Boxing again

In my youth, I became enamored with sports.  And other than three years of Little League Baseball (1956-1958), my interest in sports involved spectator sports rather than as an athlete.  

In Little League, I suffered from fear of the baseball, either to be hit by a pitch (which I was once) or by a batted ball.  I have come to believe that we should never let fear control our behavior.  We need to have the courage to overcome our fears.  

Spectator sports in my youth mostly was what was on TV.  

Saturday was a Major League baseball game and/or a college football game depending on the time of the year.

Sunday in the fall was the New York Football Giants.

Friday night at 10 PM was boxing.  A ten round bout was perfect for a one hour TV program.  Gillette razor blades was the sponsor and the venue was usually Madison Square Garden in New York City.

I came to admire boxers, especially Floyd Patterson, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Rubin Carter and Carmen Basilio.  But all boxers (now including women) deserve my respect. 

They face the challenge of one on one combat in which they suffer pain and the possibility of injury or even death.  

Boxing is a violent and dangerous sport.  It is a complicated sport.  When you go on offense, you open yourself up to being attacked.  

I have never been punched in the face...except once...by my brother Ted.  As avid movie goers, we discovered that actors did not really hit each other with a closed fist.  It was what we called fake boxing.  

Ted and I played at that many times and once it wasn't fake.  I received a bloody nose.

Ted told me of an experience he had while a student at Michigan State University.  He took a boxing class in which he sparred with another student.  Once, he was punched in the head and saw stars.  I wish I had had a boxing experience.  

At Penn, during a phyical education class, I was assigned to wrestle another student, much bigger than I.  I was able to evade him for  whatever the time limit was.  We were both exhausted.

It would have been nice to box once...for at least one round...to face a challenge, overcome my fears and survive...to prove something to myself.  

Nagasaki

Nagasaki, Japan is located on the island of Kyushu.  Its current population is approximately 400,000.

It was founded by Portuguese explorers in 1543.  Nagasaki became the sole port used for trade between Japan and both the Portuguese and the Dutch from the 16th through the 19th century. 

In the beginning, the little village of Nagasaki was where the Portuguese introduced such products as tobacco, bread and textiles into the Japanese marketplace.  

In 1663, a fire destroyed much of Nagasaki.

In 1720, a ban on Dutch books was lifted.  As a result, scholars flooded into Nagasaki to study European science and art.  

In 1889, Nagasaki was officially proclaimed to be a city.  Christianity was legalized, allowing it to become a center for Roman Catholicism in Japan.

During World War II, Nagasaki was an important industrial city.  Factories produced steel, arms, engines and ships.  90% of Nagasaki's work force was employed in such factories.  

Nagasaki was rebuilt after the war ended.   

Brute Force

Brute Force is a 1947 film noir produced by Mark Hellinger and starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Howard Duff and Yvonne DeCarlo.  

Before his untimely death at age 44 also in 1947, Hellinger produced other memorable films such as The Killers (starring Lancaster) and The Naked City (starring Duff).

The film was directed by Jules Dassin.  He also directed other films noir such as Night and the City and The Naked City.

In this film, Lancaster plays the leader of a group of prison inmates plotting an escape.  I can think of at least three other of his films in which he was in prison: The Killers, Birdman of Alcatraz and Judgment at Nuremburg.

Cronyn here portrays a sadistic prison warden, rival of Lancaster.  He played a very positive character in the Alfred Hitchcock film, Lifeboat.

In Brute Force, Duff is another prison convict.  In The Naked City, he is a jewel thief.  Years later, he is the lawyer of Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer.

DeCarlo played opposite Lancaster in another film noir, Criss Cross.