Dempsey wins popularity poll over Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (1928)

Not until Ali - not even with Louis - was Dempsey matched in Boxing for public image. There are newspaper clippings of his fights from friggin’ New Zealand! In the ’20’s!

 

That's a very cool article. There was no pro basketball and pro football was in it's infancy. Baseball and boxing dominated .... I might have been born about 75 years too late.

 

A remarkable 1928 snapshot of who was popular in sports. Had the poll been taken three years earlier, Dempsey wouldn't have fared quite this well. The public liked him better after Tunney licked him. It's noteworthy that not a single black athlete made this list. With the exploits of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, sentiments would begin to change in the next decade.

 

Dempsey being more popular than Ruth is a fact I mentioned far too often.

 

You don't appreciate what you have until its gone.

By the time of this poll the title is vacant, and that makes Dempsey, and to a lesser extent Tunney look good.

 

People liked Ali a lot better after he lost to Frazier in the FOTC also.

It seems some people need to see certain athletes/celebrities taken down a peg or two before they afford them due credit.

Perhaps many view adversity/defeat (and coming back from same) as being the true litmus test for a person’s character.

 

Melankomas, this board wouldn't be half as interesting without you. You add a different dimension and I, for one, appreciate it.

 

Here are the votes to be clear
1--Jack Dempsey 671,525
2--Babe Ruth 324,500
3--Gene Tunney 217,455
4--Lou Gehrig 140,315
5--Bobby Jones 139,495
6--Red Grange 137,097
7--Helen Wills 132,745
8--Paul Waner 104,890
9--Walter Hagen 104,880
10-Walter Johnson 31,000

Printed in Des Moines Register on January 27, 1928

Comments:

The date favors Dempsey. There had to be some time to run the poll, so this only a few months after the Long Count. It is possible that Dempsey is doing the best here he could ever do, because of the sympathy reaction to the fight (watch the Laurel-Hardy take on this fight in the short The Battle of the Century to see how this knockdown was viewed)

1----Gehrig--actually does pretty well as he had only been a major league player for 3 years and a star one.
2----Jones and Hagen. Golfers. Surprised they got this many votes.
3----Helen Wills. Female tennis player. Somewhat surprised she made this list.
4----Walter Johnson. Had retired.
5----Red Grange. I imagine would have done better a few years earlier when he was at the U of Illinois.

Does anyone know who voted? Where this poll was held? If the Des Moines Register ran it, it is not likely to have had votes from the big eastern cities such as New York in which major league baseball was most popular.

*Dempsey was the most popular and best known ex-athlete when I was young. Ruth had died.

**It would be more impressive if Dempsey could have won such a poll in 1930 or so after the Long Count controversy had died down.

Still interesting.

 

If they opened it up to non-humans, there probably would have been a couple of horses place in the top 10 during that period. Horse racing was super popular.

 

So popular they brought over the horse guy to call boxing fights over the radio

 

I think you are talking about Clem McCarthy. He did a radio call of the Schmeling-Louis rematch along with many other fights.

 

I know, I've hunted down some of the tracks to work them into the fights. Highlights of the Braddock - Louis fight exist with Clem's broadcast intact but I haven't been able to find the whole recording.

 

You ever think it’s suspicious Lou Gehrig got Lou Gehrig’s disease?