By Lyle Fitzsimmons - It’s never easy for the second guy.
Whether the former entity was spectacular, mediocre or merely notorious, the latter to come down an assigned pathway with a similar surname is almost always – subconsciously or no – painted with a brush that’s unfairly similar to the one that went before him.
For example, my older brother, Mitchell – 19 months my senior – and I couldn’t be more different.
In fact, in each other’s social circles, we stand out like grotesquely disfigured thumbs.
While I’d be happy to spend fall/winter Sundays with a cheering the maddening fortunes of the New York Jets, he’s much more content to spend the time with a fishing pole or rummaging under the hood of his latest late ’60s-era muscle-car reclamation project.
And as he climbed the ladder two grades ahead of me during our shared days at Niagara-Wheatfield Senior High School, let’s just say the ground he tilled in front of me was, well… memorable.
So even though I trudged toward graduation with a little less one-on-one attention from the folks in the principal’s office, each step I took was nonetheless viewed through a “look out for him, he’s so-and-so’s little brother” prism.
In some small way, it’s a similar daily grind for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Son of a multi-division champion and Canastota-enshrined Hall of Famer, the soon-to-be 26-year-old product of Culiacan, Mexico climbed an interminable ladder of progress from his debut at age 17 to his initial title opportunity in fight No. 44 eight years later.
Upon arrival on the big stage, the responses were predictable… if not pleasant.
Rather than lauding his admission to a fraternity the old man reached 26 years earlier at 130 pounds, the reviews on Junior leaned far closer to skeptical – both for the reed-thin verdict over Sebastian Zbik and the legitimacy of the belt it yielded in a division seen as the domain of Sergio Martinez.
