72 NEW VISION, Monday, June 6, 2016 VISION SPORT TRIBUTE TO LEGEND (1942-2016) Marlins break news MIAMI Baseball game with the simple message “Muham- The Florida Marlins mad Ali 1942-2016”. appear to have been The Marlins say they were ahead of the curve the death of boxing because team president ALI WAS icon Muhammad Ali David Samson was told on Friday, with their just prior to the game scoreboard tribute against the New York coming several hours Mets that Ali had died. “We were informed by nouncement. someone close to the US President Obama hails The baseball team family that he had passed posted a graphic of a away,” Samson told triumphant Ali towering the Miami Herald. “We over Sonny Liston on their wanted to get a tribute WASHINGTON giant scoreboard clock out as soon as we possibly after the Major League could.” AFP President Barack Obama paid tribute on Satur- day to late boxing great Muhammad Ali, as a towering champion “who fought for what was right” not just in the ring but outside it as well. The former heavyweight champion, who passed away late Friday after struggling for years with Parkinson’s, was “a man who fought for us,” the US president said. “His fi ght outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail. “But Ali stood his ground. Muhammad Ali (right) meets former South African And his victory helped us leader Nelson Mandela, a boxer in his early years get used to the America we recognize today.”

Ali was The Greatest In elegant, elegiac prose, Ali’s birth city pays Obama wrote of the boxing legend, one of his personal champions: “Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period. If to the boxing hero you just asked him, he’d tell you. He’d tell you he was LOUISVILLE fully as one of its own. the double greatest; that Government build- he’d ‘handcuffed lightning, Flags were lowered ing fl ags across the city thrown thunder into jail,’” Saturday in Muham- were lowered on order he wrote in his statement re- mad Ali’s hometown of Mayor Greg Fischer, leased by the White House. of Louisville, Kentucky who spoke reverentially Obama went on to say in at a somber ceremony about Ali at Saturday’s his statement, “But what paying homage to box- ceremony. made The Champ the great- “Muhammad Ali lived a est — what truly separated and the city’s best life so big and bold that it him from everyone else — is known native son. is hard to believe any one that everyone else would tell A police honor guard man could do everything you pretty much the same in crisp blue uniforms he did, to become all the thing.” Muhammad Ali and his daughter Laila Ali at the Premiere of “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” Turn to Page 72 saluted as several offi cers things he became in the lowered the US fl ag as course of one lifetime,” Movie in the United States. Laila is a former undefeated professional boxer. AFP photo well as the Kentucky state Fischer said. standard, just hours after Ali was born Cassius the death of the boxing Marcellus Clay Jr in Lou- legend. isville. The ceremony took He took the name of The great Muhammad Ali in his own words place at the museum — Muhammad Ali after con- formerly Ali’s boyhood verting to Islam in 1964, Muhammad Ali was not  “Boxing is a lot of white Just last week, I murdered a  “I know I got it made home — which now serves soon after he had stunned only a boxing champion, men watching two black men rock, injured a stone, hospi- while the masses of black as a shrine to the life and the sport by claiming his he was a championship beat each other up.” talized a brick. I’m so mean, I people are catchin’ hell but legacy of Ali, who died at fi rst heavyweight title. talker. Following are  “At home I am a nice guy make medicine sick.” as long as they ain’t free, I a hospital in Arizona late Although now hailed some quotations from but I don’t want the world to  “I’m not the greatest. I’m ain’t free.” Friday after experiencing as one of the towering Ali. know. Humble people, I’ve the double greatest. Not only  “I ain’t got no quarrel breathing problems. fi gures in sport, he was found, don’t get very far.” do I knock ‘em out, I pick the with them Viet Cong.” Ali is to be buried in vilifi ed by many for con-  “Float like a butterfl y,  “I’ve wrestled with al- round. I’m the boldest, the  “I may not talk perfect Louisville, a city that was verting to Islam and for sting like a bee.” ligators. I’ve tussled with a prettiest, the most supe- white talk-type English but I once part of the segre- his outspoken stance on  “It’s just a job. Grass whale. I done handcuffed rior, most scientifi c, most give you wisdom.” gated South, but which Vietnam and civil rights grows, birds fl y, waves pound lightning, and throw thunder skillfullest fi ghter in the ring  “If Ali says a mosquito has come to embrace him issues. AFP the sand. I beat people up.” in jail. You know I’m bad. today.” can pull a plow, don’t ask