Evening star. [volume], July 07, 1940, Page 7, Image 83

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
The biggest mob ever to witness a battle
between lightweights since Benny Leon
ard fought Lew Tendler seventeen years
ago will pile into New York's Polo Grounds
a week from next Wednesday. The possibility
of a new champion’s being crowned won’t
be the magnet for this fight won’t be for
the lightweight championship, or any other.
It’s just another light, but it looks like a
battle that will be the answer to a light fan's
prayer.
The big reason for all the excitement will
be a man who, until a short time ago, was a
private in Uncle Sam’s army — and a nurse
maid to mules. His name is Lew Jenkins, he
hails from Texas and he’s now lightweight
champion of the world. Ex-Private Jenkins
is something entirely new in the fistic world
He’s a lighting freak. Angular, skinny, with
a big shock of reddish hair, he looks like an
animated lloor mop dancing on its handle.
His arms and legs seem too thin for him to
be a lighting man, but he was a lighter in the
Army down in Texas, and he’s been fighting
ever since he’s been out of the Army.
He packs a punch that would do credit to
the Army mules he used to handle. He showed
the power of that punch two months ago when
he won the lightweight championship from
Lou Ambers. He was the first lightweight to
• win the championship by a knockout in ten
years, and he did it because he makes it a
practice to start punching before the peal of
the bell has died away — and to keep on
punching until somebody is on the lloor.
A week from Wednesday night he’s meet
ing another fighting freak, a battler who a
short time ago held three titles at the same
time — featherweight, lightweight and wel
terweight and who still wears the welter
weight crown. He’s Henry Armstrong. Old
man "Perpetual Motion” is another fighter
who believes that attack brings victory
the Negro slugger wades in, rests his head on
his opponent’s shoulder and swings his fists
incessantly, from bell to bell.
Says Ex-Private Jenkins: "Ah won’t
really look at myself as champiSn till Ah lick
Armstrong. But even if Ah don’t lick him,
lie's goin’ to be hit an’ hit plenty.”
In the ring and out. Lew is about as man
ageable as a maverick lassoed
and hauled into a corral.
Wheedled into a celebration
of his sensational victory over
Ambers, he violated the de
uorum of Manhattan's sacred
Stork Club with an open-neck
sports shirt, minus tie. and
made them like it.
It’s pretty apparent that
he doesn’t think life has
c hanged much since he won
the lightweight title from Lou
Ambers. And they say that
Jenkins himself hasn't
( hanged at all since he was a
private and mule pedicurist
in Company F, 8th Cavalry,
down in El Paso. He has de
veloped a left hand, but he’s
not a better fighter.
“Nobody taught me to
light,” he explains. "Nobody
teaches anybody to light.
They teach ’em to be smarter
pr carefuller, maybe, but you
Lew finishes off Ambers in typical style — quick. But Armstrong believes in quick finishes, too
THE POISON PUNCH OF
PRIVATE J NKINS
No title at stake, but fight fans are licking their
chops over the Jenkins-Armstrong fracas on July 17.
There must be a reason — and here he is. Meet the
one-man, doughboy blitzkrieg from Sweetwater, Texas
by Arthur Mann
Chicago. Fred Browning couldn’t leave his
Dallas business to make the trip with his
protege, so Jenkins embarked alone to take
on a lightweight named Chino Alvarez. In
the rush of the day’s affairs, the ex-private
neglected to feed himself until it got so late
that he didn’t dare eat, lest he get punched
square in the dinner.
He entered the ring against Alvarez on an
empty stomach. The lack of food didn’t seem
to lessen his punches as he sailed into Chino
during the first five rounds, but he did note
that Alvarez failed to hit the deck, as had
practically all others.
Then, in the seventh round, everything
went black, and Lew Jenkins toppled to the
canvas without being hit. He managed to
rise, but remained upright only briefly be
cause Alvarez waded in, and, for the first time
in his life, Lew Jenkins got a taste of his own
kayo medicine. To the victim it was more
important as a lesson in dietetics.
“After that ” he Herlarea "Ah alntatrc
got MDea ngnier rigni irom
the start, else you're never a fighter!”
This was his belief two and a half years
ago when he stepped from the barracks at
Fort Bliss, confronted with a month’s fur
lough and the task of stretching a few dollars
.over the period. He went to a traveling
bureau, one of those "extra passenger” book
ing places, and arranged for a cheap ride into
Dallas, where he figured there'd be some ex
citement. A change of scene promised to be
Promoter Jacobs's check K.O.’s Lew
fun after two years in the Army, where his
recreation had been limited to slapping down
a few horse nurses to win the welterweight
championship of the Fort.
Reaching Dallas, it was natural for Private
Jenkins to hunt up a fight to finance his visit,
but getting one wasn’t easy. He didn’t re
semble a fighter, being gaunt and bony, with
pipestem legs and small hands.
Jackpot Evening
But his fee was low, and how could a
promoter go wrong paying $16 for a six-round
preliminary? Private Jenkins went in against
a Mexican named Kid Leva and stored a
quick kayo. A week later he knocked out
Young Ernest in four rounds for $25; and,
soon after, he finished a third opponent,
Jackie Conway, in two rounds for $40. The
third straight knockout won a contract for
$60 to battle a local star, Frankie Graham,
in a main event.
That fight brought the jackpot evening
into the life of Private Jenkins, because only
good things happened, and the four-round
kayo of Graham, an upset, was the least of
his good fortunes. Because of the victory,
Fred Browning, a wealthy sportsman and
businessman of Dallas, became interested in
Lew. Browning purchased his discharge from
the Army and practically adopted him.
Best thing of all, however, was meeting a
cute namesake — Katie Lucille Jenkins. She
had seen him lick Graham, and invited him
to watch her on Sunday night at the Dallas
auto races. Lew accepted and saw the pint
sized Katie take the wheel of a stock car and
risk her life on the treacherous dirt track.
She missed a turn and catapulted through the
rail, turning over three times. But she righted
the car, drove through the fence onto the
track again — and won the race.
That was enough for Lew. He staked his
claim and married her less than four months
later. Katie has traveled with him almost
everywhere since, and their peregrinations
read like a streamlined version of Babes in
Toyland.
They have gone broke repeatedly in assort
ed sections of the country, hocked the wed
ding and engagement rings to buy food and
gas and oil for themselves and their second
hand flivver.
Shortly after his marriage, J.ew received
his only really serious setback, and that was
due to freak conditions. It happened in
made sure to eat somethin’ on fight days!”
Manhattan Their Oyster
It was about a year after this embarrassing
fiasco that Lew and Lucille decided to make
the most ambitious trip of all their 100,000
miles together. They packed up the old
jaloppy and headed for New York City —
with $50 in their pocketbook.
They came very near getting marooned on
the Jersey side of the North River and never
reaching Manhattan at all. But after five
hours of determined searching for a ferry,
a taxi driver finally took them in hand and
led them to the proper dock. New York’s
skyline stretched out before them — the
particular oyster of Mr. and Mrs. Lew
Jenkins!
As soon as they were settled in the elusive
metropolis, Lew set out to hitch up with the
first manager he could find — which turned
out to be Frank Bachman. The start was fair.
He bowled over a few decent fighters — but
not enough. His system was — and still is —
to get in there and do the job in a hurry. If
his dynamite fists missed the target, the oppo
nent took to the woods and made a fancy
boxing match of what was left of the fight —
(Continued on pagm 15)