Ah, Harold

"Culturally, I totally reject this horrible political correctness, this hideous notion that people should read and study any work of literature, of imagination, on the basis of the ethnic origin, the agenda, the sexual orientation or skin pigmentation of the writer. That strikes me as real fascism."

-Harold Bloom (May he live forever).

ok, ok

Look, I've been busy...graduated from law school a couple of weeks ago, and studying for the bar like a madman.

However, the movie "In the Line of Fire" was on a couple of nights ago, and since I didn't want my blog to just rust away from inactivity, I thought I'd take this moment to mention that John Malkovich got ROBBED for Best Supporting Actor that year. Tommy Lee Jones won for The Fugitive, probably based on a huge Pre-Oscar publicity blitz. I mean, serious...The Fugitive got nominated for Best Picture, and Shadowlands didn't?! Nobody walked out of The Fugitive thinking nomination for Jones, let alone award. Not to take away from Jones in general; he's a very good actor. The really funny thing is that I wouldn't have put Jones in second, or even third that year, let alone first. Leonardo DiCaprio (of whom I'm not a particularly big fan) was outstanding in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List...enough said. But if I'm picking one guy from that year, it's Malkovich for In the Line of Fire.

Mel Gibson's Hamlet

Something brought this one to mind the other day... Two things I've heard quite frequently when discussing this movie are:
1) "Mel Gibson did a good job as Hamlet," and
2) "I was surprised that Mel Gibson did a good job as Hamlet."

I agree that Gibson was good; it's the surprise part that amuses me. Maybe nobody who's made that comment has seen Lethal Weapon? It's probably his definitive role, though, along with Mad Max. So how could anyone who's seen Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon be SURPRISED that he might do a decent job portraying a brooding, suicidal loner?! I mean, you pop Prince Hamlet out of Denmark and give him a 20th century LAPD job, and he'd BE Martin Riggs. Where's the surprise come in?

Amusing side note: My former Shakespeare professor, Wallace Cleaves (great teacher), said that they should have called the version Mel starred in "My Favorite Scenes from Hamlet, in No Particular Order."

Quote of the Day

So, it's the big pro-illegal-immigration rally today...I think a quotation from one protestor really caught the flavor of it:

"I've been here illegally for twenty years, and I want justice!"

Boxing...great opportunity for the sports bettor

The following is a cut & paste of a post I published at a sports gambling website on the upcoming De La Hoya-Mayweather fight. Since the fight is finally just a week away...here's a reprise:




This one ties up a bit of bankroll for 4 months, but I can't believe the line will stay this friendly. Mayweather-De La Hoya in May...the most likely outcome is Mayweather by decision, and it's getting +126 (Pinny). That's close to a 45% chance...should be more like 65%, and I can't imagine that at fight time you'll be getting as much as even money. What are the alternatives?1) Mayweather by stoppage. In the last 3 years, Mayweather has stopped 3 of his 6 opponents. Those were the badly outmatched Henry Bruseles, Sharmba Mitchell (who has been knocked out in 3 of his last 5 fights), and the once-great Arturo Gatti who had finally seen a war or two too many and has been stopped 4 times. In Mayweather's fights against quality opposition (Zab Judah, DeMarcus Corley, and Carlos Baldomir), Mayweather takes no chances and wins easy decisions. De La Hoya has lost 4 fights, but only one of those went short of the distance, and that was to Bernard Hopkins, a much bigger natural fighter than Mayweather, and one who fights much more aggressively. No reason to think that De La Hoya wouldn't make the final bell.2) De La Hoya wins. More likely than his getting stopped, but still unlikely. De La Hoya's popularity is probably what's keeping the Mayweather-by-decision price high...for now. Mayweather is at the very top of the fight game. He heads just about everyone's pound-for-pound list, and hasn't come close to losing a fight in several years, since he beat top 140-pounder Jose Luis Castillo (for the second time) by "only" 2, 2, and 3 points. In contrast, De La Hoya, who is 4 years older than Mayweather, has lost 4 fights now. Admittedly, they were all to top fighters (Hopkins, Trinidad, and Mosely (twice)). But that's what Mayweather is - THE top fighter in the game today. He is also "just" a boxer, while Oscar is now a businessman, with his "Golden Boy Promotions." Even if Oscar keeps his promise to train harder for this fight than he ever has before (which he probably will), there's no reason to think that he will be the one, at 34 years old, to break Mayweather's unbeaten streak. This ain't Hagler-Leonard; Mayweather's style scores points. Mayweather is faster and better at defense.I think an accurate price for this would be somewhere between-150 and -200. I don't think it will go that low, partly because of De La Hoya's popularity, but I also don't think, as the fight moves to the forefront of the schedule, that you'll be getting +125, either. It probably drops to about -120, which will still be an overlay...but take the +125 while it's there.YTD: 1-0; +250If you want to take a flyer, the draw is +1621 at Pinnacle. Some of De La Hoya's recent fights have been close decisions (close & unanimous, split, and majority), and his popularity may swing a couple of close rounds his way. I expect Mayweather will win too many rounds clearly for this to swing, but at better than 16-1, for a fight between two good fighters that will probably go the distance and in which the lesser fighter is the more popular, it might be worth an action bet.




