Events & Discoveries

This formula of cooperation, if followed in other states and cities, could be the most valuable development to arise from the indictments and arrests. It points a way by which authorities may pool resources and information to win an enormous victory over the lawless elements of boxing, all of which have hitherto been shrewdly aware of the statutory, physical and financial handicaps under which individual law enforcement agencies must operate. It is a device by which boxing may be enabled to survive and re-establish itself, both as a sport and a business.

Unnecessary Roughness

Last week's arrests of Frankie Carbo, some hoodlum assistants and Truman K. Gibson Jr., president of National Boxing Enterprises, discussed above, were a commendable and expert job on the part of the federal authorities. But the Chicago FBI does seem to have committed an ethical foul against the person of Gibson and perhaps even should be penalized a round.

According to Gibson, the apartment house of a friend he was visiting was surrounded by perhaps a dozen FBI men. Spotlights from their cars played on the house as if "Dillinger was reincarnated." The result was hysterical turmoil among the women and children in the apartment. And when Gibson was taken to the home of a federal judge so that bail ($5,000) might be fixed, he was quite unnecessarily handcuffed.

Next day, Gibson says, U.S. Attorney Robert Tieken sent him a message of apology for the treatment but, of course, photographs of Gibson in handcuffs are still around and will be for a long time.

The crime of conspiracy with which he is charged is a serious one but Gibson is hardly to be ranked with hoodlum murderers like Carbo or treated like one.

First Hate

It's been a great baseball season for Albert Kochivar, of Windham, Mont., a tall, balding, 45-year-old cattleman who has hated the New York Yankees for 27 years. When the Yankees have slumped, Kochivar has rejoiced, and after many a lean year (for him) he has now been chuckling merrily day after day at reports of declining batting averages, dropped fly balls, strikeouts and all the other difficulties the Yankees have labored under. "I started hating the Yankees back in Detroit in 1932," he explained, "because of their attitude. They struck me as thinking they were too good when all they were was a bunch of lucky stiffs."

The lucky stiffs went on to win pennant after pennant, and Kochivar, after studying engineering, went to Montana, prospered, got into real estate in Great Falls, and acquired two ranches. But he continued to hate the Yankees. His feeling was no routine hatred, such as was found among thousands of fans of other clubs in both leagues: it was a grand passion, like something out of opera, growing and swelling with each Yankee triumph, a first hate, as intoxicating in its way as a first love. Every time the Yankees lost, Kochivar wired the manager of the winning team and congratulated him. And early this year he bought space in The Sporting News to offer two weeks of Montana elk hunting to members of the team doing the most "to destroy the myth of Yankee invincibility."

As the season wore on and the Yankees skidded, Kochivar was kept busy wiring managers. When the Detroit Tigers beat the Yanks in a double-header May 3, he wired Jimmie Dykes twice in one day. On May 20 the Tigers took another from New York and dropped them to last place. This year Detroit beat the Yankees 14 times, more than any other team in the league. Kochivar took a poll in Great Falls, was delighted when his sample agreed with him that Detroit had "done most."