No. 132: GEORGE CHUVALO & OSCAR BONAVENA / George never went down ... or did he? What stuck with me from grade school was a letter and photo that called into doubt his famous badge of honour.

It was nothing I could raise with the man himself and I had no idea my friend had been in attendance.

SPORTS would seem like one of the easier deals to fact-check. As James Thurber used to say, “You could look it up.” Sports record books offer an authority that can’t really be matched other endeavours. We play to win or lose … and whichever way it falls, to keep records.

Today, I look at a piece of accepted wisdom, frequently cited. Now, I haven’t ever accepted it as fact, based on a contradictory story I read as a 10-year-old and a photo I remember more than faintly. I’ve heard it so many times and just bit my lip—I’ve always fought off the urge to point out that the fact here is debatable. Sadly I had nothing but memory to back it up, so why go there?