Blog 14-Jimmy Cannon

            One of the most well-known sports writers, Jimmy Cannon, began his career at age 15 when he dropped out of school to be a copy boy. Cannon wrote for the Daily News and the Journal American. He was known as the voice of New York City itself, with the ability to rouse emotion in his readers. He is also credited with founding a new type of journalism in the 1940’s. He was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame and also awarded the Red Smith Award for his sports writing. Cannon’s writing is descriptive and at times poetic which we see in “Lethal Lightning.”

            “Lethal Lightning” documents the 1945 boxing fight between Joe Louis and Billy Conn. He uses literary techniques and a unique style of writing to make the story different.

            Cannon starts out with a description of a morphine-induced hallucination about the black night creeping into his brain. He then goes on to incorporate this into the knockout of Conn. He tells the reader in the second paragraph,

            “I remember the last night in the Yankee Stadium when Joe Louis knocked out Billy Conn in the eighth round of a fight that had been tautly dull.”

            He then goes to incorporate the blackness motif into the situation,

            “I felt the old dream coming from a long way off and finding not me, but Billy Conn, who lay in the spurious day of the ring lights and had the aching blackness all to himself.”

            Cannon then goes to tell the story of the fight and thread the darkness motif throughout the story.

            He never comes up front and tells the reader that Louis was much bigger and more intimidating than Conn, but through his descriptions, the reader gets the idea. He describes Conn in a “green-bordered satin bathrobe” entering the ring with his manager who “layed his flabby white arm along the rope and looked into Conn’s face as though he were trying to remember the features before they were destroyed.” He then describes Louis as “big in his flashy red-edged blue robe of silk…moving in the wind of the night.” This is a much more intimidating description. Louis was almost 40 pounds heavier than Conn at the time of the fight, which Cannon never tells us and doesn’t have to.

            He uses status detail to report the fighters and also the observers. For example he points out the “thick cord of fat hanging off his belly when he moved” of Conn which accentuates his weaknesses. The details he used made Conn seem weaker, older and softer than Louis.

            He contrasts the two fighters as the “agile scientist” and the “ignoramus of the ring with nothing but strength.” And later in the story as “big man” and “little man.” Conn being the smaller man who had to strategically place punches and use his moves to try and outsmart the slower but stronger Louis.

            Cannon uses interesting metaphors other than the darkness throughout the piece such as Louis catching punches like snowballs thrown by a child.

            Cannon uses dialogue to present the personalities of the fighters in the end. For example he records Conn saying “I should re-enlist in the army I was so lousy tonight.”

            I think the purpose of this piece is to entertain, not simply just report. Cannon creates a more descriptive piece for readers, which was not common in 1940’s sports writing.

            My question for the class is: What are your opinions on NFL games being “blacked out” for increase ticket revenue and does this create the need for a more literary and descriptive type of sports writing?