1921 | Sports
Sports
Spanish bullfighter Juan Belmonte retires at age 29 after matador Manuel Granero is killed in the ring at Madrid in May, but the millionaire founder of modern bullfighting will return several times before finally devoting himself exclusively to breeding bulls for the corrida.
Boxing has its first $1 million gate July 2 in a hastily erected stadium at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City, where heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey defeats French challenger Georges Carpentier by a fourth-round knockout. Now 27, the handsome Carpentier won the world light-heavyweight title from Battling Levinsky in a Jersey City bout held October 20 of last year and Tex Rickard of Madison Square Garden has promoted the bout with Dempsey. It begins at just after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, draws more than 90,000 spectators, who pay $1.7 million for tickets, and earns $300,000 for Dempsey, $215,000 for Carpentier.
Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen win the singles titles at Wimbledon, Tilden and Mrs. Mallory the U.S. titles at the West Side Tennis Club courts in Forest Hills, N.Y.
Eight members of the 1919 White Sox team go to trial in June on charges of accepting bribes from gamblers to throw the Series (see 1920), all eight are acquitted, but Chicago judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, now 53, presided over the grand jury that indicted them, he has been named first commissioner of professional baseball in January, and he bans them all from organized baseball for life. Included is Joseph Jefferson "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, 33, who played flawless ball in the 1919 Series and hit the only home run.
The New York Giants win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 5 games to 3 in the last eight-game Series.