My 20 Greatest • • *

By Hype Igoe
International N«wi Scrvkt Sporti Writer

NEW YORK, Mar. 23—Running through an old and recently
discovered scrap book of ring classics which, in my time I have
"covered," I came across my own printed history of a ring epic
which never will die within my memory.

The story is clipped from the old New York American of September
10, 1907, just seven months after I had rolled Into Grand Central,
barbed beneath, In bright red flannels, tied at the wrists
and the ankles.

Strangely enough, too, this story is by-lined "By IGOE." That was
many years before my journalistic god-father, Herbert Bayard
Swope, prevailed upon me to In-fuse ,a little more legibility and
body into my moniker by adding "Hype" to that tremendous sweep
of printed matter!

"It Is, devilishly enphonious , that by Hype Igoe, banner," said
Swope and, being a grateful and ever a doubtful fourth-estate son,
I have so branded ench and every ditty I've tried to write ever since.
It was father Swope who came up with the name for my New
York World column "Pardon My Glove."

"It is not my thought," said my father. "We were all chopping at
a name for the column at Ralph Pulitzer's home and Bill Beazoll
almost had his way with "Leather Socking Tales," when meek little
Irving Berlin chirped: 'Herbert, I do believe that- would be something
In a column by Hype, under the title "Pardon My Glove."
So it was born, to be "borrowed" by United States Senators,
Congressmen, script writers, vaudevillains and paid wise crackers

back In 1907 I wrote of Young Otto's dazzling knockout of Joe Bedell, .a develish thumper on his , own hook and one so sneaky in a fight as fox stalking a pullet cove .

They fought In the old Roman A. C. down on the East Side, In
which on its cleanest night, smelled like an attic carpet . You traded
perspiration beads with your neighbor , so tightly you were pressed against him . Fat men enterd the emporium of glory so round as a rum barrel and left looking like a bed slat .

I wrote of the start of this fight upon which hinges the kick in this story I almost forgot;

Otto walked out of his corner with a broad smile spred across his face. Here was a fighter how believed in his punch and well he might because in his career of 220 fights he knocked out 86 victims . 45 of them in the first round. He ran-up a record of 16 straight knock-outs in the last minute of the first round . Here is a record which this world never again will see . "

I went on in my printed yarn: "Otto had his good right hand
extended In sportsman like greeting, Bedell, the fox, let his left
glide forward like a snake in the grass until It tipped the end of
Otto's friendly right glove. No sooner had the gloves touched, and
before Otto was conscious of treachery, the oldest of shopworn,
dirty tricks. Bedell whipped up his Innocent left and hooked Otto
plump on the snout. It was a sneaking, distressing blow, and
almost ended the fight then and there."

There ured to be unfair chatter about Otto being a "quitter"
when he saw blood. He saw it that night. I remember that he
put the palm of his glove to his nose and when he saw his own
gore in the palm of his glove, spilled through a dastardly sneak
punch, Otto went roaring down my hall of fame.

I felt sorry for Bedel before the round was over. Otto seemed
bent on driving Bedell's beezer right through his skull and out
the back of his head. Seldom ever, have men been banged so
savagely. Though Bedell, game otherwise, fought back with
glorious pluck, Otto was relentlessly cruel, Otto didn't catch
him in that first. I thought he'd break out in tears about it.

There was a second round, however. Fistic Funeral Day for
the unfair one. When Otto's right fist landed on Bedell's, chin
I could have sworn that I saw sparks fly. Bedell went down,
his head, twisted In fantastic fashion over the lower rope.

He seamed to be looking into the fence of human faces, seek-
Ing someone who might spare a little pity. He needed it. Game
enough, he got up like a torn bulldog, he tried to smile and a
great flood of black blood over-rode the dykes, the swollen lips
which had kept this crimson flood within bounds.

Otto had his elephant gun with him. The punch roared just as
such , a powerful gun would have reverberated through the elephant
Jungle. Bedell floated through the air as though riding a magic
thud of an anvil, Bedell never had been knocked out before,
Bless the hitters!

Young Otto taught four Golden Glove champions—Inter world crown bearers.
Lou Saalico, Pete Sealza, Melio Bettina and Gus Lesnevich