March 1957 & April 1987

Some gamedog history such as a letter from Scotty Nelson to my old friend the late Pete Sparks.
Friend Scotty Nelson March 20,1957
Recd your letters, last one mailed the 16th.
Inside you write you are not going to any more conventions, you are quitting the dog business, outside you say you are going, and would i send you a programme.
First off i dont have any programmes myself.
Tudor i believe sent them out, he sent me a fly-sheet sometime ago.
But there was another to follow, which i did not get.
Scotty, you exasperate me!.
All this talk about quitting the dog bisiness.
Who cares whether you do or not?.
You are just like a kid, if you dont play my way, i am not going to play at all - i go home and play with my own toys.
OK so what?.
Again i say who cares?
Do you think for one minute , Joe Corvino,Earl Tudor,george Saddler,Bob Hemphill,Bob Oneal. give one hoot whether you or i either stay in or get out?
of course not.
And, do you think that men who can live outside the law, professional gamblers,hood-lums,racketeers,bootleggers, number writers,pimps etc. give one hoot whether you or i like it, if they steal a dog now and then?
That is peanuts to some of the other things they are doing.
Their motto is, might makes right.
Men who are used to making their living with their wits, and sometimes,mayby with a gun, or not going to worry about whether they are going to heaven or not, just because they stoop to stealing a dog.
Lets face the facts. Scotty.
I quit going to church because the preacher says or does something i dont like.
I quit dealing in a certain establishmeant, because something happened there i dident like.
So, i decide i am not going to heaven because there is someone who might also be there, that i dont like.
I dont like the way this old world is being run - so i better step off!
No, Scotty, we cant get off that easy. We got stick with it a little while longer.
So, whether you like it ot not, we are always going to have that element in the sport.
Back in the good old days, of the farmer bros, and in the early 1900s when they were fighting dogs on the Bowery in NY, most of the pit men either gamblers,saloon keepers, or other forms of sporting men who lived a rough and tumble life, giving little regard for the law, or what was right and what was wrong.
Poisoning dogs, was no worse than shooting crap with loaded dice, or playing cards with a marked deck.
It was all in the game.
Some of that influence has been carried over until now.
And, we have to live with it if we are going to continue in the game.
Dont get me wrong, Scotty i am not in favor of it, but what can we do about it?
The magazine is not a prosecuting attorney, neither is it a judge or jury.
It is a news letter, bringing to the fellows, the news of the fraternity.
Is it going to bebefit anything to air out dirty linen to the public?.
Do you think that anyone would cease matching dogs against Tudor, with his 50 years in the game, just because I as a editor, stuck my neck out, and accused him of being in a dog stealing ring?.
How far do you think i would get in court, if some one of the three, or all threee, combined, brought a slander suit against me, and the judge told me to prove certain things?
Did you ever sit in a court room, and watch a court proceeding?
If you have, you probably heard the judge tell the witness,Tell the court what you saw.Not what you heard, or what you thought, but what you saw.
I didnt see Wimberly steal LIL.
I didnt see her shipped or brought back to Wimberlys place.
I didnt see Langham bring the law in and get her back.
I never saw LIL in my life, i cant prove there is such a bitch.
So, that is the reason i say, you exasperate me.
You expect me, and the magazine to wage a war against sin.
To publicize these men as dog thieves, to reveal to the rest of the readers, the fact that these men did this and that.
Scotty, i cant do it!
I dont condone it, far from it.
Two years ago, i rode with two or three niggars down to the tennesse Convention, and back.
On the way back, we got to talking about segregation.
One of them, said to me, that he dident want to embarrass me, by asking me certain qustions, about why does the white man expect him sit in a hog trough of a rest room in the bus station, when the white man has better cleaner rest rooms.
Why does he have to eat in a little lean-to, built on the side of the restaurant when the white man can sit at a table with a white table cloth.
I told him he was not going to embarrass me the least bit,
BECAUSE I WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE CONDITIONS
So it is with the dog stealing.
I am not responsible, and i do not think that it is the place of the magazine to wage a war against it, especially since the whole episode was a result in their first fight(which settled nothing) in Mississippi last October.
I am very much concerned over the dog stealing deal, and will always be, i feel sorry for Langham, that is happened to him, i am sure i wouldent want it to happen to me -
to even have someone come in a steal a pup, much less a bitch that had proven so good.
But, there is nothing i can do to stop it.
So, Scotty, you will have to wake up to the cold hard facts of life.
If you are going to shoot dice with these fellows, you will have to expect loaded dice.
If you play cards with them, you will have to expect a stacked deck.
If you are going to fight dogs with them, you are going to have to look for all the crooked moves that their past experience and skill in winning against all odds, that they can think up.
If you dont want to play the game their way, the best thing then, is to get out.
And, i dont believe any one of them is going to lose any sleep one way or the other whether you or i stay in or get out.
So, do as you please, stay home and pout, or grin and bear it, and continue to go, and try to make the best of a bad deal.
Calvin Coolidge was noted for his brevity of speech.
One time, when he came back from church, his wife asked him what the preacher talked about.
He answered,SIN.
She asked Calvin what did the preacher say about it, Calvin replied HE WAS AGIN IT.
So, that is the jist of this whole letter, Scotty, i am agin it.

