Terror in the City of Champions (23 page)

Worries

Schoolboy Rowe wasn’t himself. He had become sulky and withdrawn, even anxious. He was rejecting all requests for public appearances, which was unlike him. Some teammates attributed his mood to poor pitching. He is “worried about his failure,” one theorized. Rowe certainly wasn’t throwing well. As of June 10, he had won three games and lost five. The outings in which he had been sharp could be counted, with a digit to spare, on the pitching hand of “Three Finger” Brown. In four of ten starts Rowe had bombed, surrendering six, seven, or nine earned runs. The previous year he had done that only twice in thirty-five starts. Cochrane labored to find ways “to bolster his morale.” Despite his teammates’ beliefs, it wasn’t weak pitching that consumed Rowe. It was his wife Edna. She was expecting a child and having trouble with the pregnancy. Her doctor worried that her weak heart might not be strong enough for delivery. Rowe was fretting over her health, but apparently keeping his concerns to himself.

With their star pitcher floundering, the Tigers stumbled from fourth to fifth to sixth place in a league they had planned to dominate. The team as a whole was failing. Cochrane ripped his men for not trying hard enough, for not bearing down. Within the first two months he benched Goose Goslin, Marv Owen, Jo-Jo White, Pete Fox, and himself (not all at once). He scrambled the batting order repeatedly. He gave Flea Clifton and Heinie Schuble a shot at ousting Owen at third base. He dropped Elden Auker from the rotation and then reinserted him. He talked trades with other managers, sent Chet Morgan to the minors (forever) after he flubbed a catch, released five-year veteran Carl Fischer, retired loveable old Fred Marberry (who would soon become an umpire), and added Hubby Walker, Gee’s brother, to the roster.

“We’ve got to do something,” Cochrane said.

Not everyone was performing poorly. Little Tommy Bridges—“the human slingshot from sunny Tennessee” or whatever else the ink rogues were calling him at the moment—strung together eight wins, including two shutouts. For a few weeks Gee Walker kept company with the league’s leading batters while smartly focusing on the game instead of his hecklers. But the two men who most helped Detroit avoid the abyss played next to one another, Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg. Gehringer was averaging a hit at least every three at-bats and Greenberg was battling for the home run title—and grating on opponents.

Those who studied him described Greenberg as thoughtful, usually in combination with another adjective: “thoughtful and observant” or “thoughtful, wide-awake.” He continually sought explanations, answers, and advice, hunting ways to improve. “Hank puts more thought, effort, and determination into his bid for baseball success than perhaps any other ball player,” noted one spectator. Greenberg’s quest led him to use a larger baseball mitt, which brought protests from managers who thought the webbing was too big. They also objected to his preference for black licorice over chewing tobacco, contending that he spit the licorice juice into his mitt to discolor the baseball. As his power surged, Greenberg found himself targeted more often by opponents. Within a month’s time he nearly squared off against three players, all of whom had gotten rude with their words.

Greenberg and Gehringer alone could take their club only so far. The Tigers needed their distracted pitching ace to return to form. Someone surely noticed that Edna was carrying a child. Or did they? Edna had stopped coming to the park. The Rowes lived in the Seward Hotel, not far from Henry Ford Hospital. Almost all of the other Tigers lived elsewhere in Detroit. They may not have known the source of Rowe’s anguish.

Joe Louis watched films of Primo Carnera and spotted several weaknesses. Carnera had never been a fabulous boxer. He had benefited from matches rumored to be fixed by mob supporters. But at six-foot-six and 265 pounds, he was a huge, lumbering man who could be dangerous if he connected with one of his over-the-top, ax-like chops. Most clear-eyed observers expected a lopsided Louis victory. “I don’t think Carnera can fight a lick, never could,” wrote New York’s Paul Gallico, who within a few years would give up sportswriting for fiction (and, in time, write
The Poseidon Adventure
). “I think that Joe Louis is the most vicious and damaging young man who has been turned loose to commit public assault and battery in many a year.” Against Louis, Carnera would hold substantial advantages in weight (sixty-five pounds) and arm reach (four inches). But Louis possessed youth, speed, and power. Louis noticed on film that when Carnera jabbed he left himself open. “When he does that to me, I’ll be right in there with a left hook, just like this,” said Louis, demonstrating for reporters.

The Carnera fight was crucial because it would be the first time Louis faced a former heavyweight champion. Some of his earlier opponents had been contenders. But Carnera had actually held the title, and the glory that went with it, for almost a year before Max Baer dethroned him in June 1934. It would also be Louis’s first New York appearance.

