Ali Shows Why He’s the Greatest

A moment in the life of Muhammad Ali ...

He stood in the summer sun of a Michigan afternoon.

He said, “No traffic.”

He was at home on his farm at little Berrien Springs. It’s a beautiful place near Lake Michigan. Ali has owned the land 27 years. He used to say it had been Al Capone’s retreat. Maybe so. Now it’s more famous.

Ali turned his face to the sun.

He said, “No people.”

He is 61 years old. His last fight was in 1981. And a sad night that was. Fight officials in the Bahamas couldn’t find a ring bell. So they went to a man’s pickup truck and came back with a cow bell.

That night Ali lost to someone whose name meant little then and less now. Some careers end with a whimper. The greatest of all time’s ended with a cow bell’s pig-iron clank.

Now Ali stood looking up at the sky.

He said, “Quiet.”

He had left his office to walk in the sun and silence to a gym next door. The month had been a busy one. He had been to Ireland with Nelson Mandela to open the international Special Olympics. He had been in Washington, D.C., and New York and Philadelphia. It’s a full-time job being an icon.

Now he was home. No traffic. No people. Quiet.

He wore a pink golf shirt and blue jeans and black sneakers. The shirt and jeans hung loose. He has grown a mustache. There are touches of gray in his mustache and hair. One suspects coloring has been done. Whatever. He looks good.

Some medicine had made him hungry all the time. His weight rose to 268 pounds. It’s now 222.

That’s near his weight when he was the most beautiful athlete I ever saw or will see. His face has lost the bloat that exacerbated the mask-like countenance of Parkinson’s patients. There again is that imp’s twinkle in his eye.

I saw it first when he dumped a bin full of magic tricks onto his office floor. He picked through cards and dice and handkerchiefs until he found three ropes of unequal lengths.

He took them into his hands. His fingers are almost pianist fine. They tremble now with age and disease. But with those fingers he manipulated the ropes. Now the ropes hung from his hand. They were all the same length.

“See?” he said. Magic had happened.

Then he tossed the ropes onto the floor.

More magic. The ropes were again different lengths. He said, “See?” And there was the twinkle.

He once talked quickly at a high volume for the fun of it. Now he talks slowly and no more than necessary. His voice is airy and soft. He picked up the ropes. He said, “Can’t deceive you.”

He says that as a Muslim he obeys a Koran edict forbidding trickery. So every time he does his magic he also explains how he did it. He turned his body so I could see how he manipulated the ropes. He passed an end through a loop. Another end hooked around a finger. Presto.

Every morning at home he comes to a building marked by the sign “G.O.A.T. Offices.” (Greatest Of All Time Offices.) Near Ali’s desk is a piece of crystal identifying him as No. 3 on a list of the 20th century’s greatest athletes.

No. Sorry. No sale here. Boxing can be barbaric. It also is the most demanding spectator sport. Only boxing asks an athlete to be supremely fit while playing offense and defense simultaneously with life at stake.

Others can argue for Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth. I argue that the greatest fighter ever is, by extension, the greatest athlete ever. My list begins with Ali. Maybe another fighter moved with Ali’s grace and speed and elusiveness. Maybe Sugar Ray Robinson had quicker hands. Maybe someone fought with more courage. All of that I doubt.

We walked from Ali’s office to a gym next door.

On the walls are photographs of Ali over Sonny Liston and alongside Howard Cosell. There is a ring with red ropes. Around the ring are arrayed state-of-the-art workout machines.

I asked Ali how much he works out. He put the tip of his index finger against the tip of his thumb to form a zero. Then he had a second thought. He raised the tip of his finger just enough to let light pass between it and his thumb.

We walked past the gleaming machines to a row of heavy punching bags hanging by chains. He slid his hands into punching-bag gloves. He shoved a bag with his left hand to put it into motion. He hit it with a right. Then a jab and a second and another right.

The speed of his punches increased. Their music quickened. The bag swayed to and fro. He hadn’t done this for a while. This man who has trouble walking threw punches from a classic fighter’s stance. Not a wobble.

And no sooner did he draw his left back from a jab than he started a hook rising from his waist. The hook came scary-quick. It thumped against the big bag.

I swear he never looked better.