Hagler-Hearns Bout Brings Out the Best in a Writer’s Arsenal

What a piece by Richard Hoffer on the Hagler-Hearns fight. Beautiful! Hemingway must be thrashing about in envy. He never did it as well. “ . . . and he traded until he had no more to offer, until his legs betrayed him, until Hagler bombed him on the top of the head with a lurching overhand right, sending him reeling to the floor, soon flat on his back. . . . “

That’s better than “50 Grand.”

“The night began as a cultural affair. . . . “

So elegant. So stylish. I remember that story of Hemingway’s about all the kids coming to Madrid and wanting to be bullfighters and they were practicing in this cafe after hours with the butcher knives bound to chair legs to act as horns, and the last line “ . . . and the knife went in him, in him, Paco.”

Congratulations to Richard Hoffer.

BEN MESSELINK

Pacific Palisades