[legendsport]

Birmingham AL: August 2, 1912:

"We should tell them."

Joe Barrell opened his eyes. "That's a bad idea," he said.

Though his back was turned, he felt her roll towards him. "I don't like this sneaking around," Edna said.

Joe sighed and flopped onto his back. "Your father would kill me. And if he didn't, then your mother probably would," he said as he stared at the cracked ceiling.

Joe and Edna were in a small and dingy hotel room in Birmingham. The night before Joe had fought an unbeaten young fighter named Jimmy Shoemaker at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. The giant, barn-like structure had been filled with rowdy fight fans from three states. The promoter, who went by the unlikely moniker of Slim Stanley (unlikely because the man weighed something far north of 300 pounds) had billed the card as the "Best of Three States" with bouts featuring a slew of unbeaten fighters from Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Joe and Shoemaker were the first bout, and they did fit the card's requirements: Joe, billed as being from Georgia to hide his "Yankee roots" was 5-0, Shoemaker, from Tennessee, was 7-0.

Whatever the fans were expecting from the first fight, it's unlikely that was what they ended up getting. Joe, angry with Cooter for dragging him all the way to Birmingham when there were plenty of fights to be had in Georgia, charged out of his corner, landed five straight shots to Shoemaker's face and then dropped him with a vicious cross. Six punches, all of them landing, and a knockout. As the referee counted Shoemaker out, you could have heard a pin drop in the big barn. Joe had stunned the raucous crowd into silence. As for Shoemaker, he had a broken jaw. "That was one of the nastiest punches I've ever seen," is how Rube described it to Joe while they watched the main event later that night.

Edna had watched the fight as well - and snuck to Joe's room in the wee hours of the night, excited by what she had seen.

But now she was being unreasonable.

"Look, you turn eighteen in what, a week?" she asked. Edna was slightly older than Joe, having turned eighteen back in May, a fact she had pointed out to him on more than one occasion.

"Yeah," Joe replied as he watched an insect crawl across the ceiling. "Eight days, actually."

"Well, it's time to be a man and tell my father what's going on."

He turned towards her, a worried frown on his face. For a moment he just stared into her eyes, as he sought a way to explain himself.

Just as he was about to speak, someone started pounding on the door.

"What the heck?" he groused as he got off the bed, grabbing a ratty robe from a chair and heading for the door. As he crossed the room, he gave Edna a look. With a scowl, she ducked under the blankets. He'd be hearing about it later, he thought as he reached the door.

He pulled the door open to find Cooter standing there with a giant grin on his face.

"Cooter! It's way too early in the morning..." Joe began. Cooter pushed past him into the room.

"Edna, you can quit hidin' - I know you're there," Cooter said and gave the bed a kick. Edna squeaked and pulled the blanket down uncovering her head.

"Aww, y'all can wipe those guilty looks off your faces. Your great romance ain't no secret."

The color drained from Joe's face. "Rube knows?" he asked.

"Naw, he don't know," Cooter said, then turning to Edna, "but your ma knows." Edna's eyes widened in shock.

Cooter turned back to Joe with a sly grin on his face and said, "I'd strongly advise that you tell Rube sooner rather than later, son."

Joe's eyes were wide and his mouth open as he tried to process this surprising news.

Cooter started chuckling. "And that ain't even what I came here to tell you!"

Joe forced himself to focus. "OK? What is it?"

"How would you like to fight in the Bigsby Oval?" Cooter asked, an enormous smile on his face.

Shocked, Joe was momentarily speechless. Edna beat him to the punch: "What do you mean fight at the Bigsby Oval?"

Cooter was nearly jumping up and down in excitement. "Well, while Joe and Rube were watching Olsen and Cameron last night, I was talking with Sam Bigsby himself."

Joe shook his head. "Sam Bigbsy? The last name is familiar of course, but I have no idea who that is, Cooter."

Cooter shook his head. "I swear sometimes I think if your brains was dynamite you still couldn't blow your nose."

"Cooter...."

"Aw all right," Cooter said with a wink. "Sam's the grandson of old man Bigsby. Not Miles - the other one - Charlie. The one what went to prison for being crookeder than a barrel full of snakes? Sam's daddy, Charlie Junior? He runs the baseball team with Uncle Miles, but Sam... he handles all the other, he called 'em 'special' events they hold at the Oval. I think that includes stuff like circuses and football games, and assorted other Yankee tomfoolery."

Joe was making a rolling motion with his hand.

"Yeah, yeah, don't be impatient," Cooter scolded mildly before continuing, "As I was sayin' - I was chatting with Sam and he said they're putting on some kind of big fight card at the Oval to go with Richie Brown's first title defense. The fight's on September 12th."

Joe said, "Richie Brown?"

Cooter looked up at the ratty ceiling. "Lord, deliver me from the uninformed and stupid."

"Cooter...."

"Look, son, you can't be a pro fighter and be completely oblivious to the rest of the sport. Brown's the new heavyweight champ? He's from New York? Bigsby's putting this big fight card together for his defense. That place holds about fifty thousand people. You understand what I'm saying?"

Cooter gave him as serious a look as he ever had before and Joe was stunned into silence - again. He knew the Oval was big. Heck, it was the place his dad's baseball career began - and ended - on that fateful day two decades earlier.

Edna spoke up again. "So, who'd he be fighting?"

Cooter shrugged. "I don't know. Another young hot shot, I suppose. Probably someone from up there to give it a little local flavor. Bigsby didn't really say. He just saw what Joe did to Shoemaker," he pointed at Joe and then continued, "and he also knew that you flattened Wilkins in the first back in Charlotte. He likes 'big hitters' is how he said it - like he was talking about a baseball player or something, trying to be cute. And he remembers your father, he said. But none of that matters - this is a chance to get your ugly mug some serious exposure, son!"

Edna nearly jumped out of bed in her desire to hug Joe in celebration - but she remembered just how little she was wearing. Cooter, seeing the aborted leap, gave a comical double lift of his eyebrows and then walked out of the room, saying, "Remember what I said, son! Tell Rube before the missus does!"