Current (April 28) postscript: I'd say the odds on a Mayweather decision are more like 75% (not the 65% I originally posted). The odds have dropped (at least at www.bodog.com, one of the last online books that's American-friendly) to even money, but that's still quite an overlay. If a Mayweather decision is a 75% result, then your expected value at even money is 1/2 of all money wagered. (If you're unused to calculating expected value, it's pretty straightforward. On the assumption that Mayweather by decision is a 75% outcome, then if you bet $25 on that result 4 times, you'd win 3. So 3 times, you'd win $25 (total: +$75), and once you'd lose $25. So you'd have $100 wagered ($25 four times), and you'd be up $50 ($75-$25). An expected value of 50 cents back for every dollar wagered is huge...this is a fight you should really bet. My prediction: 116-113, Mayweather. That's 7 rounds to 4, 1 round even, assuming no 10-8 rounds, which is a very good assumption. That also assumes that the judges will be friendly to De La Hoya based on reputation and marketability; look for most ringsiders to have a card more like 117-112 (8 rounds to 3, 1 even).

Those racist filmmakers

So, here's an excerpt from a letter to the editors of Kitchen Sink (a cool perodical published out of Oakland):

"It was extremely validating to read that somebody else was bothered by the ignorant "all Asians look alike" attitude displayed by the casting decisions for Memoirs of a Geisha..."
(Volume 4, Issue 3, page 8)

The letter was in reference to an article (which I didn't read) by Sam Hurwitt, and pertained (I presume) to the casting of Chinese actresses (e.g. Ziyi Zhang and Li Gong) to portray Japanese characters (e.g. Chiyo/Sayuri and Hatsumomo, respectively). Naturally, I felt compelled to rant, and naturally (that is to say, "as those of you who know me would certainly expect"), my response is, "What a crock."

It's IGNORANT to cast Chinese actors to play Japanese characters? Why? What a bunch of politically-correct-21st-century-find-racism-everywhere nonsense. Was it "ignorant" to cast Mel Gibson, who is Australian, to portray Prince Hamlet, who was Danish? For that matter, how about William Wallace, who was from Scotland? What's the inference? All white people look alike? Couldn't they find a Danish or Scottish actor? How about Bruce Willis, born in Germany, as John McClane, a gentleman with an Irish-sounding name in Die Hard. In that movie, McClane fought AGAINST a possible German (Hans Gruber) played by an Englishman (Alan Rickman). Oh, the horror!! Let's not forget one of my favorite westerns, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, featuring New York Jew Eli Wallach as the almost-certainly-not-Jewish "Tuco." Wallach made qiute a career of portraying Mexicans and native Americans, in fact.

In fact, it would be more "ignorant" (not to mention insulting) to refuse to cast talented Chinese actresses as anything other than Chinese characters. Of all of seemingly infinite examples of political correctness gone completely moronic, this one was certainly in my top 10 of the year.

Gotta sign off now; I have to watch Jude Law, the Brit, in Cold Mountain, the movie for which he was nominated as Best Actor for portraying an American. The nerve!! As an American, I'm deeply offended. I guess "they" think all us white guys look alike.


