However, McGeehan’s coinage of sports epithets led the field, his phrases far outnumbering those of Tad. The fight game was McGeehan’s richest source, although his dubbing of Notre Dame football players as the “Fighting Irish” is probably the most memorable nickname he ever created. Among his most popular descriptions of boxing were “The Manly Art Of Modified Murder,” and “The Cauliflower Industry.” The “Scrambled Egg Brigade” he applied to fighters in general. In the area of particularization, one of his best-remembered tags is the one he hung on Primo Carnera: “The Tall Tower Of Gorgonzola.” “The Battle Of What Of It” he applied to any fight that he judged to be worthless. “The Ex-Millionaires Hole,” was the name he gave to the Madison Square Garden Bowl, after the Depression depleted the fortunes of many of the directors of the Garden. “The Boy Bandit,” was his epithet for Jimmy Johnston, while “The Exploiter of Pachyderm,” was Jack Curley’s designation. * * * * * When boxing was attacked in the New York State Legislature in 1921, and it looked like the sport would receive its death blow from the Governor, McGeehan, Damon Runyon, Bill McBeth, George B. Underwood, Charles F. Mathison and I, went up to Albany to plead for the continuation of boxing. We were fortified with facts to prove the sport was conducted on as high a plane as any other. McGeehan, known in our circle as “the Sheriff,” made the hit of the meeting when he spoke up: “Prize fighting, Governor, is not a sport. It is a gigantic business. As a business, I dare say it is conducted as honestly as American politics or the average business, and I venture to say, a little more honestly than the stockmarket. Every profession has its crooks, its gamblers, its undesirables, even the profession of politics. Then why condemn boxing and whitewash all other business? “Prize fights today are merely entertainments staged for the box office. The sporting element went out when the business became legal and respectable. If this legislature should kill boxing, it would do a gross injustice to hundreds of boys who are engaged in it as a profession; to managers who handle them; and to the promoters who hire them for the public’s entertainment. Such action will result in only one thing—boxing will go back to the bootlegging days.” So impressed was the Governor with that statement that you could read his thoughts as he absorbed every word McGeehan uttered. McGeehan was dubbed by his fellow writers as “the man with the fighting pen.” He waged war on crookedness in every branch of athletics, as do my good friends Dan Parker and Jimmy Cannon today.