A s the country’s best sportswriters scrambled to describe the details of that depressing night in 1951, Newsday’s Jimmy Cannon may have put it best. Joe Louis, propped up by the ropes after taking a couple of Rocky Marciano’s heaviest bombs, went over backward, Cannon wrote, “like someone who sits on a windowsill and falls out when the pane breaks.” Of course, that was just the knockout. The other part of that sad October night – what the Chicago Tribune described as the “emotional aftermath” – took days and weeks to describe and a cadre of reporters to do it. While the fellows on press row hammered on their Remington typewriters or phoned their stories in to fast- fingered stenographers, each trying to convey the collapse of a king in 800 words or less, NBC finished its nationwide telecast with a special treat: footage of Louis beating Max Schmeling 13 years earlier in Yankee Stadium. It was as if the programmers suspected Louis might lose and had the old Schmeling fight cued up. It was better to end the night reminding viewers of the glory days, when Louis was America’s titan, beating back Adolf Hitler’s favorite fighter. Yet a few minutes of nostalgia weren’t enough. As an era ended, a lingering sorrow filled the country. Seeing Louis lose so violently was, wrote Arthur Daley of The New York Times, a
JOE LOUIS’ CRUSHING DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF ROCKY MARCIANO SENT AMERICA INTO MOURNING FOR ITS FALLEN HERO AND LEFT “THE BROWN BOMBER” FACING THE INEVITABLE REALITY OF RETIREMENT by Don Stradley LIFE ON THE GROUND
“strange, unpleasant, nasty sort of dream.” According to Associated Press reporter Joe Reichler, “Tears flowed openly and unashamedly” in Louis’ dressing room. He noted the “soft sobs” of middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson and former heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles, while “veteran newspapermen” stood by with “large lumps in their throats.” Louis, sitting on a table with his left hand in an ice bucket, was the only person in the room whose eyes weren’t moist. “His were bright and clear,” Reichler noted. “It’s no use crying,” Louis said. “The better man won.” Louis praised Marciano as a “good, strong fighter” and explained that Marciano’s left hook set him up for the right- hand finisher. As for the dramatic ending, “I was just tired,” Louis said. There’d been steady reports that Louis, despite winning eight consecutive comeback bouts since losing to Charles approximately one year earlier, was feeling weak in the months leading up to the Marciano fight. This was at least partially because of Louis’ best-kept secret – a hard-partying lifestyle. His years in the U.S. Army had drained him, too, eroding some of his quickness and his drive to win. Without his big punch and youthful vigor, Louis was just an average fighter. Or, as an editorial from Troy, New York, put it, “a trial horse and a miserable failure besides.”
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