Into the weekend: From Pro-Line to No-Line

Time to wrap things up, looking ahead to the annual exercise in masochism known around JABS Mansion as Browns Weekend. It's even supposed to rain. Joy.

But first, with all this idiocy at Queen's Park about outlawing online gaming advertising, a word about the province-run sports lottery, which ought to be sued for false advertising after they played chicken (again) last Sunday, taking the Bengals game off the board. In other words, it's not such a bad weekend to be away after all.

On to the usual . . .

One last read. The New York Times' Vincent Mallozzi caught up with Joe Frazier in Philadelphia this week:

Ten pounds heavier, but millions of dollars lighter, according to Frazier and the marketing people who work with him. Over the years, Frazier has lost a fortune through a combination of his own generosity and naïveté, his carousing, failed business opportunities and a deep hatred for his former chief boxing rival, Muhammad Ali. The other headliners from his fighting days — Ali, George Foreman and Larry Holmes — are millionaires.
But while Ali has benefited from lucrative licensing agreements and remains one the world’s most recognized and celebrated athletes, Frazier lives alone in an apartment one staircase above the gym where he and others train young fighters in a run-down part of town.
“This is my primary residence,” he said. “Don’t matter much. I’m on the road most of the time, anyway.”

One last e-mail. Monday's Notes from a Weekend post wondering where the hell all the hats were when Mats Sundin completed his hat trick brought this one to raise hopes that there is some life in the old ACC-mausoleum-on-Leaf-nights after all, from Aunt Wendy:

My two nephews, Steven, 19, and Matt, 23, were at the game, sitting in the Gold section (I might add that this was a once in a lifetime ticket for them, to celebrate a 19th birthday) behind the Flames bench and when Mats scored his 500th and third of the game in overtime, both of them, along with several others, threw their hats on the ice!
Steven, the 19 year old, had just bought his hat a couple of weeks before (camaflouged Leafs hat, of course!!) and hesitated for only a second in throwing it, sure that he would be able to buy another one after the game, only to be disappointed in finding out that particular hat was no longer available!
So there's at least one hat in a pile of them, that truly was thrown in the best of moments, with no regrets afterward, although a little disappointment.

One last salute. To Eric McErlain, whose Off Wing Opinion is one of the best hockey-centric sports blogs around. Eric has been picked up by NBC Sports, so check him out.

One last view. Joe (Jellybean) Bryant, otherwise known as Kobe's dad, dunks on Kareem (thanks to the TBJ's J.E. Skeets).

Sports around town.  The Pattison Canadian International has a field of 10 at Woodbine on Sunday, along with the E.P. Taylor as good as it gets for major-league thoroughbred racing in these parts - although according to Jennifer Morrison, the heavy rain of this week isn't exactly what International favourite Go Deputy likes.

Watching. Well, whatever comes up in front of me - I'm away, right? But Real Madrid-Barcelona is one of those matchups that carries some potential for fireworks, Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. on GOLTV.

Pooch punts. Jinks the Viszla went 0-5 last week. Which is, frankly, amazing. I mean, 2-3 or 1-4 is just crappy. But 0-5? That's perfection. This weekend he's scarfing down: KANSAS CITY +5, Denver -4 1/2 (BAD Dawg!), New England -5 1/2, HOUSTON +9 1/2 and the NY JETS -3 1/2.

Floyd Patterson: 1935-2006

Floyd Patterson has died at age 71.

The two-time heavyweight champion was overtaken first by Sonny Liston, then by Muhammad Ali, as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s. But he was a big part of boxing history, and a link from the black and white to the colour TV era in a ring career that lasted 20 years. Patterson was a little guy, even in an age where heavyweights looked like normal people, who took some licks but punched back with style and skill.

By the time he fought Ali, in 1965, boxing and American were changing. Ali christened him "the Rabbit" and taunted him, this after Johansson had knocked him down seven times, and the mobbed-up Liston had beat him up mercilessly - Patterson kept going: "They said I was the fighter who got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most."

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Ali lands a left hook on Patterson.

One of his first big fights was against Yvon Durelle, a unanimous decision in 1954, then a rematch in New Brunswick a year later in which he stopped the Canadian middleweight champ.

In 1961, he fought at Maple Leaf Gardens against Tom McNeeley, who he knocked down 11 times, his last bout before facing Liston and losing the title he'd lost then retaken from Swede Ingemar Johansson. Here's a taste of Milt Dunnell's Star column out of that one (and for a PDF file of the lead sports page from that day via Pages of the Past, go here):

Maybe the most revealing sidelight to the drama was that Toreador Patterson displayed a distaste for the kill. Twice during the fierceness and the frenzy of the encounter, he made as if to assist the fallen foe to regain his feet.
(snip)
Floyd attempted to explain the seeming reluctance to leave his victim for the toll of 10 after turning the hornets loose in his tortured brain. Sometimes, in a fight, Patterson said, he tended to forget it was a fight. After all, boxing was a sport. The expression on Patterson's face had been seldom something you see in the prize ring. It was a mixture of concern for his foe and disgust for the job which had to be done.

AP FILE PHOTO

Patterson KO's Johansson to take back the title.

Patterson also fought George Chuvalo in 1965 at Madison Square Garden, winning a narrow decision in a contest that Ring Magazine called the Fight of the Year, as boxing historian Mike Dunn notes beautifully here:

In the latter rounds of the bout, there were fewer exchanges but the action remained intense as the drama slowly built with each bell that sounded. Would Chuvalo's aggression be enough to offset Patterson's sharper punches in the minds of the judges? Would Chuvalo be able to trap Patterson in a corner and finally do to the former champ what Liston had done? Would Patterson be able to withstand the continued assault of the bigger man? In the final rounds of the fight, Patterson became more aggressive and accomplished what he had set out to do: he proved himself to the public. He proved that he could take the hard punches of a genuine heavyweight. He proved that he still had the heart of a lion and the hunger to reach down inside of himself and find the resolve to finish strong.