Word: raters
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Even in the hands of a second-rater, few stories can grip the American imagination so much as that of the pioneer, his hardships, his courage, his eccentricities. Once in a while, a really good writer retells it and then the pioneer's story seems as fresh as the land he settled. Such a writer is Conrad Richter, a 59-year-old Pennsylvanian who also spends part of his time in New Mexico. Though his novels lack the color of A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s The Way West (TIME, Oct. 17), they have an impressive honesty...
Last week's $2,000 top prize went to a competent 56-year-old second-rater named Edouard Goerg, whose Nativity with Birds was as sweet and fuzzy as spun candy. The second prize ($1,500), third prize ($1,000), and seven $750 honorable mentions all went to painters who were comparatively unknown in the U.S. Next autumn, Goerg's prizewinner will be brought to Manhattan to compete with U.S. entries for a $3,500 grand prize...
Well in advance, the fight had been labeled a "stinkeroo." Shuffling Jersey Joe Walcott, never a dashing crowd-pleaser, was old (35) and tired. His opponent, thin-mustached Ezzard Charles of Cincinnati, was young enough (27), but he was a second-rater without punch or drive. Just before they squared off in Chicago's Comiskey Park last week, a hanger-on wriggled in to where Joe Louis sat in the fourth row and asked breathlessly: "Champ, have you got a last-minute pick?" Deadpan Joe, the front man for boxing's new promotional monopoly, mumbled forthrightly...
...sensational flop. The Times-Leader did not want it; neither did any New York syndicate. On & off for nine years, while he worked for three Wilkes-Barre newspapers, Fisher tried without success to sell Dumbelletski, later renamed Palooka (a common prize ring term for a third rater). At last McNaught Syndicate offered Fisher a job, not as a cartoonist, but as a salesman. Hustling Ham sold McEvoy & Striebel's Dixie Dugan strip to 41 newspapers and promised that on his next trip he would bring the "most terrific cartoon of all time." With that buildup, he sold Palooka...
...Louis might have slipped as a fighter, but he had not lost his laconic candor. When a reporter asked if he thought Jersey Joe was a second-rater that night, Louis tapped his chest with his finger and said...