tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58206934097052356852024-03-13T12:31:17.578-04:00The Strong Boy BlogJolts about heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan from the author of the book "Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero"Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-73389064687703314972016-02-22T13:31:00.001-05:002016-02-22T13:31:12.606-05:00Strong Boy Wins Bela Kornitzer Book Award<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ne12rzl5jVA/VstT1iidkgI/AAAAAAAABkw/7irqJwtT1XE/s1600/IMG_0356.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ne12rzl5jVA/VstT1iidkgI/AAAAAAAABkw/7irqJwtT1XE/s320/IMG_0356.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
I was very happy a few weeks ago to return to my alma mater, Drew University, to receive the 2016 Bela Kornitzer Book Award along with Associate Professor of Music Dr. Leslie A. Sprout for her book "The Musical Legacy of Wartime France." The awards were presented at the biennial Library Gala by Noémi K. Neidorff, who paid tribute to her uncle and to her parents who established the award in his name.<div>
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The Kornitzer Prize Endowment was established twenty-three years ago by the late Alicia Kornitzer Karpati and her husband George Karpati to honor Béla Kornitzer, Mrs. Karpati’s brother, for his achievements as a journalist and author in Hungary and the United States. The Drew University Library houses among its special collections the Béla Kornitzer Collection. </div>
Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-4687394437141184872015-07-07T11:04:00.002-04:002015-07-07T11:04:44.476-04:00STRONG BOY Now Available as Audiobook<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0pHEqIVSiao/VZvqKFYDTLI/AAAAAAAABf4/ZsPitBWmYJg/s1600/Strong%2BBoy%2BAudio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0pHEqIVSiao/VZvqKFYDTLI/AAAAAAAABf4/ZsPitBWmYJg/s1600/Strong%2BBoy%2BAudio.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a>Looking for a good summer read...er...listen? Good news. STRONG BOY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN L. SULLIVAN, AMERICA'S FIRST SPORTS HERO is now available as an audiobook. </div>
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Approaching nineteenth-century sports and boxing with a twenty-first-century perspective, STRONG BOY brings to life John L. Sullivan, a man who was the gold standard of boxing for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and constant presence on the police blotter were a godsend to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston's Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. The "Boston Strong Boy," was our nation's first sports hero, and his name was not Babe Ruth. </div>
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STRONG BOY has been called "one of the best boxing books ever penned" by the Boston Globe and "a muscular, relentlessly detailed book" by the Wall Street Journal. </div>
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In addition to the paperback version, the audiobook version of STRONG BOY is available through Audible at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106HVCY4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B0106HVCY4&link_code=as3&tag=hubtr-20&linkId=UV6LZY6EGRBQHKM2">Amazon</a> as well as <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strong-boy-christopher-klein/1113111100?ean=9781504615723">Barnes and Noble</a>, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/strong-boy-life-times-john/id1011418194">iTunes</a> and <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781504615723">Indiebound</a>.</div>
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Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-43267707681700699602015-05-26T17:06:00.000-04:002015-05-26T17:06:14.049-04:00June 7 Book Signing and Beer Tasting in Portsmouth, NH<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">John L. Sullivan appreciated a good pint—well, any pint for that matter—so I’m sure he’d be excited about a great afternoon of brews and books that will be hosted by the Beara Irish Brewing Company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sunday, June 7, from 2-4 PM.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sullivan's role as the country's first sports superstar and Irish-American hero has faded a bit from our collective memory in recent years, so I was particularly excited when I saw his image gracing the labels of a great local brew, Beara Irish Brewing Company's O'Sullivan Stout. The brewery has opened a new taproom on Route 1 in Portsmouth, and if you come in on June 7 you can sample the stout and the brewery’s other craft offerings, which I highly recommend. I’ll also be there to sign copies of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, called “one of the best boxing books ever penned” by the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boston Globe</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And if you have a dad who loves to drink beer and imbibe sports and history, it’s a great two-fer for picking up some unique gifts! Father’s Day shopping doesn’t get any easier than this.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Beara Irish Brewing Company is located at 2800 Lafayette Road in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its web site is <a href="http://www.bearairishbrew.com/">www.bearairishbrew.com</a>. For more on Strong Boy, visit <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/">www.strongboybook.com</a>. </span></div>
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Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-64371055419357205662015-03-09T15:26:00.002-04:002015-03-09T15:26:45.353-04:00STRONG BOY now available in paperback<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ER87ej1Kwao/VP3zx2_j5dI/AAAAAAAABbo/o9kCNOhImx8/s1600/photo%2B2-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ER87ej1Kwao/VP3zx2_j5dI/AAAAAAAABbo/o9kCNOhImx8/s1600/photo%2B2-2.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a>STRONG BOY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN L. SULLIVAN, AMERICA'S FIRST SPORTS HERO is now available in paperback. Same great content, half the price!<br />
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Happy to see this great review from the Boston Globe on the front cover: "From the first page to the last, Klein's prose retains its powers of enchantment and illumination. It is one of the best boxing books ever penned."<br />
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Approaching nineteenth-century sports and boxing with a twenty-first-century perspective, STRONG BOY brings to life John L. Sullivan, a man who was the gold standard of boxing for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and constant presence on the police blotter were a godsend to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston's Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. The "Boston Strong Boy," was our nation's first sports hero, and his name was not Babe Ruth.<br />
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If you have already purchased the hardcover version, congratulations! You now own a rare, out-of-print first edition. (Don't go spend it all at once.) If not, the paperback version of STRONG BOY is available from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762788380/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762788380&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20&linkId=S3NZPQHQIPY7CCCJ" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strong-boy-christopher-klein/1113111100?ean=9780762781522" target="_blank">Barnes and Noble</a>, and <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780762781522" target="_blank">Indiebound</a>.Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-64384890293167874092014-07-10T16:58:00.002-04:002014-07-10T19:20:54.906-04:00Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hsyx2k75sy4/U779BM5DMlI/AAAAAAAABWE/wUbMGuqPuH4/s1600/pedestrians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hsyx2k75sy4/U779BM5DMlI/AAAAAAAABWE/wUbMGuqPuH4/s1600/pedestrians.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a>One of the historical oddities I came across in writing <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762781521/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762781521&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20" target="_blank">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero</a></i> was the brief American sporting fad of “pedestrianism” that emerged after the Civil War and reached its height in the late 1870s as Sullivan was beginning his rise to the heavyweight title. Both men and women competed in long-distance walking match races and crazy feats (or "feets" in this case) of endurance, such as the wildly popular six-day races staged in arenas around the country that would start a minute after midnight on Monday morning and end at midnight the following Saturday, giving the competitors’ legs a rest on the seventh day. Top participants in these “go as you please” races could cover nearly 500 miles before they were through.<br />
