Philadelphia decision; Fighting Irish

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Sun Feb 13 02:36:12 UTC 2000


PHILADELPHIA DECISION

     Someone who saw the Reuben "Hurricane" Carter biographical boxing movie
HURRICANE has told me that it uses the term "Philadelphia decision."
     This is from ESQUIRE, November 1953, pg. 26, col. 2:

     Even if this were so, honest coaxial confusion is more desirable than
the often fishy unanimity with which officials formerly handed out a
"Philadelphia Decision" in the privacy of untelevised arenas.  You didn't
have to be in Philadelphia to drop a "Philadelphia Decision."  It could
happen in Sheboygan, if you weren't from Sheboygan and your opponent and the
officials had been born and raised there.

     I couldn't find hits to this ANYWHERE.  I tried WEBSTER'S SPORTS
DICTIONARY, OED, DA, Stuart Berg Flexner's books, Nexis, Dow Jones, ProQuest,
and more.  The RHHDAS stops at the letter O.

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"FIGHTING IRISH" & BILL McGEEHAN

     I briefly went through some boxing books and didn't find "Philadelphia
decision" there, either.  Most interesting was Nat Fleischer's 50 YEARS AT
RINGSIDE (1958).  Fleischer created RING magazine.  Tad Dorgan wrote for RING
magazine and Tad's brother, Ike Dorgan, was a partner in the magazine.
Fleischer discusses Tad and other writers, starting on page 252.  This is
from page 260:

     However, McGeehan's (Bill McGeehan of the NY Herald-Tribune--ed.)
coinage of sports epithets led the field, his phrases far outnumbering those
of Tad.  The fight game was McGeehan's richest source, although his dubbing
of Notre Dame football players as the "Fighting Irish" is probably the most
memorable nickname he ever created.

    Stuart Berg Flexner's LISTENING TO AMERICA and I HEAR AMERICA TALKING
never mention McGeehan.  Fleischer says McGeehan's far outnumbers Tad's work??
    The official "Fighting Irish" explanation is at
http://www.nd.edu/~ndsi/trad/irish.html.  Bill McGeehan is never mentioned.
ND alumnus Frank Wallace is given credit for popularizing "Fighting Irish" in
the New York Daily News in the 1920s.
    Fleischer had been around the New York sporting world long enough to know
these things.  If he credits McGeehan with all this stuff, I'll have to check
it out!

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AUDREY MUNSON (off-topic, plagiarism--continued)

    My letter to the editor suggesting an Audrey Munson postage stamp made
the Syracuse Post-Standard on 2-10-2000.  (See Dow Jones database.)  I left
out the other details.
    The most important statue (to me) is when she posed for Adolph Weinman's
"Civic Fame," which graces the Municipal Building.  I had long surmised that
she had also posed for Weinman's "Day/Night" statues for Penn Station.  When
Penn Station was destroyed, the statues were dumped like trash in the New
Jersey meadowlands.
    Grant Barrett and others can now find Penn Station's "Day/Night" in the
center of the Columbia University campus walk!  That shocked the heck out of
me this week!  This must all be some evil plot to encourage me to jump off a
building!!!!



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