Louis vs. Schmeling, 22 June 1938

Smart Boris: Sure, the fight was scheduled for fifteen rounds, but Joe Louis needed only half of the first to knock Max Schmeling on his Nazi-sympathizing ass. In too many ways to explain, boxing makes all other sports, including my beloved tennis, tiny and comical. Oh, I can hear them bitching already: what of baseball, its high-fives, etc. Well, no baseball player ever runs the length of the field with a medieval piece of plastic in his mouth; no baseball player has to think--really think--while being subjected to extraordinary PSI; no baseball player worries about the ball whacking him in the chin, overwhelming the nerve in his mandible, and cutting off the blood and oxygen to his brain. And no baseball player ever quipped, "When you're as great as I am, it's hard to be humble." Well, it ain't braggin' if it's true. Muhammad Ali said that.

No baseball game lasted only 124 seconds.

So watch the Louis-Schmeling rematch. Hear Max Schmeling, who was no dummy, hear him scream when Joe Louis hits him in the kidney. Honestly, he screams. No baseball player ever did that either.
That's Max Schmeling on the floor. He stopped screaming long enough to stare in disbelief at the face of his black conqueror. Then he went back to Germany, got drafted into some kind of flying death squadron, dropped a lot of bombs on Belgian farmers--they, too, disappoint me--and eventually, after everybody forgot about the unpleasantness--you know, when all those people died--he made millions bottling Coke for gluttonous Europeans. Crazy Europeans and their beverages.