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I love quirky American history, so I’ve been drawn to the books penned by <a href="http://malgeo.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Matthew Algeo</a> on a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Trumans-Excellent-Adventure-American/dp/1569767076/ref=la_B001JS4T1I_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405025182&sr=1-1" target="_blank">road trip taken by Harry and Bess Truman</a> in their post-White House days and to the conglomeration of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles—<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Team-Standing-Steelers-Steagles/dp/161374885X/ref=la_B001JS4T1I_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405025210&sr=1-4" target="_blank">the Steagles</a>—during World War II. Given my brush with the subject, I was eager to read his latest: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pedestrianism-Watching-Americas-Favorite-Spectator/dp/1613743971/ref=la_B001JS4T1I_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405025247&sr=1-2" target="_blank"><i>Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport</i></a>.<br />
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Algeo traces the sport’s rising popularity from a simple barroom bet by New England’s Edward Payson Weston on the election of 1860. Wagering that Abraham Lincoln would lose, he pledged to walk from Boston to Washington, D.C., in time to see the inauguration. When Honest Abe won, Weston got his walking shoes out. Weston proved to be a PR genius, lining up corporate sponsors for his 10-day walk in return for handing out promotional literature for their products (take that, NASCAR) and mailing his itinerary to papers along his route. He arrived a few hours too late for the inauguration but generated enormous press coverage.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Va8O4BR2QGA/U779D1wCfUI/AAAAAAAABWU/jIx_CF_m1Jg/s1600/Edward_Payson_Weston_cph.3b22005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Va8O4BR2QGA/U779D1wCfUI/AAAAAAAABWU/jIx_CF_m1Jg/s1600/Edward_Payson_Weston_cph.3b22005.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a>Weston continued to do long-distance walks for a wager, such as an 1867 walk from Maine to Chicago that he completed in 26 days to win $10,000. Soon other publicity-hungry walkers followed in Weston’s footsteps and pushed the limits of sleep deprivation. In 1878, for instance, Ada Anderson walked 2,700 quarter miles in 2,700 consecutive quarter hours—more than 28 days—around a Brooklyn music hall. She even spent her down time playing a piano and singing songs to entertain the crowd. (Algeo’s book informs us that competitors had to be polyphasic sleepers, ones who can be survive on short bursts of sleep during the day. Count me out of that group.) The sport reached its apex as pedestrians began to set up match races with other walkers where they would compete toe-to-toe around arenas such as New York’s Madison Square Garden.<br />
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As happens every four years during the World Cup, America in recent weeks been once again put on the sporting couch to analyze why it fails to embrace soccer as fervently as the rest of the world. A lack of action that is contrary to the American psyche is often fingered as the cause. So why did Americans during the Gilded Age pay to watch men walk around a track for hours on end, an activity that the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> admitted was “at best not an absorbingly entrancing sport.” Gambling played a role, but part of it was definitely the potential for rubbernecking as competitors pushed the boundaries of safety (think NASCAR again). Algeo writes, “The staggering pedestrians were a source of great amusement, and a six-day race was not an athletic event but a freak show.” He adds, “Sleep-deprived, malnourished, dehydrated, and out of their minds, many pedestrians pushed themselves to the very edge of physical and mental endurance.” In 1879 a walker named Peter Van Ness attempted to walk 2,000 half miles in 2,000 half hours. After his 1,718th half mile, he began to act like a madman and grabbed a revolver from his belongings and shot his trainer and sprayed bullets into the crowd before collapsing into a coma. Although wounded, Van Ness’s trainer ordered “morphine and hot drop” to revive his charge who regained his feet and kept walking. Algeo also points to a Gilded Age “entertainment deficit” and scant opportunities for recreation. “The public was so desperate for entertainment, especially affordable entertainment, that watching half-dead men stagger in circles for days on end was, if not absorbingly entrancing, at least an unobjectionable way to kill time," he write.<br />
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It was nice to travel back to the Gilded Age once again in Algeo’s book. Some of the same <i>Strong Boy</i> characters play a cameo role in <i>Pedestrianism</i>, such as “Clubber” Williams, the tough New York cop who always stood ringside during Sullivan’s Madison Square Garden matches and also worked security for the arena's walking races, even using his famous billy club on spectators during an Astley Belt Race in 1879 after a near riot ensued when he shut down ticket sales.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ErB-Aqrsyoo/U779BZ9oXYI/AAAAAAAABWI/6MEXz7g6R6M/s1600/Pedestrian-match.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ErB-Aqrsyoo/U779BZ9oXYI/AAAAAAAABWI/6MEXz7g6R6M/s1600/Pedestrian-match.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>Algeo pointed to the development of bicycling and the rise of musical theater as the death knell of pedestrianism in America. I might be biased, but I would suggest that Sullivan played a major role as well. His rise to the heavyweight title in 1882 coincides with the dip in pedestrianism’s popularity. By becoming a superstar of the highest magnitude and by insisting on fighting legally with gloves under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules, he brought boxing to the masses. By participating in these legally sanctioned fights, Sullivan became the biggest star William Vanderbilt ever had to fill up Madison Square Garden. Sullivan could bang out the Garden in one night, a quick shot of cash in contrast to the week-long pedestrian races.<br />
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I really enjoyed this book, although I wished it would have had footnotes. I know most readers don’t care, but I’m always interested in seeing sources in case I’m curious to explore more on a topic. Algeo also can turn a phrase, such as when he noted that for the brutal use of his billy club that Williams never received more than a reprimand—a mere “slap on the wrist for a club to the skull.” A great summer read for history geeks and sports fans alike.<br />
