LEWISTON — Bill Johnson was sitting with Rick Tonoli and John Campbell before the start of a banquet celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight in Lewiston when they wondered, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Ali to visit Tom Callahan at his home?” Callahan, a close friend and a […]
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Posted inLocal Sports
The Hot Corner: A lot to be said about Ali’s courageous life
It is an awkward exercise to eulogize a character who dwarfed sports and life in the manner of Muhammad Ali. Awkward and particularly painful, because we have spoken of Ali the athlete, social activist and cultural phenomenon in the past tense for decades, even as he quietly went about the business of making the planet […]
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Posted inNational Sports, sj-web
Video: Ali’s athletic greatness was just a platform for the larger man
Everybody my age can do the Ali Shuffle, it’s just a lot slower now. We can quote “Float Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee.” We can, probably, tell you where we were or how we felt when we learned Muhammad Ali’s fate in the Fight of the Century, the Rumble in the Jungle and […]
Posted inNational Sports, sj-web
Muhammad Ali’s boxing career
A data visualization and timeline of the boxing career of Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali: The Greatest Muhammad Ali, boxing champion and worldwide icon, dies at 74: Ali suffered for years from Parkinson’s disease, which ravaged his body but could never dim his larger-than-life presence. Ali’s athletic greatness was jus a platform for the larger man: Many will […]
Posted inNation / World, National Sports, sj-web
Photos: Muhammad Ali “I am the greatest”: 1942-2016
Muhammad Ali, who died Friday, June 3, was a national icon in and out of the boxing ring. This photo collection chronicles his life in the public eye. Muhammad Ali: The Greatest Muhammad Ali, boxing champion and worldwide icon, dies at 74: Ali suffered for years from Parkinson’s disease, which ravaged his body but could never […]
Posted inLocal Sports
Boxing: N.H. author to discuss “Phantom Punch” at Lewiston Public Library
The eyes of the sports world — trained two generations ago never to miss a bout for the one, the only, heavyweight championship — were fixed upon Lewiston shortly after 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 1965. If those eyes didn’t blink, perhaps they saw the short, stabbing right hand of Muhammad Ali connecting with the temple […]
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The Hot Corner: Special section for the ages not without phantom panic
So, true confession: I dreaded our Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston project, with the same fear and anxiety that accompany a root canal or aversion therapy that involves reptiles or rodents. Overreact much? Probably. The golden anniversary of this infamous shindig coming to Lewiston was worthy of hip-hooray and ballyhoo, of course. But there’s a diminishing returns […]
Posted inLocal Sports
SUN JOURNAL EXCLUSIVE: Never-before-seen photos from Ali, Liston training camps
LEWISTON — One of the defining moments of this project came late in the process, when Sun Journal Chief Photographer Russ Dillingham unearthed four tan, tattered, vertical envelopes, each with a typewritten date and description near the top crease. These never-before-printed photos from the recently uncovered negatives offer a rare glimpse into what training was like […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
‘That was a very, very disappointing performance. That little flick, a phantom punch. Bah!’
Former Lewiston Evening Journal Sports Editor Fred Gage worked for WLAM radio in 1965, and called the fight for the local AM station. These are his recollections of the fight and circumstances surrounding the events, as told to current Sports Editor Justin Pelletier in 2005. “The event itself was kind of a disaster, but the […]
Posted inLocal Sports
Ali-Liston: Memories of the moment
We asked, you answered. here are some of the memories you, the readers, shared with us when we asked for volunteers: “I was present at the Muhammad Ali fight. I did not see the knockout punch. However, on the next day, which was a Sunday, my family went to Holiday Inn in Auburn as we […]