Today's selection is "O Unlucky Man," WilliamNack'spiercing profile of the sad life and tragic death of one time heavyweight champion SonnyListon.

SOMEDAY THEY'REGONNAWRITE A BLUES SONG JUST FOR FIGHTERS. The windows were open too, and the doors were unlocked. It was quiet except for the television playing in the room at the top of the stairs. on Jan. 5, 1971, Geraldine had not spoken to her husband for 12 days. On Christmas Eve she had called him from St. Louis after flying Authentic Bo Jackson Jersey there with the couple's seven year old son, Danielle, to spend the holidays with her mother. Geraldine had tried to phone him a number of times, but no one had answered at the house. At first she figured he must be off roistering in Los Angeles, and so she didn't pay his absence any mind until the evening of Dec. 28. That night, in a fitful sleep, she had a vision so unsettling that it awakened her and sent her to her mother's room.

''I had the worst dream,'' Geraldine says. ''He was falling in the shower and calling my name, 'Gerry, Gerry!' I can still see it. So I got real nervous. I told my mother, 'I think something's wrong.' But my mother said, 'Oh, don't think that. He's all right.' ''

In fact, SonnyListonhad not been right for a long time, and not only for the strangely dual life he had been leading spells of choirboy abstinence squeezed between binges of drinking and drugs but also for the rudderless, unfocused existence he had been reduced to. Jobless and nearly broke,Listonhad been moving through the murkier waters of Las Vegas's drug culture. ''I knew he was hanging around with Authentic Lester Hayes Jersey the wrong people,'' one of his closest friends, gamblerLemBanker, says. ''And I knew he was in desperate need of cash.'' So, as the end of 1970 neared,Listonhad reached that final twist in the cord. Eight years earlier he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world a 6 ft. 1 1/2 in., 215 pound hulk with upper arms like picnic roasts, two magnificent, 14 inch fists and a scowl that he mounted for display on a round, otherwise impassive face. He had won the title by flattening Floyd Patterson with two punches, left hooks down and up, in the first round of their fight on Sept. 25, 1962; 10 months later he had beaten Patterson again in one round.

Listondid not sidestep his way to the title; the pirouette was not among his moves. He reached Patterson by walking through the entire heavyweight division, leaving large bodies sprawled behind him: WayneBethea, MikeDeJohn, Cleveland Williams, NinoValdes, Roy Harris,ZoraFolleyet al. Finally, a terrified Patterson waited for him, already fumbling with his getaway disguise, dark glasses and a beard.

Before the referee could count to 10 in that first fight,Listonhad become a mural sized American myth, a larger than life John Henry with two hammers, an 84 inch reach, 23 knockouts (in 34 bouts) and 19 arrests. Tales of his exploits spun well with the fight crowd over beers in dark wood bars. There was the one about how he used to lift up the front end of automobiles. And one about how he caught birds with his bare hands. And another about how he hit speed bags so hard that he tore them from their hinges, and ripped into heavy bags until they burst, spilling their stuffing.

''Nobody hit those bags like Sonny,'' says 80 year old JohnnyTocco, one ofListon'sfirst and last trainers. ''He tore bags up. He could turn that hook, put everything behind it. Turn and snap. Bam! Why, he could knock you across the room with a jab. I saw him knock guys out with a straight jab. There was his fearsome physical presence; then there was his heavy psychic baggage, his prison record and assorted shadows from the underworld. Police in three cities virtually drove him out of town; in one of them, St. Louis, a captain warnedListonthat he would wind up dead in an alley if he stayed.

In publicListonwas often surly, hostile and uncommunicative, and so he fed one of the most disconcerting of white stereotypes, that of the ignorant, angry, morally reckless black roaming loose, with bad intentions, in white society. He became a target for racial typing in days when white commentators could still utter undisguised slurs without TedKoppelasking them to, please, explain themselves. In the papersListonwas referred to as ''a gorilla,'' ''a latter day caveman'' and ''a jungle beast.'' His fights against Patterson were seen as morality plays. Patterson was Good,Listonwas Evil. On July 24, 1963, two days after the second Patterson fight,Los Angeles Timescolumnist Jim Murray wrote: ''The central fact . . . is that the world of sport now realizes it has gotten Charles (Sonny)Listonto keep. It is like finding a live bat on a string under your Christmas tree.''

The NAACP had pleaded with Patterson not to fightListon. Indeed, many blacks watchedListon'sspectacular rise with something approaching horror, as if he were climbing the Empire State Building with Fay Wray in his hands. Here suddenly was a baleful black felon holding the most prestigious title in sports. This was at the precise moment in history when a young civil rights movement was emerging, a movement searching for role models. Television was showing freedom marchers being swept by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs. Yet, untouched by image makers,Listonsteadfastly refused to speak any mind but his own. Asked by a young white reporter why he wasn't fighting for freedom in the South,Listondeadpanned, ''I ain't got no dog proof ass.''

Four months afterListonwon the title,Esquirethumbed its nose at its white readers with an unforgettable cover. On the front of its December 1963 issue, there wasListonglowering out from under a tasseled red and white Santa Claus hat, looking like the last manon earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney.