<br />Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-61579313505880174242014-07-08T15:40:00.001-04:002014-07-08T15:48:08.696-04:00The Rumble at Richburg<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6QPLXHY5-0/U7xFYjPrMKI/AAAAAAAABVA/GPJorCz15CE/s1600/Great+Kilrain+Sullivan+Print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6QPLXHY5-0/U7xFYjPrMKI/AAAAAAAABVA/GPJorCz15CE/s1600/Great+Kilrain+Sullivan+Print.jpg" height="232" width="320" /></a>On July 8, 1889, blood, sweat, and whiskey soaked the sandy soil of the Mississippi backwoods. Two battered, bruised, and bloodied outlaws traded blows with their naked fists for more than two hours while the midday summer sun broiled and blistered their exposed skin. In the triple-digit heat, the bloodlust in the crowd bubbled up like the pitch from the freshly cut pine planks used to build the hastily constructed outdoor arena. In spite of the secluded setting, this brawl in Richburg, Mississippi, was not some scrap between two local thugs, but the heavyweight boxing championship of the world, an event simultaneously illegal and the focus of the entire nation.<br />
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The thousands of fight fans in the makeshift arena had spent the early morning hours in the dark, literally and figuratively, as they waited to board trains from New Orleans to the secret location of the fight, outlawed because of the brutality of its bare knuckles. Hot, sweaty passengers stuffed the seats and aisles inside the twelve coaches, while freeloaders clung to the roof, sides, and even axles of the train cars as they lurched across the steaming bayous. The Mississippi governor had stationed his militia along all rail lines coming into his state from New Orleans in order to prevent the fight from taking place, but as the train roared to the state line, the conductor ignored the troop of 25 guardsmen waving signal lights and ordering the train to stop. The iron horse galloped into Mississippi, scattering the lawmen in its wake. The momentum for a heavyweight title fight between champion John L. Sullivan and challenger Jake Kilrain had grown steadily for two years and was now simply unstoppable.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QZNvr4Duiyg/U7xE6gZIPKI/AAAAAAAABU4/8k9bW3PLkrg/s1600/Kilrain-Broadside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QZNvr4Duiyg/U7xE6gZIPKI/AAAAAAAABU4/8k9bW3PLkrg/s1600/Kilrain-Broadside.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a>When the Mississippi governor received reports of the unsuccessful militia operation, he ordered the Marion County sheriff, W. J. Cowart, to stop the fight. The diminutive lawman barely cracked the five-foot mark, and he looked even smaller underneath his large sheriff ’s hat as he stepped into the ring with two huge revolvers stuck into his belt and a deer gun strapped to his back for good measure. The human arsenal of a sheriff, though, was severely outgunned. The crowd, in the spirit of ensuring “fair play,” packed as much heat as the Mississippi sun. Nearly every hip pocket held a revolver, including that of Wild West legend "Bat" Masterson, who served in Kilrain's corner.<br />
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The sheriff lifted his hand for order, sputtered an introduction, and called upon all present to desist in their illicit behavior and disperse in the name of the sovereign state of Mississippi. The fans hissed and booed as Renaud stepped between the ropes, talked briefly with the sheriff, and then slipped him $250. Cowart left the ring and took a seat to enjoy the combat with the rest of the crowd.<br />
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With the legal disclaimer concluded, the fighters came toe to toe and dug their spikes into the turf as the referee roared, “Time!” For an instant, the two fighters eyed each other. They circled like tomcats in an alley. Then Kilrain darted at Sullivan, who dodged and fired a wayward shot at his opponent’s jaw. Jake pounced, grabbed John L. by the shoulders, and threw him to the ground with a back-heel maneuver that gave the first fall to Kilrain. The challenger’s backers howled with joy and opened their palms to receive their winnings from the bets taken on the first fall. The first round had lasted no more than fifteen seconds.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nL5jExYdmeo/U7xHBn0-cnI/AAAAAAAABVs/gKEhrKufMko/s1600/13_Strong_Boy.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nL5jExYdmeo/U7xHBn0-cnI/AAAAAAAABVs/gKEhrKufMko/s1600/13_Strong_Boy.tiff" height="233" width="320" /></a>Sullivan roared as he went to his corner, “So you want to wrestle, do you? Well, I’ll give you enough of that.” He came to scratch for the second round in a rage and threw Kilrain down hard. The third round featured some of the hardest slugging of the entire fight. Both men threw hard rights that landed on the necks of their counterparts. Then the fighters unleashed volleys of punches and counterpunches. Kilrain hit Sullivan with two shots below the belt, which raised cries of foul that went unheeded by the referee. John L. responded with terrible blows to Jake’s ribs and body that sent him to the ground in agony. Kilrain's seconds dragged their man back to his corner as chants of “Sullivan! Sullivan!” shook the Mississippi pines.<br />
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After the bombardment of the third round, Kilrain wanted no more of John L.’s big right. The challenger began to play a game of keep away—sidestepping, jabbing, and retreating from any toe-to-toe slugging. The temperature would have reached one hundred degrees in the shade—had there been any shade. The scorching heat, however, couldn’t break the fans of their formal Victorian-era dress code. Ties remained knotted. Long-sleeve shirts and dress coats stayed buttoned.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7-11ukcJ2TM/U7xHCNhPQVI/AAAAAAAABVw/geCjv8cfut8/s1600/14_Strong_Boy.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7-11ukcJ2TM/U7xHCNhPQVI/AAAAAAAABVw/geCjv8cfut8/s1600/14_Strong_Boy.tiff" height="235" width="320" /></a>With temperatures already halfway to the boiling point, it took little for Sullivan’s blood to bubble over. John L. grew increasingly frustrated at Kilrain’s evasion. “Why don’t you stand and fight like a man?” he growled at his opponent after the fourth round. Kilrain walked in circles in the fifth round, which drew boos and hisses from Sullivan’s fans. In the sixth round, both men came to scratch breathing heavily. After a Kilrain hook to Sullivan’s right ear, blood ran down the champion’s sweaty body. The referee awarded the challenger first blood. Kilrain’s backers cheered again as rolls of greenbacks changed hands. Their man had won the first two betting points, but Sullivan began to gain the upper hand in the larger battle. Wounded, he leveled Kilrain with the first knockdown punch of the bout—a sledgehammer right to end round six.<br />
<br />
Sullivan continued to rush Kilrain as his opponent clinched and hugged to prevent the champion from firing off his shots. Still, John L. managed to land big blows that “sounded like a man hitting a bale of cotton with a stick.” By the eighth round, Kilrain’s face was swollen, and red splotches appeared on his chest. He continued to evade Sullivan, who cried out, “Stand up and fight! You’re the champion, you know. Come, prove your title.” Some of the spectators called Jake a cur and voiced their disapproval “over Kilrain’s refusal to stand up and be thumped.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hnrLsCcKyTc/U7xFx9l_F5I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Ln48RcW8Z5w/s1600/15_Strong_Boy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hnrLsCcKyTc/U7xFx9l_F5I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Ln48RcW8Z5w/s1600/15_Strong_Boy.jpg" height="241" width="320" /></a>Suddenly, a commotion came from the crowd where a section of the temporary grandstand buckled and collapsed to the ground. The fighters were so engrossed that they barely noticed. The incident caused no serious injuries, just disappointment among the affected fans who no longer had a roost from which to watch the brawl. At least those spectators who lost seats could still keep tabs on the fight. The inaugural edition of the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> published rumors of the fight’s possible start on its front page amid the dividend reports and market updates, while the White House pestered the press room for any news from Richburg.<br />
<br />
