Author David Margolick, in his definitive account of that evening entitled, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink, wrote:

“The fight implicated both the future of race relations and the prestige of two powerful nations.  Each fighter was bearing on his shoulders more than any athlete ever had.  One didn’t need to be an anthropologist to know there had never been anything like it, or a soothsayer to know there would never be anything like it again.  If Louis won, no rivalry on the horizon could possibly generate as much excitement.  And with Europe and, inevitably, America, on the brink of war, the world would soon enough have more than prizefights on its mind.”

If you ever get a chance to see a film of the fight that night, try to find the audio of the radio broadcast by NBC’s Clem McCarthy as well.  His gravel-voiced blow-by-blow description turns the ear into an eye.  Joe Louis was ready this time – he knew what he was fighting for and he didn’t want to waste any time.

Seven seconds into the bout, Joe Louis snapped the head of his opponent back with a left-jab, then another, and another.  Later opponents would suggest that Louis’ jab wasn’t an Ali-type flick, but more like putting a light bulb against your face, then breaking it.  Thirteen seconds later he had Schmeling on the ropes.  McCarthy could hardly keep up:

“And Louis hooks a left to Max’s head quickly! And shoots over a hard right to Max’s head!  Louis, a left to Max’s jaw!   A right to his head!  Louis with the old one-two!  First the left and then the right!  He’s landed more blows in this one round than he landed in any five rounds of the other fight!”

You get the picture. 

In two minutes and four seconds it was over.  But no one felt cheated.  There were no catcalls that might usually accompany a lop-sided battle.   Referee Arthur Donovan later said: “A referee lives a lifetime in two minutes like that.” 

So does a nation.

The rest is history.   The defeat of the German in the ring didn’t slow the world’s long slide into war – nor could it have.   Louis went on to fight again and again and again, defending his title successfully fifteen more times before December 7, 1941.   Schmeling went home in disgrace.  Nazis didn’t like it when someone from their master race got beat up by a black man.  

A few months after the fight, on November 9, 1938, as Nazis terrorized Jewish businesses and houses of worship during Kristallnacht, Max Schmeling sheltered two Jewish young people in his hotel suite in Berlin. 

Joe Louis served his country in uniform during the war and emerged after to continue his career, though the clock was running out on his days of glory.  He died in 1981, and Max Schmeling, who lived to be just seven months shy of a hundred years old, died in 2005.

Their brief, but explosive meeting in June of 1938 at Yankee Stadium captured the attention of the world and imagination of our nation.  So, as the great ballpark fades – and the new replaces the old – it should be remembered as a place for more than baseball.