Whenever he wins a fight, Welterweight Jimmy ("Baby Face") McLarnin turns a handspring in his corner of the ring before he makes the conventional gesture of clasping his hands and shaking them over his head. The trick is significant; it seems to be the expression of Celtic characteristics which have endeared him to a public which likes its pugilists Irish. Billy ("Fargo Express") Petrolle is another kind of fighter. Three years older than McLarnin—26—his face is scarred and flattened by the beatings he has received in the course of a long and intermittently successful career. When they were matched in New...
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