Sullivan’s fists began to swell like padded gloves from the punishment they delivered, and Kilrain hoped to just prolong the fight until John L. weakened. In the fifteenth round, the longest of the fight, he spent the better part of seven minutes racing away from Sullivan. With his feet constantly on the move, Kilrain accidentally spiked John L., gashing his left foot. Blood seeped through the top of Sullivan’s boots. The champion’s left eye also started to swell, and Kilrain managed to open up a cut with additional stingers. When Sullivan came back to his corner after the seventeenth round, one of his cornermen sucked the blood out of his man’s eye and sent him back out to scratch.<br />
<br />
Kilrain now fell with just the slightest push or without even being touched, and John L. protested to the referee to no avail. The rounds piled up. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. After Kilrain dropped to the ground to end the twenty-third round, a frustrated Sullivan jumped on the challenger's head with both knees.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aeBwyJRM5a8/U7xG5E-NkyI/AAAAAAAABVk/E71otLO-87U/s1600/Sullivan+Kilrain+Wide+Round+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aeBwyJRM5a8/U7xG5E-NkyI/AAAAAAAABVk/E71otLO-87U/s1600/Sullivan+Kilrain+Wide+Round+7.jpg" height="320" width="313" /></a>Twenty-five. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Sullivan’s left eye continued to swell. Blood flowed from Kilrain’s ear. The challenger continued to dive to the turf as fans yelled, “Fight! Fight!” Sullivan's trainer asked how long the champ could endure. “Until tomorrow morning, if it’s necessary,” he replied.<br />
<br />
Thirty. Thirty-five. Forty. The fight now approached ninety minutes in length. Kilrain continued to play his waiting game, hoping that Sullivan’s condition would change. And then suddenly it happened.<br />
<br />
Just after the call of time to start the forty-fourth round, Sullivan doubled over and vomited. The champion had been given cold tea laced with whiskey between rounds and apparently his system rebelled. John L. later claimed that there was too much whiskey in the concoction. “My stomach being in such a good condition, I threw it right off,” he recounted in his autobiography. His friends knew better, however. They joked that Sullivan actually heaved the tea and kept down the booze.<br />
<br />
Kilrain suddenly saw an escape from certain defeat. “Will you draw the fight?” he asked Sullivan. “No, you loafer,” John L. snapped back. The champion punctuated his retort by knocking Kilrain down to end the forty-fourth. He sent Jake to the turf in the next round and then jumped in the air and landed on his opponent’s head with both legs.<br />
<br />
Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty. The fighters turned red from blood, lacerations, and the cauldron of the midday sun, which had broiled and blistered their exposed skin. Kilrain’s seconds gave him whiskey shots between rounds to try to dull the pain. Sullivan continued to stalk his prey. He pounded away at a raw piece of skin over Kilrain’s ribs that was “hanging like a big tumor.” Through it all, the plucky Kilrain would not give up, but none of the gambling men in the crowd would risk even a nickel on him at this point in the fight.<br />
<br />
Sixty-five. Seventy. Sullivan found little resistance to his repeated blows from his terribly weakened opponent. In the seventy-third and seventy-fourth rounds, Kilrain retreated all around the ring. In the seventy-fifth, Sullivan knocked the challenger around as he pleased. Kilrain returned to his corner extremely dazed. He could barely lift his arms. His neck could barely support the weight of his head. Fearing his man could die in the ring, Kilrain's cornerman tossed a sponge from his water pail into the middle of the ring.<br />
<br />
It was over.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8JV57H-ppRk/U7xFiQA7p4I/AAAAAAAABVI/UUa8-oOFipc/s1600/4e8b4b98-98a7-42b4-8f3b-e2c83423bac9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8JV57H-ppRk/U7xFiQA7p4I/AAAAAAAABVI/UUa8-oOFipc/s1600/4e8b4b98-98a7-42b4-8f3b-e2c83423bac9.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a>Two hours and sixteen minutes after the men came to scratch, the referee announced Sullivan the victor. Although the marathon bout had ended, Sullivan’s fight in Mississippi had only just begun. The ensuing legal drama that included his extradition back to Mississippi would consume Sullivan for the better part of the next year and convince him to swear off bare knuckles forever. The champion’s preference for gloves had driven the sport’s transition from the London Prize Ring Rules to the Marquis of Queensberry Rules throughout the 1880s, a transformation that would eventually be completed with his decision to never again defend his title with naked fists. The duel in the Mississippi sun turned out to be the final bareknuckle championship fight in history.<br />
<br />
More on the Sullivan-Kilrain epic can be found inside <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762781521/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762781521&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20" target="_blank">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero</a></i></b>.Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-41429313964338819712014-07-07T14:05:00.001-04:002014-07-07T14:05:06.971-04:00Building the Ring for the Rumble at Richburg<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PIaMvJDD8pk/U7rggmPl7DI/AAAAAAAABUk/fP9GygeoJtM/s1600/Richburg+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PIaMvJDD8pk/U7rggmPl7DI/AAAAAAAABUk/fP9GygeoJtM/s1600/Richburg+1.jpg" height="260" width="320" /></a>It was 125 years ago today that the promoters of the heavyweight championship fight between John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain chose a secret location to stage the illegal bareknuckle fight--the unincorporated lumber town of Richburg, Mississippi, a 900-person hamlet that consisted chiefly of a sawmill, a school, a church, and a general store that carried everything from diaper pins to caskets.<br />
<br />
As secret locations go, this one was barely on the map. The village bore the name of its founder and still chief citizen, Col. Charles W. Rich. The lumber baron, sporting man, and future mayor of Hattiesburg had offered the fight promoters the use of his 30,000 acres of pine forest. Under the sweltering sun, a few dozen laborers hastily cleared the soaring pines that surrounded a level spot previously used as a baseball diamond on a small hilltop. They constructed an outdoor arena with tiers of bleachers on three sides of the ring, which consisted of eight towering posts and two manila ropes. The workers stripped nearby pines of their lower limbs and built a picket fence to prevent freeloaders from viewing the fight.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0ES5_XCYHT4/U7rgggGd-rI/AAAAAAAABUg/93FmWnJXWjo/s1600/Richburg+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0ES5_XCYHT4/U7rgggGd-rI/AAAAAAAABUg/93FmWnJXWjo/s1600/Richburg+2.jpg" height="260" width="320" /></a>They labored into the night by the flicker of pine torchlights, which bathed Rich’s house in an orange glow. Inside, Kilrain, plagued by mosquitoes and nerves, spent a restless night. Two hundred yards away, the champion slept soundly inside the home of Rich’s foreman, J. W. Smith.<br />
<br />
One hundred miles southwest in New Orleans, thousands of fight fans who had poured into the city prepared for a long night of revelry. In the early morning hours of Monday, July 8, they would board trains to the scene of the fight, still a closely-kept mystery to the outside world. In a few hours, they would witness an epic brawl, the last heavyweight championship fight contested with naked fists. More on the Sullivan-Kilrain epic can be found inside <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Boy-Sullivan-Americas-Sports/dp/0762781521" target="_blank">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero. </a></i><br />
<br />
Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-21914647408901050992014-02-26T11:17:00.001-05:002014-02-26T11:21:53.985-05:00Upcoming "Strong Boy" Book Talks<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RUjl1NZsihk/Uw4TZDLiXsI/AAAAAAAABQU/VOAkBLwFhWo/s1600/photo-6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RUjl1NZsihk/Uw4TZDLiXsI/AAAAAAAABQU/VOAkBLwFhWo/s1600/photo-6.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a>What better way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day than learning more about one of the country's first Irish-American heroes? I'll be telling the colorful tale of the hard-hitting, hard-drinking Gilded Age boxer John L. Sullivan at a number of Boston-area institutions this March. Among the scheduled dates are the following:<br />
