Wolgast v. Bill

Joseph La Scalza, 21-year-old 110-lb. son of a Philadelphia carpenter with ten children, learned to be a floor-finisher but did not like the work. Four years ago he got a job sweeping out Jimmy Coster's gym in Philadelphia. He started to fight, changed his name to Midget Wolgast. Last week in Madison Square Garden he climbed into a ring and sat down facing a little Negro laconically known as Black Bill, the other finalist in a tournament conducted to decide the flyweight championship of New York and Philadelphia.

Black Bill bobbed smartly, threw a left hook, a straight right, flew off the ropes like a whirligig. Midget Wolgast danced round him in circles from left to right, his left hook working like the plunger of a sewing machine, his long hair flying. Every three or four rounds of the 15 that kept the crowd roaring, the Midget showed a new trick: breaking a wild flurry he would stand stock still, holding his left hand high until Black Bill led at it, then whacking his right across; he caught Bill in the air coming off the ropes as a trapshooter catches a clay pigeon; he reached down, took hold of the rope, pulled this way and that for quick turns; he pressed both gloves against his own stomach like a waiter making a bow, then flashed them up in furious rataplans to Black Bill's stomach and head. He won the championship. The crowd that cheered the decision went out comparing him to famed tiny fighters of the past-Midget Smith, Abe Attell, little Jack Sharkey--saying that once more the flyweight division was established as something to see.

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