Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [86]
Like a bridge player, who can remember every important hand he held in a rubber of bridge five or ten years back, a cockfighter can remember the details of every pitting in an important cockfight. The details of the two-entry main between Jack Burke and myself are still as vivid in my mind as if it were held ten minutes ago. But I like the way Tex Higdon reported the event in The American Gamefowl Quarterly.
Tex had been reporting cockfights for game-fowl magazines for twenty years or more, and he's a topflight pit reporter. And yet, hardly a season goes by when Tex doesn't get into one or two fistfights for his pains. His way of writing rubs a lot of high-strung cockfighters the wrong way, especially when they are on the receiving end of his sarcasm. But his reporting is conscientious when it comes to accuracy. It takes a damned good eye to catch fast action in the pit. The following is a tear sheet of his article from The American Gamefowl Quarterly:
Red Heels At Plant City!
by Tex Higdon
Plant City Florida, November 31—If you're looking for the results of the Southern Conference Plant City Derby, held November 30th, you'd better look elsewhere in these pages. This Texan is reporting the Main between the two master cockers, Jack Burke and silent Frank Mansfield. By the way, folks, Frank has gone out and got himself a partner after all these years, a New York country boy with the worst looking black beard your reporter has seen in a month of Sundays. It's a good thing Frank don't talk anymore. His new sidekick, Omar Baradinsky, does enough talking for three cockfighters!
The Main was a real old-fashioned-type event, well worth staying over for in Plant City another day. I wish we had more mains like this one, or at least more mains. This is an old cockpit, but there's plenty of room for three hundred people. The main pit is below ground, the way they ought to be; there are plenty of cockhouses, and clean latrines for visitors, plus a drag pit that's better than most regular pits I've seen at supposedly high-class game clubs. Pit operator-referee Tom Doyle sells toasted cheese sandwiches for a dollar apiece, and that's an outrage, but as long as people buy them, he'll probably keep the same price. Next time I visit Plant City, this Texas boy will bring his own lunch!
Referee Tom Doyle announced right off: “If you people violate our rules, have yourself a few too many drinks and get tough, you're just right for me to handle!” Tom Doyle is big enough for the crowd to believe him. They were downright cowed, and hip pints were well hidden.
There were three checkweights, 5:00, 6:05, and shake, as set up by Jack Burke. Frank won the toss and decided to fight from bottom weights up. Twenty-six cocks were shown by both cockers and thirteen fell in.
No. One. Both show 5:00 cocks, Burke a Brady Roundhead, Mansfield an Allen Roundhead. Frank broke through early and then slowed up about the 12th pitting. He was blinded in the 20th right after they went to breast on the time call. The Brady was a hardhead that kept trying, took plenty of punishment, and broke counts as fast as the Allen Roundhead took them. In the 48th pitting Jack Burke won with a down cock that got the count and kept it while his opponent breathed gently down his neck but quit pecking.
No. Two. Burke a 5:01 Claret cross; Mansfield a 5:02 Mellhorn Black. This was a bang-up 1st pitting, followed by a dozen dirty buckles in the 2nd. Frank had the best cutter, and in the 18th Jack stayed put on his score. When they went to breast in the 25th the Mellhorn Black kicked like a taxpayer and won in the 30th when Burke carried his bird out.
No. Three. Burke showed an Alabama Pumpkin (if I ever saw one) bred by his brother Freddy in Vero Beach. 5:08. Mansfield a Middleton Gray, 5:06. Frank had a great shuffler that wasn't even touched. He was over the Burke chicken in the 1st pitting like a short-circuited electric blanket, uncoupled him in the 2nd, and won in the 5th when Burke carried out a dead one. This made the Gray