<br />
March 6, 6 PM: Boston Public Library<br />
March 8, 9:30 AM: The Irish Ancestral Research Association (Boston)<br />
March 12, 7 PM: Medford Public Library<br />
March 16, 2:30 PM: Stevens Memorial Library (North Andover)<br />
March 18, 7 PM: Falmouth Historical Society and Museums on the Green<br />
March 19, 7 PM: Thomas Crane Public Library (Quincy)<br />
March 27, 6:30 PM: South End Historical Society<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Come on out, and you'll</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li>Learn how Sullivan’s incredible career and oversized personality launched America’s modern sporting obsession</li>
<li>Travel back in time to the extravagant Gilded Age to witness the birth of America’s celebrity culture</li>
<li>Discover how Sullivan’s power and self-confidence transformed him into an idol for a generation of Irish-Americans emasculated in the wake of the horrific potato famine that gripped their homeland</li>
<li>Grab a ringside seat to Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout with Jake Kilrain, and his battles outside the ring with the law, a troubled marriage, and raging alcoholism</li>
<li>Explore how Sullivan revolutionized boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
A full list of events can be found on the <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/" target="_blank">Strong Boy web site</a>. I'll be bringing flat John L. in tow. He's bundled up for the winter weather and ready to go. <br />
<br />
Hope to see you there!Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-20861873340416818152014-02-25T15:00:00.000-05:002014-02-25T16:06:40.093-05:00Muhammad Ali and John L. Sullivan<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MECTveH5re0/Uwz0Z78jE-I/AAAAAAAABP4/HtNR-ZjLCek/s1600/13977039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MECTveH5re0/Uwz0Z78jE-I/AAAAAAAABP4/HtNR-ZjLCek/s1600/13977039.jpg" height="320" width="219" /></a>It was 50 years ago today that 7-1 underdog Cassius Clay shocked the sports world by defeating reigning heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Florida. The next morning Clay announced to reporters that he had joined the Nation of Islam, and within weeks he would change his name to Muhammad Ali.<br />
<br />
Ali was arguably the greatest fighter of the 20th century, and he had much in common with the premier brawler of the 19th century, John L. Sullivan. The loquacious Ali was a master showman and boxing's poet laureate, composing verses in which he taunted opponents and praised himself. (His iambic pentameter was so popular that Columbia Records released a <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/i-am-the-greatest!-mw0000244872" target="_blank">1963 spoken word album called “I Am the Greatest”</a> in which the 21-year-old rising star performed his poetry, backed my musical accompaniment, before an audience.)<br />
<br />
Ali's self-aggrandizing braggadocio made him controversial, but it didn't make him unique. Nearly a century before, John L. Sullivan approached his opponents with the same swagger, such as the time he blitzed John Flood on a barge towed up the Hudson River in 1881 and pointed at Paddy Ryan, the reigning heavyweight champion, in the audience and growled: "I'll get you next!" "I can lick any S.O.B alive" is the famous mantra attributed to Sullivan, and with the exception of "Gentleman Jim" Corbett it was also true. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uVTJDD6GOp4/Uwz0-KPLGVI/AAAAAAAABQA/HgbgZdh46Hg/s1600/Buck-White-02-69-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uVTJDD6GOp4/Uwz0-KPLGVI/AAAAAAAABQA/HgbgZdh46Hg/s1600/Buck-White-02-69-5.jpg" height="320" width="208" /></a>Ali is more than just a boxer. He is a major cultural figure who transcends sport, much in the same way Sullivan was in the 19th century. Ali starred in films and during his forced exile from the ring even headlined a Broadway musical called "Buck White," which unfortunately took a seven count--seven performances before the curtain fell on the flop. (The Playbill for "Buck White" spends as much time listing the colleges where Ali lectured as his accomplishments in the ring.)<br />
<br />
A century before, Sullivan was also a pugilistic thespian. He starred on stages around the country, headlining five-act melodramas written specifically with him in mind for the lead. He appeared in <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> and also toured the country delivering monologues in which he told stories of his fighting days and bad Irish jokes.<br />
<br />
Oh, and one other surprising connection. Both men had Irish roots. Sullivan's lineage to the Emerald Isle would not be a shock. Both his parents emigrated from Ireland in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. So did County Clare native Abe Grady. He settled in Kentucky in the 1860s and married a freed slave. One of their grandchildren was Ali’s mother, Odessa Lee Grady Clay. Now you know where each fighter got his gift for gab.<br />
<br />
For more on Sullivan, visit the <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/" target="_blank">"Strong Boy" web site</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762781521/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762781521&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20" target="_blank">click here</a> to purchase the book.Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-82613323806040589242014-02-07T13:06:00.001-05:002014-02-07T13:06:58.997-05:00When John L. Sullivan Gained the Heavyweight Crown
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lk_jxmv8rrw/UvUe--ns1LI/AAAAAAAABOs/G6lae6avbh0/s1600/32_Strong_Boy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lk_jxmv8rrw/UvUe--ns1LI/AAAAAAAABOs/G6lae6avbh0/s1600/32_Strong_Boy.JPG" height="222" width="320" /></a>February 7, 1882, was a beautiful day for barbarity. The
brilliant mid-winter sun transformed the Gulf of Mexico’s placid blue canvas
into a sparkling sea of diamonds. The ivory sands of the Mississippi coastline
glistened like a blanket of fresh powdered snow as lazily drifting clouds
offered periodic relief on an unseasonably warm day.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The soft, repetitive murmur of the wavelets kissing the
white dunes was muffled, however, by the yells of a bloodthirsty mob gathered
just yards away. Nearly 2,000 boxing fans had invaded the grounds of the Barnes
Hotel, jolting the resort town of Mississippi City from its wintertime slumber.
The sanguinary crowd hoped that the hotel’s emerald lawn would soon turn
crimson from the soaking blood of two warriors—reigning American heavyweight
champion Paddy Ryan and John L. Sullivan, the undefeated 23-year-old phenom
from Boston who had awed America with his power.</div>
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<br /></div>
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From boisterous barroom squabbles to surreptitious whispers
in church pews, the bare-knuckle </div>
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championship had become the talk of the
nation. Preacher Henry Ward Beecher warned his Brooklyn congregation against
betting on the fight, but to little avail. The <i>New York Times</i> reported that as
much as $200,000 had been wagered on the bout in New York City alone. Major
metropolitan newspapers provided unprecedented coverage, and as the days
remaining to the fight dwindled, trainloads of fans poured into New Orleans
from as far away as San Francisco.</div>
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The savagery, corruption and gambling endemic to
prizefighting roamed so far beyond the bounds of Victorian-era sensibilities
that the governor of Louisiana had banned the Ryan-Sullivan affair from his
jurisdiction and the governor of Mississippi ordered sheriffs to use any means
necessary to prevent the championship fight from soiling his state’s turf.
