My passion for boxing, R.I.P.

By the time I turned 13, in 1955, I was already a boxing fan. At a time when neither the National Basketball Association nor the National Football League commanded much TV presence, boxing controlled prime time twice a week: the Wednesday Night Fights (sponsored by Pabst Beer) and the Friday Night Fights (Gillette).

On TV I saw many great brawls. I subscribed to Sport and Sports Illustrated and read Ring and Boxing and Wrestling. Bill Stern's Favorite Boxing Stories was one of my first paperbacks.

I could name every heavyweight champion in order. I could identify the Toy Bulldog and the Wild Bull of the Pampas, the Manassa Mauler, the Durable Dane, the Fargo Express, the Michigan Assassin, the Boston Strong Boy and the Boston Tar Baby, Ruby Bob and Gentleman Jim, Jersey Joe, Li'l Artha, Hammering Henry, Slapsie Maxie, Two Ton Tony, the Black Uhlan and of course the Brown Bomber.

I knew that Stanley Ketchel had been shot to death at age 24 and Bummy Davis at 25; that Beau Jack ended up a shoeshine boy, Sam Langford blind and penniless, Joe Louis half a million in debt to the IRS, and Jack Johnson an attraction at Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus.

Unconscious at my feet

But none of these conclusions disturbed my dreams. I was a kid, and life's final chapters seemed far away. This was the way of men, and I presumed I was on my way to becoming one. You came out nobly with your shield or borne upon it. The bright lights poetically illuminated the center of the ring, while you returned to the darkness whence you'd come.

In boxing, the best man won— no bad bounce of a baseball or football to undo him, no teammates to weigh him down. What could be fairer?

I saw my first live fight from ringside, courtesy of my father's political connections, at Connie Mack Stadium on June 12, 1958. It was an all-Philadelphia gala.

In the main event, the fading, formerly first-ranked welterweight Gil Turner was gifted a draw with the division's rising star, Garnet "Sugar" Hart. On the undercard, the undefeated lightweight Len Mathews (10-0, with nine KOs) knocked the once formidable Henry "Toothpick" Brown into retirement in four. And in a battle of middleweights of whom few others wanted a part, George "The Professor" Benton, a future Hall of Fame trainer, blasted Slim Jim Robinson through the ropes, unconscious, at my feet.

Jack McKinney's advice

Over the next nine years I attended fights at the Arena, the Blue Horizon, Convention Hall and the Atlantic City Convention Center. I saw Joey Giardello and Kitten Hayward, Bennie Briscoe and Gypsy Joe Harris, Von Clay and Don Warner, Leotis Martin and (after he emigrated from South Carolina) Joe Frazier. (I also once saw the mobster Blinky Palermo schmoozing in the Sansom Deli with his current protégé, Charles "Sonny" Liston.)

I read Hemingway and Liebling and, religiously, Jack McKinney in the Philadelphia Daily News. From McKinney I learned that Philadelphia fighters were known for their left hooks and for abbreviating their careers by beating each other up in gyms.

I was, I felt, earning my way into a brotherhood. I liked the chest-pounding suspense of awaiting decisions and the abrupt ends that could fall like guillotine blades. I liked the smoke and the smell and the sweat flying when a boxer's head snapped back. I liked ogling the wised-up, sharp-suited men with their flashy, bored women and imagining how their evenings would conclude. I also liked that none of my friends shared my outré passion.

One who persevered

One fighter whose path interested me, for its intersections of talent and fortune, was the North Philadelphia welterweight Charley Scott. Scott's early results"“ he lost four of his first eight bouts"“ suggested he ought to pursue other employment. But Scott persevered"“ at one point winning 14 of 16 bouts"“ and climaxed his comeback with a ninth-round knockout of Sugar Hart at Convention Hall, in October 1959, in what the boxing historian John DiSanto called "one of the greatest Philly battles ever."

That victory vaulted Scott to the top of the rankings, making him next in line for a shot at Don Jordan's shaky grip on the welterweight championship belt. But two months later, in need of Christmas money, Scott traveled to Madison Square Garden on short notice and lost a 5-4-1 decision to Benny "Kid" Paret. Paret got the shot and the title"“ and later died in the ring defending it against Emile Griffith, whom Paret had called a maricon (Spanish for "faggot").

Scott never recovered from his battle with Sugar Hart. He lost four of his next five bouts. (Hart didn't recover either: He lost three of four and quit the ring.) Scott subsequently embarked on an ill-fated Odyssey that took him through Australia, the Philippines, Boston, Vegas, Paris, Fresno, Honolulu, New Orleans and Oakland. He lost 20 of his last 30 fights, including nine of his last 10. He finally retired in October 1966.

A drunk arrest

By then I was one month into my final year at Penn Law School. It seemed a critical time for me. I feared that becoming a lawyer would imprison me within a conformity I dreaded. I hoped to write but feared the effort would reveal that I had nothing to say. Finally, I applied to the federal VISTA program to give myself time to think things out.

I also sought experiences and places outside the classroom and corporate world that suit me. I volunteered in legal aid and public defender offices. Some weekend nights I rode in a patrol car to observe the law at street level. I never caught a violent crime or observed a door kicked in. Mostly I witnessed drunk arrests and domestic quarrels.

One April night, two young police officers shoved a broad shouldered 30-year-old— he looked 40— against the booking desk. He smelled of alcohol. He wore a hound's tooth cap. The fly on his stained slacks was down. He had a four-inch scar over one eye. The charges were loitering and prowling.

He had 62 cents and a billfold stuffed with papers. On a job application, he had penciled, "Have attain some excellence as a boxer."

"Hey, Pete," one officer joked to another. "Watch out. This guy was a fighter."

Pete laughed. "What's your name?" he asked the perp.

"Charley Scott."

"Charley Scott?" I said.

He nodded.

Naming the champions

I had seen this man at Convention Hall on the best night of his life. Now I saw him again. Grief and reason pinwheeled in my head.

VISTA sent me to Chicago. A year later I came to Berkeley and moved in with the girl to whom I'm still married. I've seen one live fight since then— two ham-and-eggers mauling each other for ten rounds in Oakland. I never read another issue of The Ring. I can still name the heavyweight champions, but only through Ali and Frazier.

My passion for the sport had vanished. I'd never recovered from standing this close to its too-frequent consequences and having seen them bouncing— shabby, thick-tongued, unzipped— out the station door.♦


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