Hurriedly
Pete Sparks



FWK & Mayfields Dibo at Don's place


Samart & Alex

The late Samart when he been about 2 years in the
dogs.Showed with his Screamer a littermate sister from Mr.Nobodys Ch Rocky.
The two pups are Rebel & Billy Jean bred by Don Carter of Divine´s Cassius Clay bloodlines.
Other boy is Alex who owned at the time the Selma bitch also a sister to Ch.Rocky out of a repeat breeding & some other dogs such as St.B's Sandy.
Photo taken in April 1987


The late Bobby Smith & FWK. Bobby was a
prince of a man, a true dogman

FWK'S DELTA


littermate of Milkman's
Ch.Stallone 44lbs.
This dog was a gift to me from Pete Sparks and The Milkman

 

Good read but I must say it's man that has ruined the sport and not the sport itself. Personally I wish gambling wasn't involved at all and the contest was just about who has the better dog.

 

That's a noble thought but I guess man like Tudor and his likes were just living by the principle '' put your money were your mouth is ''.
There is no pro in whatever sport who'd put his hard work and reputation on the line for pride alone.

 

No one is going to spend a few stacks to condition a dog for 8 weeks, medical supplies, time involved in healing up a dog etc for nothing more than to say they had the better dog. It takes money to make money.

 

Money bet , something to loose , make it a real match ,,

 

I dont disagree with anything any one has said,but there,s a saying Money is the root of all evil.

 

So you think cheating is part and parcel of the game? GTFOH.......

 

Cockney Rebel, i dont know if that question is directed at me,but i detest any form of cheating in any sport.That was the way i was raised.I admire sportsmen and gentleman.Is it part and parcel of the game ,depends what circles you are mixing in.

 

make a match with someone without money involved ,,not putting up forfeits etc ,,,they might not even turn up ,,,or with no money involved, they will come with bigger dog , there is a lot of reasons money is involved ,,,,,with out money to lose its only a roll...not a match

 

I here what youre saying but the dog doesn't know if it's a roll or a match. Of course AGK is right about the financial side of things.

I just think what Sparks wrote is rubbish, no man should accept cheating IMO.

 

It is in whatever deal in life in the 1st place your own responsibility not to be robbed from whatever is on stake.
You must take care for yourself and being becarefull all the time due not all folks are honest, sad but true.
As old Pete told Scotty So, Scotty, you will have to wake up to the cold hard facts of life.
Real sports are just real sports and have honesty high on their priority list and most sportmen are that way but as in everything, also in dogs you
have cheaters, thieves and everything else which is bad and inbetween and that is just a thing you must accept if you like it or not.
As an example, lots of dogs were or are bred with a false pedigree on them, yes a bad thing but what can we do about it?, I guess not that much at all,is it our fault?, no ofcourse not.
Must we condem it, ofcourse and don't do it ourself that's the only thing we can do about it, showing that you are a better person then those who cheat.
Old Pete IMO wasn't writing rubbish he was just realistic about the situation.
Take care you'll out there.

Bad Boy's Ch.Rosita