Fearful of “magisterial interference,” fight promoters kept the bout’s location
shrouded in a cloak of secrecy as thick as the darkness that enveloped the
trainloads of fans that departed New Orleans at 5 a.m. on the morning of the
fight for a destination unknown.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Hours later, the train finally stopped and exhaled at
Mississippi City, and fans sprinted to the battleground. Well-to-do dandies in
stovepipe hats and a handful of corseted women in flowing dresses gladly
surrendered five dollars for the highly coveted vantage on the hotel’s
verandah, while fans of lesser means perched themselves in bare magnolia trees.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As Ryan and Sullivan came to the center of the ring and
doubled-up their clenched, bare fists, the crowd pressed hard against the
makeshift ring. The roar of 2,000 voices echoed off the towering Mississippi
pines as Sullivan pounced like a caged tiger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He surprised
his adversary with a jackhammer left that landed on Ryan’s cheek with a
sickening fleshy thud. The massive opening salvo tore open a gash on the champion
and gave Sullivan first blood. The challenger followed it up with a right fist
that rocked Ryan’s left jaw, sent him to the turf, and induced winces
throughout the crowd.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It had taken all of thirty seconds. Thirty seconds for
Sullivan to demonstrate he was the unstoppable force. Thirty seconds to prove
his power wasn’t diminished by his naked fists. Thirty seconds to prove that a
lack of prizefighting experience meant nothing when you had two thunderbolts attached
to your arms. Ryan had never been on the receiving end of such hard hits. “When
Sullivan struck me, I thought that a telegraph pole had been shoved against me
endways,” he said after the fight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As blood spurted down his face, Ryan walked back to his
corner to get sponged, but his confidence was shaken. With boyish amusement,
Sullivan skipped back to his corner, understanding what most of the fans—and probably
Ryan himself—had just discovered: He was the superior man.</div>
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<br /></div>
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For nine rounds, the challenger continued his onslaught with
terrific rushes as Ryan’s left eye began to swell shut. As a groggy and
exhausted champion mounted a counter to get to the middle of the ring in the ninth round, Sullivan
geared up and threw his favorite punch: a wicked right hook to the left side of
the neck, connecting just under Ryan’s left ear. The blow made such an awful
sound that even those without a direct view knew immediately that Sullivan had
unleashed a terrible knockout blow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ryan crumbled to the ground in a heap, bloodied and broken.
His trainer sent a sponge aloft in a symbol of surrender. John L. Sullivan was
the new heavyweight champion. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Rather than reveling in his victory, Sullivan’s first act as
champion was a gracious one, crossing to his opponent’s corner to shake hands.
Still full of energy, he then hurdled the ropes and sprinted the one hundred
yards to his quarters and streaked into superstardom. After being carried to his quarters to be examined by a
doctor, a bloodied and battered Ryan discovered a further indignity—$300 had
been stolen from his vest pocket while Sullivan was stealing his crown.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The intense media attention and fan interest surrounding the 1882 </div>
championship bout provided a mere glimpse at the future. Newly laid railroad
lines had permitted fans and reporters from across the country to witness the
event in person, and brand-new telegraph lines instantly transmitted
blow-by-blow accounts. With a transportation and communications network
stitching the country together and media coverage growing, the modern sports
age had begun, and it had found its first athletic god. He had arrived in Mississippi
City as John L. Sullivan and departed as an American Hercules.<br />
<br />
This post was an excerpt from the new biography "Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan," which the <i>Boston Globe</i> called "one of the best boxing books ever penned." For more, visit the "Strong Boy" <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/">web site</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762781521/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762781521&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20">click here</a> to purchase the book.<br />
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<i>Photograph of Mississippi City fight scene courtesy of Tracy Callis</i><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-28977593046279323712014-02-02T15:05:00.000-05:002014-02-02T15:05:23.773-05:00The Final Hours of John L. Sullivan
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FiUEzsGzdWg/Uu6kL4rlQyI/AAAAAAAABOI/X4VKYhPILkc/s1600/35_Strong_Boy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FiUEzsGzdWg/Uu6kL4rlQyI/AAAAAAAABOI/X4VKYhPILkc/s1600/35_Strong_Boy.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The temperature had nearly sunk to
zero when the sun rose on Saturday, February 2, 1918. In spite of the freeze, John
L. Sullivan decided to keep his plans to meet friends in Boston. He had news to
share. He was returning to the ring—albeit a circus one. The night before, Sullivan’s
business manager, D’Arcy O’Connor, visited the ex-fighter’s farm in Abington,
Massachusetts, to get his signature on a contract to tour that upcoming summer
with Ringling Brothers Circus. Under the deal, Sullivan was to receive $1,000 a
week to ride in an Irish jaunting car with an Irish bagpiper and deliver a
ten-minute address in the center ring.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As Sullivan prepared to depart, his
old sparring partner George Bush, who had lived with the champ since the death
of his wife, heard groaning emanating from the bedroom. He rushed in and found
that John L. had fainted on the bed. Bush contacted an Abington doctor, R. B.
Rand, who revived the former champion and gave him a heart stimulant. “I’m all
right now,” Sullivan reassured Bush as he sat on his bed. “Telephone the people
in Boston that I’ll be along and that I’m sorry I’m late.” Shortly after Dr.
Rand left, Bush again heard Sullivan groaning and complaining about the sharp
pain in his chest. Sullivan began to slip away after this second attack. At
11:45 a.m., John L. Sullivan passed away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Although he had been having heart
trouble for the previous three weeks, the death of the old gladiator “came as a
bolt from a clear sky.” That death had visited Sullivan so quickly, and at the
age of fifty-nine, may have been stunning, but the cause of his demise—“fatty
degeneration of heart” was listed on the death certificate—would not have
surprised John L. in the least. Although death had brushed him several times,
from barroom bullets to a drunken stumble off a rushing passenger train,
Sullivan always knew his heart would do him in. He had predicted it a quarter-century
earlier. “I have always had it in my head that it is heart disease that is to
be my ending,” he told a reporter in 1893. “My mother died of heart disease,
and I take after her physically. It has to come some time, and I am not looking
for it in a hurry, but when it does come I had rather be snuffed out quickly by
something like heart disease than to suffer with a lingering illness.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The news quickly spread across
Abington before it radiated out to the front pages of evening newspapers around
America. Hundreds of Sullivan’s neighbors made the pilgrimage that afternoon to
the forlorn farm. Inside, fourteen-year-old Willie Kelly, an orphan taken in by
Sullivan years earlier, sobbed for his best friend and the man he knew as a
father for half his life. John L.’s favorite pet collie, Queenie, wandered from
room to room whining for the “Big Fellow.” Within the next week, perhaps in a
quest to follow their master, a cow, a bulldog, two collies, and Sullivan’s
favorite horse, “Colonel Corn,” all dropped dead on the farm.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The “Strong Boy” returned to Boston in
the company of his lifelong friend, undertaker Timothy J. Mahoney. The
mortician could find no coffin in metropolitan Boston to hold this mountain of
a man, so a specially ordered mahogany casket was shipped from New York. The
day after his death, Sullivan’s body was brought to his sister’s Roxbury house,
the closest thing John L. had to home for so many years before he remarried.
