None of my usual posts today. I am too sad. Muhammad Ali died in an Arizona hospital last night.

He was the best boxer of all time and the most important athlete of the 20th century. His face was the most recognized in the world for years, much more than US presidents, or popes, or movie stars. All the Western nations because boxing was big there, though Ali made much of its status in those days. All of Africa because he was a black man who told the white world what it needed to hear. All of the Muslim world because he was a defiant Muslim in the midst of a Christian-dominated time. Billions of women simply because, as he said himself, he was pretty. All who hated the Vietnam War because he said so unequivocally that it was flat out wrong.

For me, the quintessential Ali moment is depicted in the pic below. Study it.


 


It's round 8 of the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire. 1974. He'd been stripped of his title, but had finally been exonerated by the US Supreme Court. After some mixed results for a year or two, he was getting his chance to get that title back. Foreman was predicted by all the pundtis to destroy Ali. Foreman also acted arrogant, showing up in Zaire with a German Shepherd, the dog that the Belgians had often used to terrorize black people in their own towns. And to many blacks all over the world, Foreman had let himself, maybe not consciously, become a stooge of the whites. Ali had reasons to hate him.

But in the ring, Ali stayed a decent human being. Look again at this pic. In the one tenth of a second, open to him, Ali could have hit George again. Right fist landing hard on George's left temple. It can be a devastating blow. Ali knew that. He also knew the man was beat. He let George off. That is a definition of what should be meant by the words "humanity" and more simply, "class."

He was even a poet.

"The fans didn't know when they laid down their money, they would witness the total eclipse of the Sonnny."

"This may astound, astonish, and amaze ya, but I am going to whip Joe Fraser."

Rest in peace, Buddy. You belong to the ages now. There will never be another like you.