Now, at the end of the Christmas holiday of 1970, that old black Santa was still missing in Las Vegas. Geraldine crossed through the carport of theListons' split level and headed for the patio out back. Danielle was at her side. Copies of theLas Vegas Sunhad been gathering in the carport since Dec. 29. Geraldine opened the back door and stepped into the den. A foul odor hung in the air, permeating the house, and so she headed up the three steps toward the kitchen. ''I thought he had left some food out and it had spoiled,'' she says. ''But I didn't see anything.''

Leaving the kitchen, she walked toward the staircase. She could hear the television Authentic Fred Biletnikoff Jersey from the master bedroom. Geraldine and Danielle climbed the stairs and looked through the bedroom door, to the smashed bench at the foot of the bed and the stone cold figure lying with his back up against it, blood caked on the front of his swollen shirt and his head canted to one side. She gasped and said, ''Sonny's dead.''

''What's wrong?'' Danielle asked.

She led the boy quickly down the stairs. Lester Hayes Jersey ''Come on, baby,'' she said.

On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 1962,Listonboarded a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. This was the dayListonhad been waiting for ever since he first laced on boxing gloves, at the Missouri State Penitentiary a decade earlier. Forty eight hours before, he had bludgeoned Patterson to become heavyweight champion. Denied a title fight for years, barred from New York City rings as ) an undesirable, largely ignored in his adopted Philadelphia,Listonsuddenly felt vindicated, redeemed. In fact, before leaving the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, he had received word from friends that the people of Philadelphia were awaiting his triumphant return with a ticker tape parade.

The only disquieting Fred Biletnikoff Jersey tremor had been some other news out Bo Jackson Raiders Jersey of Philadelphia, relayed to him by telephone from friends back home, that Daily News sports editor Larry Merchant had written a column confirmingListon'sworst fears about how his triumph might be received. Those fears were based Fred Biletnikoff Raiders Jersey upon the ruckus that had preceded the fight. The New York Times's Arthur Daley had led the way: ''Whether Patterson likes it or not, he's stuck with it. He's the knight in shining armor battling the forces of evil.''

Now wrote Merchant: ''So it is true in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win. . . . A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. Emily Post probably would recommend a ticker tape parade. For confetti we can use shredded warrants of arrest.''

The darkest corner ofListon'spersonality was his lack of a sense of self. All the signs from his past pointed the same way and said the same thing: dead end. ''Maybe they think I'm so old because I never was really young,'' he said. Usually he would insist he was born on May 8, 1932, in the belly of the Great Depression, and he growled at reporters who dared to doubt him on this: ''Anybody who says I'm not 30 iscallin' my momma a liar.''

''Sonny was so sensitive on the issue of his age because he did not really know how old he was,'' says McKinney. ''When guys would write that he was 32 going on 50, it had more of an impact on him than anybody realized. Sonny didn't know who he was. He was looking for an identity, and he thought that being the champion would give him one.''

Now that moment had arrived. During the flight home, McKinney says,Listonpracticed the speech he was going to give when the crowds greeted him at the airport. Says McKinney, who took notes during the flight, ''He used me as sort of a test auditor, dry running his ideas by me.''

Listonwas excited, emotional, eager to begin his reign. ''There's a lot of things I'mgonnado,'' he told McKinney. ''But one thing's very important: I want to reach my people. I want to reach them and tell them, 'You don't have to worry about medisgracin' you. You won't have to worry about mestoppin' your progress.' I want to go to colored churches and colored neighborhoods. I know it was in the papers that the better class of colored people werehopin' I'd lose, evenprayin' I'd lose, because they was afraid I wouldn't know how to act. . . . I remember one thing so clear about listening to Joe Louis fight on the radio when I was a kid. I never remember a fight the announcer didn't say about Louis, 'A great fighter and a Bo Jackson Jersey credit to his race.' Remember? That used to make me feel real proud inside.

''I don't mean to besayin' I'm Lester Hayes Raiders Jersey justgonnabe the champion of my own people,''Listoncontinued. ''It says now I'm the world's champion, and that's just the way it'sgonnabe. I want to go to a lot of places like orphan homes and reform schools. I'll be able to say, 'Kid, I know it's tough for you and it might even get tougher. But don't give up on the world. Good things can happen if you let them.' ''

Listonwas ready. As the plane rolled to a stop, he rose and walked to the door. McKinney was next to him. The door opened, and he stepped outside. men. ''Other than those, no one,'' recalls McKinney. ''I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. He was extremely intelligent, and he understood immediately what it meant. His Adam's apple moved slightly. You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. It was almost like a silent shudder went through him. He'd been deliberately snubbed.

''Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him. Sonny felt, after he won the title, that the past was forgiven. It was going to be a whole new world. What happened in Philadelphia that day was a turning point in his life. He was still the bad guy. He was the personification of evil. And that's the way it was going to remain. He was devastated. I knew from that point on that the world would never get to know the Sonny that I knew.''