The house on Brook Avenue may have been just over a mile from where he was born
on East Concord Street in Boston’s South End, but the road he had traversed
between those two bookends of his life had been a truly long one, one of the
most storied and colorful in sports history. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: ACaslonPro-Regular;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Read the story of John L. Sullivan in the new biography <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Boy-Sullivan-Americas-Sports/dp/0762781521">"Strong Boy,"</a> which the <i>Boston Globe</i> called "one of the best boxing books ever penned." For more, visit the <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/">"Strong Boy" web site</a>. </span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-65038525559813088872013-12-12T14:46:00.001-05:002013-12-12T14:49:15.377-05:00The House That John L. Sullivan Built<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xRUeMSKFLag/UqoQW_hZU-I/AAAAAAAABMs/Eh5bs056ujY/s1600/Madison+Square+Garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xRUeMSKFLag/UqoQW_hZU-I/AAAAAAAABMs/Eh5bs056ujY/s320/Madison+Square+Garden.jpg" width="200" /></a>Go back, back to when <a href="http://www.thegarden.com/">Madison Square Garden</a> was actually adjacent to New York City's <a href="http://www.madisonsquarepark.org/">Madison Square Park</a>. Back when the "world's most famous arena" was barely known in Gotham. Back when William H. Vanderbilt, son of the late Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, had one of those pesky millionaire's problems.<br />
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When Vanderbilt assumed control of the first incarnation of Madison Square Garden in 1879, the building hosted a lineup of masquerade balls, horticultural shows, temperance lectures, revival meetings, and band concerts. P. T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth and the new <a href="http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/">Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show</a> brought in the paying customers, but only for a few weeks a year. To boost revenue, Vanderbilt decided to host more sporting events at his building across from the northeast corner of Madison Square Park. Wrestling matches and billiard tournaments, however, drew only lukewarm crowds. Six-day pedestrian races, which started a minute after midnight on Monday morning and ended at midnight the following Saturday, brought in fans, but spread over the course of an entire week they were not big money-makers.<br />
<br />
Like any New York theater owner, Vanderbilt needed a smash hit with a box-office superstar in the leading role.<br />
<br />
He needed <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/">John L. Sullivan</a>.<br />
<br />
He booked the newly christened American heavyweight boxing champion for a grand sparring match against the man who claimed the championship of England—Joe Collins, alias “Tug Wilson.” Not even Vanderbilt, however, could have envisioned the throng that descended upon Madison Square Garden on the sultry summer evening of July 17, 1882. Thousands poured out of the Third Avenue elevated trains and jumped off the Fourth Avenue streetcars as fight time approached. The sweltering swarm with one-dollar tickets in hand pushed, swore, and shoved their ways inside the Fourth Avenue entrance while Manhattan’s oligarchs flashed their two-dollar tickets at the entrance on fashionable Madison Avenue. The marketplace laws of supply and demand pleased the army of ticket speculators, who received as much as five dollars a ticket.<br />
<br />
Never had so many passed through the gates of the arena. Twelve thousand people boiled inside the oppressive cauldron of Madison Square Garden as at least two thousand disappointed fans pleaded to be allowed inside. A stagnant haze of tobacco smoke hovered over the crowd and obscured the views from the building’s outer reaches. What struck reporters was not only the size of the crowd, but also its composition. More than the rabble had been roused by the spectacle. “Hundreds of respectable citizens” turned out as well. “From the highest type of respectability to the lowest grade of depravity, every art, profession, vocation, trade, and crime had its representative,” reported one local newspaper.<br />
<br />
Sullivan had refused a prizefight against Wilson, instead offering him $1,000 and half of the gate if he could stand up for four rounds. And for four rounds, Wilson infuriated the champion and earned the hisses of the crowd by dancing around the ring and hitting the ground to avoid any of Sullivan's punches. He flopped, hopped, and dropped. He skipped, dodged, and dove. When Sullivan approached, he clenched, hugged, and danced. Wilson wasn't interested in fighting. Diving was the only sport he exhibited in the Garden. Although prostrate for most of the twelve minutes, Wilson remained standing in the ring as time was called at the end of the fourth round. The Englishman had<br />
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failed to land one big blow and by some accounts fell twenty-eight times during the bout, yet he emerged the winner under Sullivan’s ground rules.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-coAcUaHp_n4/UqoRPP4NyRI/AAAAAAAABM4/rj5fXFBpNFg/s1600/Madison_Square_Garden_(c.1879).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-coAcUaHp_n4/UqoRPP4NyRI/AAAAAAAABM4/rj5fXFBpNFg/s320/Madison_Square_Garden_(c.1879).jpg" width="320" /></a>To Vanderbilt’s joy, however, the gate money for the Sullivan-Wilson fight topped $16,000. John L. left Madison Square Garden disgusted, but—with his share of the receipts—far richer. He raked in thousands for just twelve minutes of work with the gloves, and Vanderbilt found his drawing card. Over the next several years, John L. became a regular draw at MSG, both in four-round gloved exhibitions and testimonial benefits. Sullivan put Madison Square Garden on the American sporting map. The arena would be torn down in 1887 to give way to a second, more glorious incarnation of Madison Square Garden. </div>
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If old Yankee Stadium was the "House That Ruth Built," then the original Madison Square Garden, that other New York sporting cathedral, certainly was the "House That Sullivan Built." </div>
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Read more about John L. Sullivan in <b><a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/" target="_blank">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero</a>. </b>Strong Boy is available on <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Boy-Sullivan-Americas-Sports/dp/0762781521">Amazon.com</a></b> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strong-boy-christopher-klein/1113111100"><b>BN.com</b></a>. </div>
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<br />Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-7836391260893013732013-10-25T08:07:00.001-04:002013-10-29T14:17:09.271-04:00John L. and the Red Sox<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bfE0swZyylY/Um_7GQRxMfI/AAAAAAAABKM/uimJfEeVVKE/s1600/John+L+dugout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bfE0swZyylY/Um_7GQRxMfI/AAAAAAAABKM/uimJfEeVVKE/s320/John+L+dugout.jpg" width="320" /></a>He may have only sported a brilliant handlebar mustache and not a full lumberjack beard, but no doubt that John L. Sullivan would feel a special affinity for the bewhiskered 2013 Boston Red Sox.<br />
<br />
The “Boston Strong Boy” was a huge baseball “crank,” as fans were known in the late 1800s. As a boy, Sullivan rooted for the National League’s Boston Red Stockings and attended games at the nearby South End Grounds. During his boxing days, Sullivan would stand at home plate before games as Boston left fielder Joe Hornung threw balls as hard as he could at the champion standing on home plate. John L. hardly flinched as he let the baseballs bounce off his prodigious chest.<br />
<br />
