NEW YORK — It’s easy to forget how green the rest of the country is. Sitting in Central Park on a Sunday morning, after 13 years of Sonora Desert, reminds you how much more world there is, and in how many different places folks take justifiable pride.
The bench is a bit wet from the weekend’s rain. Its dedication reads: “For Andrew Gray Peipers, Who used to play here.” Its view begins with a steel swing set and grows into kids and their fathers, joggers — unhappy-looking here as everywhere — squat and shapely trees, and ultimately a red-lettered Essex House sign many stories above.
It’s not far from here to Times Square, or from Times Square to Madison Square Garden. That’s where Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto narrowly beat Ghanaian Joshua Clottey Saturday night. The judges had it 116-111, 113-114 and 115-112. I had it 115-115. That’s not a typo. A draw is supposed to be 114-114, I know, but not if you score three rounds even. What kind of judge turns in a card like that? Hold on, it gets better.
After giving Cotto Rounds 1, 3, 6 and 11, and after giving Clottey Rounds 2, 5, 7, 8 and 10, and after giving Rounds 4 and 9 to both guys — and after scoring the first a two-pointer for Cotto — I had it 105-105 going into the 12th. I scored that one even, too. And I’m OK with it. Just as I’m OK with the official result.
The night’s most interesting and passionate reaction belonged to referee Arthur Mercante Jr. But let’s not skip ahead.
Our celebratory weekend began on Friday night at Capitale — a bank cum restaurant in Manhattan. That’s where the Boxing Writers Association of America held its 84th awards dinner. Its 84th, my first. I became eligible for the membership rate a few months ago. And a few weeks after that Norm Frauenheim, a friend and mentor, became the 36th winner of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism — our highest honor.
His acceptance speech was long overdue for a couple of reasons. One, he has exemplified excellence in boxing journalism for about as long as any Arizona Republic reader remembers. And two, because his speech, by setting fire to the newspaper industry’s remains, offered a much-needed reminder that periodicals — long before they became profit centers — justified their First Amendment protection by serving communities.
Two other speeches merited special attention. HBO analyst Larry Merchant shared an interesting anecdote about boxing’s original “Golden Boy,” Art Aragon. Mr. Merchant was too graceful to complete one analogy, but here it is anyway: Will today’s Golden Boy ever have the self-deprecating ease to treat Mexicans’ lusty boos as applause?
The other speech came from Joe Calzaghe, 2008’s Manager of the Year. Turns out, Calzaghe ended his career appreciating boxing managers much as Frauenheim appreciated sports editors.
Saturday afternoon arrived, and so did the rain. We walked from Times Square to Madison’s, anyway. Times Square is a theme park named “New York City.” But Madison Square Garden is gritty and authentic. Though it’s modernized by ringside WiFi availability — not too modernized, mind you — the Garden’s media center still features a room of telephones. Apparently writers used to file stories with those?
By 11 p.m. Saturday, when Miguel Cotto began his walk to the ring, the Garden also featured ear-splitting expressions of pride in Cotto and his native land. Those rumors you’ve heard about the electricity of a Puerto Rican fight crowd in New York City? All true.
What a roar came at 2:52 of the first round. Clottey started forward at the very instant Cotto started a jab. Clottey’s feet continued forward, but his head stayed put. Clottey dropped, the crowd exploded, Clottey rose. And with a look of fury on his dark face, Clottey banged his gloves together, reprimanding himself for carelessness.
Later he might have reprimanded himself for carefulness. Having established that he was every bit the technician Cotto was and the better-conditioned guy, Clottey backed to his corner — hands high, elbows low. There he parried shots for no good reason. Did Cotto’s blows land? Not much. But in the face of inactivity, ineffective aggressiveness always deserves the nod. And more than 17,000 Puerto Rican fans put an exclamation point on the end of that sentence.
In the three rounds that followed the seventh, though, many ringside observers who’d been in MGM Grand for Cotto-Margarito saw a harrowingly familiar sight: Fragile Miguel. The tattoos and cornerman were new, yes, but the hanging jaw and low hands were not. Cotto spent much of the fight’s second half retreating and flurrying — and occasionally seated on the second rope, a perch from which nothing good can happen.
But this time Cotto was stalked by a cautious Ghanaian, not a resentful Mexican with enhanced gloves. So Cotto went out and stole the 11th, skip-and-resetting across the blue mat, while Clottey gave tired chase.
Halfway through the 12th round, Clottey ducked and turned, and Cotto — intoxicated by 34 minutes of blows to the head — clipped him with a rabbit punch. Clottey grabbed the back of his head and dropped to his knees, in a somewhat theatrical bid for a point deduction from Cotto’s tally.
That’s when referee Arthur Mercante Jr. slammed his hands together and cussed. His anger said mostly this: “Damn it, guys, don’t make me the memorable figure in this one; you’ve fought too well for people to remember the referee — I’m not taking a point.”
It was the right thought at the right moment, and Mercante deserves credit for thinking it. And I’d probably feel differently if I were from Ghana.
But I’m not. Ultimately, I’m from the West. And I confess my years in the desert made me initially reluctant to come to New York City. I’ll know better next time.