The buildup began six weeks before the bout. In mid-May Louis headed to his training camp. When he arrived at Grand Central Station in New York, an army of black, red-capped porters hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him into the terminal. Louis had become a hero to blacks. “I started noticing some things I thought was strange,” he said. “A lot of black people would come to me and want to kiss me, pump my hand. . . . Now they started saying things like, ‘Joe, you’re our savior’ and ‘Show them whites!’ and sometimes they’d just shout, ‘Brown Bomber, Brown Bomber!’ ”

Before heading to camp, Louis stayed in a Harlem apartment. He could see Yankee Stadium from the window. Louis appeared in skits at the Harlem Opera House and frolicked with Harlem chorus girls. He also enjoyed the company of seventeen-year-old singer Lena Horne before departing. At Pompton Lakes Louis sparred daily with three or four boxers. All were six-foot-five or taller and had previously faced Carnera. They emulated Carnera’s style in the ring. On some days a thousand fans turned up to watch Louis train. Even Jack Johnson showed up. The match was expected to be one of several warm-ups to a fight with Baer. But when Jimmy “Cinderella Man” Braddock upset Baer on June 13, Louis’s path was altered.

Before the Carnera match Louis bought his mother a new house in Detroit. He also arranged for her and three of his sisters to be driven to New York to see the fight. His sister Eulalia looked forward to going to the Cotton Club. “I hope Joe can take us around to some of the nightclubs. That is, after he wins,” she said. His mom planned to watch the match from the second deck of Yankee Stadium.

The day before the big night, rumors spread that gangsters were plotting to abduct Louis. As a safeguard, Louis’s team added more security and police increased their presence in Harlem, where the fighter was staying. Worries of race riots also drove concerns. A significant police presence was planned at the ballpark. On the day of the event, Grantland Rice reminded his readers, “It was twenty-five years ago when Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries . . .” Johnson’s victory over the white Jeffries had set off racial violence across the country.

Louis was the first black man allowed to be a true contender in years. Excitement was high in black America. “He sure is a wonderful man,” said singer Ethel Waters. “I’m going to say a prayer for him.” Harlem prepared for a celebration. Outside the Savoy Ballroom a
“
M
EET
J
OE
L
OUIS”
banner declared that win or lose he would be appearing there after the fight. Across the nation radio dials turned to the broadcast of the bout. In Detroit a visitor could walk through almost any neighborhood and hear the blow-by-blow account wafting on the air. The fight went six rounds, just twenty minutes, before the big man fell. As the referee stopped the match, police flooded into the ring. “Joe just whipped him badly,” recalled Jerry Ford, who was listening at the University of Michigan. In Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, also known as Detroit’s Harlem, “There was so much noise along St. Antoine Street and along E. Adams Avenue . . . that the Negro hero must have heard it in New York City,” reported one paper. “He won! He won! He won!” yelled a woman running along Hastings Street.

On a Tuesday morning in June, Edna Rowe gave birth to a four-pound son, Lynwood Jr. Both she and the baby—though a little underweight—were in good health. Schoolboy, flowers in hand, went to visit. He was overjoyed and relieved when he saw them. He had feared the worst. Finally he revealed what he had been going through. “I’ve been in a nightmare,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. I’d be trying to pitch to a batter and right in the middle of a pitch I’d think of Edna. Lots of times, I’d forget I was even pitching.”

The day after his son’s birth, Rowe threw a three-hitter and defeated the Boston Red Sox. Afterward, as Rowe stood shirtless and sweaty and gulped a soda, visitors congratulated him. What a way to celebrate his son’s birth! Wolverine coach Harry Kipke chatted with him at his locker as Cochrane entertained Harry Bennett and two Ford co-workers. Rowe won his next two games. He restricted Philadelphia to six hits and shut out New York. Schoolboy appeared to be back. When he won his eighth game, the Tigers moved into second place, a game behind the Yankees. The narrowing race prompted Grantland Rice to pen this ditty:

Look out, Yanks, there’s a bengal loose.

Look out, Yanks, for the coming thrill!

There’s the snarl of the jungle on the winds

With fang and claw all set for the kill.

Cochrane, Gehringer, Schoolboy Rowe,

Bridges and Greenberg—pipe the din.

Look out, Yanks, there’s a Tiger loose

With the snarl of the jungle rolling in.

Joe Louis and manager John Roxborough arrived in Detroit on the morning of Monday, July 1, days ahead of schedule. The early arrival disrupted Mayor Frank Couzens’s plans for a big to-do on July 4. The mayor had wanted to be at the train station with a welcoming party. He would be facing reelection in the fall and being photographed in the presence of Louis could help his standing with black voters. A twelve-man committee was formed to put together the event. It included newsmen, Lions owner George Richards, and police chief Col. Pickert. Organizers envisioned banners, a huge crowd, and festive music. But Louis frowned on such a gala. “I don’t want no celebration,” he said. “Wait till I do something, like winning the title.”

Louis visited his mom, his sisters, and a few friends before going to Navin Field to watch the Tigers. It was Ladies Day and the grandstands were filled with women, some checking out the young boxer in the snazzy white double-breasted suit coat with patterned, open-neck silk shirt and matching pocket square. In front of the dugout, Louis traded fake punches with Greenberg for the photographers. Louis pretended to land a blow on Greenberg’s stomach. Both grinned. Louis loved baseball and followed the Tigers daily. He still played pickup games on city sandlots with his buddies. Given a choice he might have preferred a career in baseball over boxing (not that his talent was equal in the sports).