The Press: Back in the Ring

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Before Jack ("Doc") Kearns died at 80 last year, he completed the manuscript of his memoirs, the gaudy story of his career as manager and trainer of prizefighters—the most famous of whom was Jack Dempsey. One chapter of that book, published in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, contained Kearns's claim that he had packed the bandages on Dempsey's fists with plaster before the 1919 bout in which Dempsey gave Jess Willard a painful beating. Dempsey had no knowledge of the deed, Kearns said, and when SPORTS ILLUSTRATED approached Dempsey before printing the Kearns story, the old champ hotly denied the whole thing. His denial was printed along with Kearns's story.

Last week sometime Restaurateur Dempsey brought suit for $3,000,000 in libel damages against Time Inc., publishers of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. Said Dempsey in his complaint to the New York Supreme Court: "My gloves were not 'loaded' when I defeated Jess Willard. I won the championship fairly."