restaurant --a favorite hangout for students from the nearby University of Pennsylvania. "I trusted him," said Sam. "Sonny used to play checkers with the college students." Liston cut him in purely out of gratitude, said Margolis: "I am his best friend, at least in Philadelphia."

A Lot of Bread. Then there were the Nilons, Bob and Jack, promoters and general "advisers" to Liston. Bob unabashedly claimed credit for persuading Cassius Clay to challenge Liston for the title. "It might be fair to say that I am the person who talked Clay into actually being heavyweight champion," he said. Jack admitted that he stands to collect $400,000 as his share of the bout's proceeds, but he shrugged that off as incidental. "There's a lot more to life than bread." Commented Mich igan Senator Philip A. Hart: "There's a lot of bread in that life."

There were others. Liston seemed to be surrounded by curious people--like Nevada Gambler Ash Resnick, described as "athletic director" of a Las Vegas hotel, who was in Sonny's corner on the night he lost the title. And Pep Barone, a Palermo factotum, who was a ubiquitous visitor at Liston's training camp. ("Sonny thinks Pep is good luck," explained Nilon. "He's very superstitious.") The tenderness of the hearings reached a high point with the testimony of paradoxical Edward Lassman, a member of the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, which gave its official blessing to the title fight. Now, in his other capacity as president of the World Boxing Association, Lassman wants to take Cassius' title away--because Cassius brags too much. Obviously, not everybody agrees: Lassman complained that he has been receiving threatening phone calls. "I have suffered for my convictions," said Lassman, dabbing at a bleeding sore on his lip.

An End to Leeches. The Senators did not think it was particularly touching. Demanding an end to "the leeches who monopolize the faith and confidence of the untutored boxer," New York's Kenneth Keating called for immediate passage of a bill that would put a federal appointee in full charge of the sport.

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