Calling all Flomos, calling all Sugarshanesters.
And, I guess, disappointing all Paclanders, so quick to mock him as Fraudweather, Duckweather, Balut Boy and worse.
But the phone lines between Los Angeles, New York and Las Vegas are humming.
The emails are flowing gently like a mountain stream in winter.
And, when you ask people who know about the Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley fight negotiations, they do not wrinkle their noses and they do not resort to invective.
Their descriptions rum the gamut from A to B, from “cordial” last week (Mayweather camp) to “cordial” Monday (Mosley camp) and improving to “very cordial” Tuesday (Mosley camp).
The key words, from both sides of the table are, “Nicely, nicely.”
Asked why there’s been no breathless announcement yet, one party said, “It’s like the Orson Welles commercials for Paul Masson Wines. You know, we sell no wine before it’s time.”
Pacland (Art Garcia, methinks?)
Like precious grapes, Mayweather-Mosley is not finished with the purple feet aspect, the making of the momentous match.
But this is taking shape in a more than orderly fashion, they say. No unrefined ruffians such as Robert Arum are involved thankfully.
So far, I’ve yet to even identify one loathsome, despicable cad involved.
It’s starting to remind me of the last time I sat down for tea and crumpets or attended a tiddlywinks tournament.
Out in the chat room wildnerness, they attack the messengers, they question me, the latter day Hemingway who carefully composes this provocative essays with minute substance but so grand in style.
Oh, the slings and arrows fly from all directions.
You’re on Arum’s payroll. No, he’s on the Golden Boy payroll. Maybe he is paid under the table, over the table, around the table and goes home with the table per Team Mayweather.
It’s amusing to watch the cretins play. Just saw one mental patient on chat board who doesn’t know the difference between “which” and “witch.”
To him or her, I can only say, “Have you no decency at long last?”
Which brings me to the great Damon Runyon, who wrote about a Broadway character named Nicely Nicely like so:
It seems that one spring day, a character by the name of Nicely-Nicely Jones arrives in a ward in a hospital in the City of Newark, N.J., with such a severe case of pneumonia that the attending physician, who is a horse player at heart, and very absentminded, writes 100, 40 and 10 on the chart over Nicely-Nicely’s bed.
It comes out afterward that what the physician means is that it is 100 to 1 in his line that Nicely-Nicely does not recover at all, 40 to 1 that he will not last a week, and 10 to 1 that if he does get well he will never be the same again.
Well, Nicely-Nicely is greatly discouraged when he sees this price against him, because he is personally a chalk eater when it comes to price, a chalk eater being a character who always plays the short-priced favorites, and he can see that such a long shot as he is has very little chance to win. In fact, he is so discouraged that he does not even feel like taking a little of the price against him to show.
Afterward there is some criticism of Nicely-Nicely among the citizens around Mindy’s restaurant on Broadway, because he does not advise them of this marker, as these citizens are always willing to bet that what Nicely-Nicely dies of will be overfeeding and never anything small like pneumonia, for Nicely-Nicely is known far and wide as a character who dearly loves to commit eating.