Afterthought: Is it racist to think that Gong Li looks "closer" to Japanese than Nicole Kidman?!

Sports -- Boxing

It's almost the 25th anniversary of the month I read a boxing article the title of which really stuck in my craw. That title was "Rocky Marciano Was Better Than Joe Louis!" (Boxing Today; July 1982). Now, July 1982 was the month I turned 14, but I was an avid and knowledgeable boxing historian even in my early teens. The article really suprised me on two counts. First of all, at the risk of telegraphing the direction of this particular diatribe, the writer was flat-out wrong. Full-of-crap wrong. Marciano was most assuredly NOT better than Joe Louis. The second surprising thing, and this was actually, if anything, MORE surprising than the writer's ultimate conclusion, was that the article was written as if he was correcting a widely-held, though mistaken, belief. I thought at the time, and subsequent conversations with casual boxing fans over the years have confirmed, that Marciano was generally regarded as the better fighter.

The support for Marciano is easy to understand on a superficial level; Marciano was, as many people know, the only heavyweight champion to go through his entire career having won every fight. A perfect 49-0 with 43 knockouts. It's an impressive record. Louis had an impressive record, too: 69-3 with 55 knockouts. But anything other than a zero in that loss column just sort of seems to pale in comparison. Given that the won-loss record does favor Marciano, though, we can try to peek behind the curtain and see if there's anything more to it than the numbers.

The original article asserted that in addition to his three losses, Louis almost lost several other fights, but Marciano had only one near-loss. The article also asserted, separately, that just about any knockdown was close to a knockout. This "observation" was a self-serving attempt to pile on points for Marciano; Louis was known for suffering "flash" knockdowns (a flash knockdown is when a fighter loses his feet but is not hurt. He gets up (or has the ability to get up) in a flash. It's a legitimate knockdown, but it doesn't signify that the boxer is genuinely in trouble. In a "typical" (as opposed to flash) knockdown, the boxer has actually been hurt, to some extent, and his opponent has a legitimate opportunity to follow up the knockdown with an attack that can lead to an early victory, by knockout or technical knockout). Louis was susceptible to flash knockdowns, and Marciano wasn't; if you count all of the knockdowns suffered by each fighter as "near-losses," then, you have more evidence to support a "Marciano-was-better" position. People who know boxing, however, know that not all knockdowns are created equal, and some knockdowns (including the vast majority of the ones Louis suffered) are virtually meaningless from the standpoint of providing evidence of a "near-loss".

One also can't help but wonder which fight the obviously biased writer was counting as Marciano's only near loss. It's hard to entertain with a straight face the assertion that there was only one. In a 1950 fight with Roland La Starza, one judge scored the bout for Marciano, 5-4 (1 even round), one judge scored the bout for La Starza by the same margin, and the referee, Jack Watson, scored the bout 5-5 in rounds, but awarded it to Marciano on the supplementary points system in effect at the time in New York. Presumably, THAT has to constitute a near-loss. Against Jersey Joe Walcott, Marciano was hopelessly trailing on all scorecards through 12 rounds (4-7, 5-7, and 4-8), but came up with a one-punch knockout in the 13th. Archie Moore knocked down Marciano for a 2-count (yes, a "flash"knockdown, but remember the writer's assertion... knockdowns are near-knockouts). A fight against Ezzard Charles was almost stopped in Charles's favor due to Marciano's nose being horrible split and bleeding (the stoppage would have been a technical knockout victory for Charles; the referee let the fight continue, and Marciano later won by knockout). Marciano also had close decision victories. The only point I'm making at this point is this - you have to REALLY have an axe to grind to assert that Marciano had only one "near-loss". Now, don't get me wrong; Louis also had his own near-losses. Most notably, he had a very Marciano/Walcott-like performance of his own, trailing Billy Conn on points after 12 rounds, then scoring a knockout in the 13th.

