Sometimes we need to remember not to project our values when look back at the game.

[Anthony342]

Surprised nobody mentioned Jack Dempsey. Maybe if the question was asked in the earlier 20s?

[QueensburyRules]

Read Ghost and then how I replied.

OK I'll make it easy for you.

Should the 1920s really be called the 'golden age of sport' or is that just us projecting back our own current values.

1928 School boys sure didn't seem to think it (sport) too important, at least not as important as I thought they would.

If I had given you the question and the year 1928 would you have predicted only one athlete, at the bottom of the list no less?

Maybe those million dollar gates and legendary fighters didn't reach as deep into the culture as CW sports history usually suggests.

- -Limited poll of Bellville, pop 50,000 with a few thousand school boys?

[Willie Pep 229]

- -Limited poll of Bellville, pop 50,000 with a few thousand school boys?

Yea, but in election polling they say if you can get an honest (truly random) sampling going, a mere 1,200 will get you to a margin of error inside of 2%.

Don't see why a small town in New Jersey shouldn't offer a pretty decent (American temperament) random sampling.

Essex County is a New York City suburb; which includes Newark.

BTW Wikipedia has its pop at a mere 27,000 for 1930; its an old town established sometime before 1850.

[Bundana]

Should the 1920s really be called the 'golden age of sport' or is that just us projecting back our own current values.

That's a very interesting question.

It reminds me of the Woody Allen movie "Midnight in Paris" - where the main character (Owen Wilson) dreams about the glory days of Paris in the 1920s. And when he suddenly finds himself transported back to that time - he's flabbergasted to find, that people back then wish they had experienced Paris in the 1880s. Which to them represented a truly magical time - the real golden age!

I guess, it has always been like that - people thinking that the old days were better.

[ron davis]

Excellent. The USA was Great in 1940's -1960's now it's something else. I would like to have been General Patton or Tommy Loughran a bit earlier. "God Bless America."