Morning Bytes: The polarizing power of Ali-Frazier

If the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight had taken place now instead of 40 years ago this week, America wouldn't just be red and blue when it was over. It would be black and blue.

Time and technology have so amplified our polarization that a sporting event generating the level of political passion Ali-Frazier did likely would precipitate a national nervous breakdown.

Today, the two sides to perhaps the most hyped boxing match ever would, with the assistance of a ubiquitous, greedy media, be at each other's throats 24/7.

Things were only slightly tamer on March 8, 1971, when the 31-0 Ali met the 26-0 Frazier in the Fight of the Century at Madison Square Garden. There was more than a heavyweight title at stake. The matchup of these boxers, diametrically opposed in style and image, was a cultural referendum, one that pitted angry American against ugly American.

The dashing, garrulous Ali, who had been jailed and stripped of his title because he had refused induction into the military on religious grounds, was the anti-establishment's darling. If you were in college, had long hair or an Afro, were pro-civil rights and anti-Vietnam War, you were in his corner. For them, Frazier's fans were fascist pigs.

The plodding, tongue-tied Frazier was, by default if for no other reason, the conservative choice. Your parents pulled for Frazier. So did policemen, businessmen, and anyone who had voted Nixon into the White House 28 months earlier or soon would make Frank Rizzo Philly's next mayor. For them, Ali-backers were hippie, Commie traitors.

Imagine how neatly those two camps would fit into the 21st century's un-civil war.

Every radio and TV talk show would be fanning the flames continually. Fox would be painting Frazier red, white, and blue. MSNBC would be beatifying Ali. YouTube would be teeming with videos of flag-burning Ali fans, baby-killing Frazier supporters, and clashes between the two. There would be polls, provocations, and plenty of poison.

In 1971, if you desired, you at least could escape the Ali-Frazier noise. You simply could avoid the evening news and the editorial pages. Oh, you might still catch John Wayne or Paul Newman revealing their choice on The Tonight Show - eliciting a roaring response from their portion of the audience - but that was relatively innocent and good-natured.

The cocoons of like-minded opinion we occupy so arrogantly now weren't so snug back then.

Not so many years ago, I was amazed when a neighbor who had grown up in rural Ohio told me he hadn't known anyone who wasn't pulling for Frazier. For me, a college student in Philadelphia, the opposite was true. All my friends and Temple classmates were Ali supporters.

Were the two of us really so insulated from the other side? Or did we merely assume what we didn't know - that everyone who mattered felt the same way we did?

In any event, in 2011, we'd have no such doubts.

The week of the fight, I was visiting a friend at the University of Michigan. We watched it in Crisler Arena, surrounded, not surprisingly, by a raucously pro-Ali crowd.

I remember watching on the big screen as the camera showed MSG spectators Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, Burt Lancaster, and Norman Mailer. Because it was believed he was a Frazier man, Sinatra's image drew boos. Conversely, Mailer and Allen were cheered. But when Lancaster's face popped up there was this strange interlude of uncertainty - some boos, some cheers.

Nobody knew whom Lancaster supported.

Today we'd know. One side would boycott his movies. The other would use him to raise funds.

Anyway, it turned out to be a great fight. Ali was still rusty and lacked stamina. He won the early rounds, but Frazier, boring down on him nonstop, persisted. He knocked Ali down late and won a unanimous decision. Both fighters took a physical pounding.

"The uglier, less interesting man had triumphed," James Rosen wrote of that fight this week in the New York Post, "and therein proved himself as beautiful and profound as Ali, mere mortal."

The Invincible Ali's defeat stung for a while. But eventually, he would defeat Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila, the war would end, and both sides would forget how angry and adamant they were.

In 2011, I'm not sure we'd heal so quickly.

Take that, Don Cherry. The we-never-learn NHL is making progress on the goon front.

This week, it was a European player, Slovak Zdeno Chara of Boston, who seriously injured an opponent, Montreal's Max Pacioretty, with a dirty hit. Chara was not suspended.

For the NHL, things, as Canadiens coach Jacques Martin said after the hit, seem to be "getting worse and worse."

Talks may move to Midwest. If the NFL owners don't coax an agreement out of the players' union by week's end, they may bring in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Phils' medical secrets. Chase Utley's knee injury answers a lot of questions about the fitful, up-and-down seasons the Phillies second baseman has endured the last few years.

Any other medical news the Phillies care to share?

Does Ryan Howard's fanny hurt while he is fanning so often?

Is Brad Lidge's rotator cuff badly frayed?

Is Jimmy Rollins' hip(-hop) in need of surgical mending?

Is Roy Oswalt's tongue tied?

How long can Joe Blanton keep his chin up?

From the always chock-full "we're not making this up" file comes word that someone is selling the hearse that carried Dale Earnhardt's body to a North Carolina funeral home in 2001. Price: $1.5 million.

The 1996 Lincoln has 115,679 miles, an automatic transmission, eight-cylinder engine, and a tape deck. It also reportedly corners like a dream and runs tight even when it gets totally sideways.

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