There was a story.....

by RayLee, Friday, August 01, 2025, 23:19 (5 days ago) @ Paul
edited by RayLee, Friday, August 01, 2025, 23:30

O'Henry perhaps or maybe Damon Runyon ? ? ? The gist was did the proven significance of bloodline/genetics/heredity in racing dogs & horses apply to prize fighters as well ? Most of the sporting men who were wont to wager on fights said yes but one dissented and goes on to tell a tale.

Seems there was a kid who was spawned from a long line of Irish heavyweights and his ma was argumentative and short-tempered and quick to scrap so if this kid was given some training inside the ropes then it follows he must be a champion. It was just a matter of breeding. Well in the end the kid flopped as a fighter. He had a far-off look in his eyes and said all he wanted to do was read poetry & play the zither. His trainer was adamant that he would not have a zither player in his stables with a far-off look in the eyes. It was simply bad for business if the word got out.

The speculator who had discovered the kid and knew his ma from way back suddenly remembered that while she was courting with and affianced to the Irish giant she was also stepping-out with a hollow-chested little jew who clerked a book store and gave zither lessons.

When the speculator took the kid back home across the river in jersey as he had promised he would he found a hulking over-fed freckled imp in a street fight who was really pounding the competition and had a mean left-hook. From the doorstep, the speculator asked the the mother who was the redheaded kid fighting on the sidewalk. She replied that that was her youngest and the speculator was welcome to take him away from home to be a fighter! So in the end, breeding does matter.....