I believe that the greatest credit that can be given Marciano is not that he went through his career undefeated, but rather that he knew when to quit, and had the discipline to stick to his guns. THAT is easier said than done, in any sport. It's hard to walk away at the top of your game, especially when you've spent a couple of decades doing something. Marciano retired just a few weeks after his 32nd birthday. Marciano also died in a plane crash at a relatively young age. Another story I've heard is that it was the plane crash that ended his career, or stopped him from making a comeback and ruining his perfect record. Let's clear that one up right now; that plane crash happened almost FOURTEEN years later, when Marciano was about to turn forty-six years old. So no...he retired, and he stayed retired, completely volitionally.

Louis, in constrast, fought until he was thirty-seven. Don't kid yourself; those five+ years are huge in sports, particularly in boxing (spare me the George Foreman comments; the 1973 Foreman would have destroyed the 1993 version). Marciano had one fight beyond his thirty-second birthday. Louis had fourteen, including two of his three losses, and a couple of his ugliest wins (such as a friendly decision over Jersey Joe Walcott, in a fight in which Louis was knocked down twice). Ironically (in the Alannis Morrisette sense of the word), Louis won the heavyweight title by knocking out "Cinderella Man" Jim Braddock shortly after HIS (Braddock's) thirty-second birthday. Braddock fought once more, then retired.

But it makes little sense to judge a boxer (or any athlete) by how bad he was at the end of his career. Tex Cobb (who impelled Howard Cosell to retire from boxing by getting beaten up so badly by Larry Holmes) won his last nine fights; surely, we don't have to rank him ahead of Muhammad Ali simply because Ali lost three of his final four. No, it makes much more sense to judge boxers by their results during their prime years, with two major criteria -- how good they were during their peak years, and how long their peaks lasted.

In the late 40's, Marciano had a couple of wins over quality opponents (Roland LaStarza and Carmine Vingo), but he was still clearly nowhere near "The Rock" of legend. He was still a 9-5 underdog in mid-1951 against Rex Layne (Marciano was almost twenty-eight at the time; in contrast, Louis was a favorite against the reigning heavyweight champion at age twenty-three). Going into the Layne fight, Marciano had fought four times in 1951. The combined record of his opponents in their six fights before taking on Marciano was 4-20. This is not the stuff of greatness. Marciano knocked out Layne in the sixth round, though, and shortly thereafter, he had a marked increase in general quality of opposition. So let's say Marciano's peak started with the Layne fight. From then on, Marciano was 14-0, 13 by knockout. This included wins against former world heavyweight champions Louis and Ezzard Charles (twice) and reigning champion Walcott (whom he also defeated in a rematch). There was also a win against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore.

Let's look a little more closely at those wins against name opponents. Louis, as noted, was thirty-seven years old. Charles was thirty-two and thirty-three. Walcott was thirty-eight and thirty-nine (and WINNING the first fight through twelve of fifteen rounds, remmeber). Moore, though famous for his longevity, was thirty-nine and had made his reputation as a light-heavyweight (175 pounds or fewer). Marciano also defended against LaStarza (a very good boxer, though not a household name), knocking him out in the 11th after taking a slim lead on points through 10 rounds. So, ok, 14-0...fair enough. But the question is always "Whom did he beat?" (It's usually "Who did he beat?" We like grammar, though.) In Marciano's case, another way to look at it is, 2-0, 1 by knockout, against top-quality heavyweights under the age of 35 (Ezzard Charles, twice), and a peak that lasted about four years.

In 1935, Louis fought some hopeless bums. Four of them, like Marciano's just-before-his-peak opponents. Losers of 21 of their previous 24 fights. He then fought Primo Carnera, however, starting a run in which four of seven opponents were former heavyweight champions. It's fair to start considering Louis's peak with the Carnera fight, and we'll continue through the second Walcott fight (though he was obviously well past his prime), his final successful title defense. Curiously, each of those fights took place on a June 25 -- 1935 and 1948, giving us a thirteen (!!) year peak to consider. Louis's record during this period was 39-1, 34 by knockout. One of the fights that was not a knockout was a disqualification win over Buddy Baer, whose manager entered the ring after Baer had been knocked down three times in the 6th round and refused to leave, prompting the disqualification. Barring this extremely unusual outcome, Baer surely would have been stopped, bringing Louis up to 35 knockouts in 39 wins (in a rematch, Baer was knocked down three times and knocked out in the first round).

