For those of you nearing the deadline for another daily on yet another day, here's some last-minute inspiration from Jimmy Cannon via a guy who isn't. (From the New York Post)
"THE great multitude, collected around the scaffold in the plain of Yankee Stadium last night, set up a hoarse cackling which, coming from the ledges and the balconies and the temporary seats on the field of that vast place, sounded like the cawing of a flock of jubilant birds.
"For three rounds they had been moved to burbling excitement by Ezzard Charles who had fought off Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight champion of the world, with a grave disciplined neatness. But now the skin above Marciano's left eye was torn and bright little streams coursed down his clenched face.
"The champion, who for three rounds had raged like a beast trapped in the pen of his awkwardness, rubbed the shining puddle with the thumb of his glove. The rills of blood became a smear. It was as though he had ripped the frivolously red strings off a Christmas package but others grew in their places before he had taken his hand away. It was then Charles hit him the right uppercut. Marciano, who wears his flesh like a suit of mail, struggled to get out of the box of his ignorance but until the uppercut, Charles' punches had no more effect than feathers thrown into the blades of an electric fan.
"But now, after the jabs, came measured rights. The bloody spray freckled the canvas of the ring after every blow. The champion appeared dazed, not by the punches but by Charles' audacity. The people in his corner were seized by panic.
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