Hope He Has The Greatest 50th Birthday

Muhammad Ali’s face haunts us now. It remains unlined and youthful as always, but it is also often frozen, expressionless . . . painfully slow to break into the smile we remember so well.

It almost hurts to recall that great smile, the flashing eyes, the audacity and the energy level of the young man from those years when he told us he was the greatest . . . long before we knew he really was.

Today, on his 50th birthday, Morning Briefing is all about Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, the boy, the man and his career.

The Mayo report: Many have assumed that Ali’s illness, diagnosed as Parkinson’s syndrome, appeared after his boxing career. But in his 1991 book, “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times,” Thomas Hauser traces the path of Ali’s illness and suggests that the slow speech and faltering movements Ali shows today were visible when he boxed.

He also raises the question of how a neurological examination of Ali could have sailed through the Nevada Athletic Commission in 1980, as the commission was considering allowing Ali, then 38, to fight Larry Holmes.

Some of Ali’s friends had begun to notice changes in his speech. They urged him to undergo an exam. So in June, 1980, he had a two-day checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Hauser obtained a copy of the doctors’ report. An excerpt:

“Other than occasional tingling of the hands in the morning when he awakens, which clears promptly with movement of the hands, he denied any other neurologic symptoms.

” . . . (Ali) seems to have a mild ataxic dysarthria (difficulty controlling the facial muscles in speech).

“The remainder of his examination is normal except that he does not quite hop with the agility that one might anticipate and on finger-to-nose testing there is a slight degree of missing the target. Both of these tests could be significantly influenced by fatigue.

“There is no specific finding that would prohibit him from engaging in further prizefights.”

Concluded Hauser: “The Mayo Clinic report was billed as clearing Ali to fight, when in fact it raised far more questions than it answered.”

Ali trivia time: What foreign head of state once threatened Ali with a gun?

Fame check: Dawn Pacheco, daughter of Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, longtime physician and friend of Ali, was around Ali constantly in her youth. She recalled a 1967 incident in a Miami ghetto:

“My dad, Ali and my brother and I were in the car when Dad drove to his office one day. He told all of us to stay in the car, that he would be right back.

“When he was out of sight, Ali turned to us and said: ‘Want to see how famous I am? Watch, I’m going to walk down this sidewalk, I won’t talk or wave. Watch what happens.’

“Well, he started walking and people just came from all directions, out of stores, out of cars. . . . Then a city bus stopped, right in traffic. He boarded the bus through the front door, walked through the bus, came out the back door . . . and everyone on the bus filed out after him.

“In just a couple of minutes, there were about 3,000 people around him, chanting, ‘Champ! Champ!’

“I was 9 years old then. I’ve never forgotten it.”

An old man remembers: Eddie Futch, at 80 one of boxing’s senior trainers, remembers the first time he saw Ali:

“One day in 1962, I went down to the Main Street Gym in Los Angeles when Ali was getting ready for a fight at the Olympic Auditorium.

“He sparred with Curly Lee, a good young heavyweight. Ali played with Curly Lee. I was highly impressed because he handled a seasoned pro like he was an amateur.”

Add Futch: Futch now trains heavyweight prospect Riddick Bowe. On the subject of young boxers imitating Ali’s style, Futch said: “I told Bowe, ‘I don’t want you to be a second-rate Muhammad Ali, I want you to be a first-rate Riddick Bowe.’ ”

Add Dawn Pacheco: “I’ll never forget the night Ali fought Earnie Shavers in Madison Square Garden. I was a teen-ager. We all walked across the street from our hotel to the fighters’ Garden entrance, and there was an enormous crowd waiting to see Ali.

“There was a terrible crush of people at the door, people yelling, ‘Hey, champ!’ The crush was so awful, I got separated from everyone. I was terrified. And when I saw the door close behind them while I was still outside, I started crying.

“Then the door opened, and there was Ali, looking angry. He pointed at me and shouted: ‘Get me that little girl! Bring her here and don’t anyone hurt her!’

“So I was passed through the crowd, and through the door.”

Trivia answer: Idi Amin of Uganda. According to Mark Kram, who is finishing a book on Ali, Amin threatened Ali at a 1970s state dinner in Uganda. “Amin wanted to fight him, and he was serious,” Kram said. “Ali refused, and Amin pointed a gun at him. Ali said something to break the tension, and then Amin dropped the gun into a bowl of soup, and began to laugh.”

Quotebook: Ali, upon meeting then-President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines in 1975 in Manila: “You’re not as dumb as you look. I saw your wife (Imelda Marcos).”