Louis's opponents included former heavyweight champion Carnera (28 years old), former heavyweight champion Max Baer (26 years old, and up to that point, the only person besides Louis who had managed to knock Carnera out), former heavyweight champion Max Schmeling (who won the fight, handing Louis his only in-his-prime loss, via 12th round knockout), former heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey (33 years old, a 3rd round career-ending knockout), reigning heavyweight champion Jimmy Braddock (32 years old), Schmeling again (32 years old, a devastating first round knockout), and future heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott (twice, when Walcott was 33 and 34 years old). The first of the Walcott fights was a disputed decision that most felt should have gone the other way; the second was an 11th round knockout. So, if you're keeping score, against former, reigning, and future heavyweight champions under the age of 35, Louis was 7-1 with 6 knockouts (two in the first round).

Louis also defeated quality heavyweights who never won the championship (as Marciano had defeated Layne and LaStarza), most notably Paolino Uzcudun (though Uzcudun was 36 at the time) (I'm not making Uzcudun up, by the way; he was 50-16-3 at the time of the Louis fight and had a win over Max Baer and a draw with Schmeling to his credit) and Tommy Farr (23 years old and already with a win over Max Baer; in his next bout, Farr would lose a razor-close split decision to the recently dethroned Jimmy Braddock).

Since Marciano gets to count the Archie Moore win as a quality win, despite the fact that Moore was almost 40 years old and a natural light-heavyweight, let's look at Louis's record against quality light-heavyweights who stepped up in weight class (a periodic phenomenon that usually ends badly for the naturally lighter boxer). Louis had wins over light heavyweight champions (at one time or another) John Henry Lewis (24 years old at the time) and Billy Conn (twice, when Conn was 23 and 28 years old). That's another 3-0 for Louis, all by knockout, against world champions who were in their 20's each time.

Two of Louis's three losses, the losses really being the only thing that superficially make him look worse than Marciano, can be directly attributed to the fact that Marciano knew when to quit, and Louis didn't. To be fair, actually, Louis had financial troubles with the IRS that forced him to keep fighting long after he probably would have retired. Marciano has one undeniable advantage in their primes: He never lost, while Louis did. Once. Louis, after winning the title, defended the title against the only man to beat him, just two years after their first fight, and knocked him out in two minutes, showing that he had improved upon the weakness that Schmeling had noticed -- Louis's tendency to drop his left hand after throwing a jab. With that weakness shorn up, Louis went undefeated for more than a decade (14+ years). Marciano's entire professional career lasted 8 1/2 years. Marciano fought ONE world champion under the age of 35. Louis fought eight, and knocked them all out. Louis was 6'2" tall and weighed around 200-205 pounds. Marciano was 5'10", weighed in the high 180's, and was extremely easy to hit. He made up for it with fierce determination and a huge punch, but it's a lot easier to be fierce against has-beens and never-weres.

I don't mean to sound as if Marciano wasn't a great fighter. He was a great fighter. If you look closely at those 49 wins, though, it's pretty clear that he was helped by being in the right place at the right time (well after Louis's prime, and before Ali's...a time during which there was a dearth of great heavyweights). Sometimes, great competitors come along at the same time and have epic battles with each other (Borg & Connors; Bird & Magic; Ali, Frazier & Foreman). Sometimes, all-time greats don't have other all-time greats against whom to measure themselves (Anatoly Karpov, chess champion for more than a decade, but who happened to come along after Fischer and before Kasparov). Joe Frazier, prior to his first retirement, was 32-4 with 27 knockouts. If you take out the Ali and Foreman fights, he was 31-0 with 27 knockouts. Sounds a bit like Marciano's record, don't it? And Frazier was 5'11 1/2" and 205-210 pounds -- bigger than Marciano, and with a similar style. What's the real difference between Frazier and Marciano? Marciano didn't have to contend with a peak Ali and a peak Foreman.

Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis were two of the all-time great heavyweights. But put them in the same ring ten times in their mid-late 20's, and Louis wins eight of them.