Sullivan, a decent ballplayer himself, played on numerous semipro teams. He boasted that he turned down a $1,300 contract offer from the Cincinnati Red Stockings to play with them during the 1879 and 1880 seasons, although a sporting newspaper reported years later that the team president could not recall such an offer. During Sullivan’s reign as heavyweight champion, big-league baseball teams such as the Philadelphia Athletics hired the champ for a day to pitch for their teams in exhibition games in return for half the gate. In 1883, 4,000 fans came out to the Polo Grounds to watch as Sullivan, clad in a white flannel uniform and pillbox hat, took the field with the New York Metropolitans.<br />
<br />
After his fighting days were done, Sullivan periodically showed up at Boston’s ballyards to watch the Braves and the new American League franchise, which would become known as the Red Sox. Sullivan was in attendance at the first World Series in 1903 as Boston defeated Pittsburgh. He sat in the dugout before games with Boston manager Jimmy Collins.<br />
<br />
The “Boston Strong Boy” even took to the emerald lawn of Boston’s new ballyard, Fenway Park, in 1917 as an honorary first-base coach at an all-star benefit game for the family of recently deceased Boston Globe baseball scribe Tim Murnane. Will Rogers entertained the 17,000 fans by galloping around Fenway demonstrating rope tricks before the Red Sox took the field against a team of all-stars that included “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Tris Speaker. As Sullivan took to the coaching box for the all-stars, he stood on the same field as another noted athlete, Sox phenom Babe Ruth, who toed the rubber as the starting pitcher after easily winning the pre-game hitting competition by launching a ball 402 feet. Sullivan had little work to do as Ruth scattered just three hits in five scoreless innings against a pantheon of baseball legends. On Fenway’s emerald turf, the lives of the greatest American sports superstars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries briefly intertwined.<br />
<br />
As a Boston boy partial to facial hair and a “crank” of the highest order, no doubt John L. would have a message for everyone today: “GO SOX!”<br />
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Read more on John L. Sullivan in <i><a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/" target="_blank">Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero.</a></i><br />
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<i>Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library</i><br />
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Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-59900054266844094652013-10-15T17:16:00.001-04:002013-10-15T17:16:09.299-04:00Happy Birthday, John L. Sullivan?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On October 15, 1858, John L. Sullivan was born in Boston's South End. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Or was he?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">John L. always gave his birthday as October 15. His mother and father did the same. Instead of a Bible, the Sullivan family recorded the birth dates of John L. and his siblings in the front of Life of the Blessed Virgin and Life of Christ. The date recorded inside is also October 15. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Yet, the city of Boston birth certificate for John L. Sullivan lists his birth date as October 12, 1858, as you can see here. </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bv17KUwOswE/Ul2vWnCDBzI/AAAAAAAABIY/bYP3g_Ehfmk/s1600/JLS+Birth+Certificate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bv17KUwOswE/Ul2vWnCDBzI/AAAAAAAABIY/bYP3g_Ehfmk/s320/JLS+Birth+Certificate.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">City records from the 1800s were susceptible to errors. Sullivan's death certificate, for instance, listed his incorrect age when he passed away. I would chalk the discrepancy up to a city error except for John L. Sullivan's baptismal record. According to the record I received from the Archdiocese of Boston, Sullivan was baptized on October 13, 1858, at St. Joseph's Church in Roxbury. Below is an older record of Sullivan's baptism:</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNKqQV3ulEc/Ul2wA21gUvI/AAAAAAAABIg/dQEbJh7W1sQ/s1600/IMG_0107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNKqQV3ulEc/Ul2wA21gUvI/AAAAAAAABIg/dQEbJh7W1sQ/s320/IMG_0107.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">So who's right? God, country, or the "Boston Strong Boy"? I think in this case, church and state have got it right. October 12 is Sullivan's birthday.</span>Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-37616501323986812472013-09-27T14:13:00.002-04:002013-09-27T14:14:06.117-04:00John L. Sullivan and the Wayback MachineOh, that Hollywood, always taking artistic license with real history. Take that smug, pipe-smoking canine, Mr. Peabody, and his redheaded sidekick Sherman. In a 1960 episode of "Rocky & Bullwinkle" Mr. Peabody and Sherman enter the Wayback Machine to witness "the most titanic struggle in boxing history," the championship bout between John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain.<br />
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Well they got the description right, but the rest of the episode was "Peabody's Improbable History" indeed. In spite of setting the bespectacled dog setting Wayback Machine for July 8, 1888 (one year too early) and Richburg, Massachusetts (off by one critical letter in the postal abbreviation; it took place in Mississippi), Sherman and Mr. Peabody find themselves at Sullivan's camp where his trainer O'Hara (oops, it was William Muldoon) is talking on a phone (anachronism) to put down money on Kilrain because the red-headed (oops) Sullivan can't get train because his mustache was too thick (anyone who knows John L. knows that only booze, not facial hair, put him in a condition where "he couldn't punch a clock"). Someone has to call out that pun-loving pooch before he blurs all lines between fact and fiction. Where's that Mr. Know-It-All, Bullwinkle, when you need him? Someone needs to go back into the Wayback Machine and hand him a copy of <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/" target="_blank">Strong Boy</a> to get his history right.<br />
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Well, I guess it is pretty good entertainment all the same. And you've got to love someone bringing their own corned beef and cabbage to a bareknuckle boxing match. Check it out!<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xgsmp6" width="480"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgsmp6_john-sullivan_shortfilms" target="_blank">John Sullivan</a> <i>by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/MistyIsland1" target="_blank">MistyIsland1</a></i>Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5820693409705235685.post-71851820532634695332013-09-06T11:51:00.002-04:002013-09-13T12:54:18.277-04:00How John L. Sullivan Changed America<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He was America’s first sports superstar. He
was the gold standard of his sport for more than a decade. He was the
first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. His rise from the
working-class city streets epitomized the American Dream. He had a big ego,
big mouth, and bigger appetites. He ate and drank with reckless
abandon. He was loud and vulgar. His womanizing, drunken escapades,
and constant police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper
industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He wasn’t Babe Ruth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He was John L. Sullivan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Nearly four decades before Ruth donned a baseball
uniform, Sullivan ruled as heavyweight champion from 1882 to 1892. Born
to Irish-American parents who fled the horrible potato famine that gnawed
away at Ireland, the larger-than-life boxer rose from a working-class Boston
neighborhood to become the most recognizable man in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2ZbsMiIrIHA/Uin48XYThbI/AAAAAAAABGg/CgbwnhG1JWY/s1600/08_Strong_Boy.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2ZbsMiIrIHA/Uin48XYThbI/AAAAAAAABGg/CgbwnhG1JWY/s320/08_Strong_Boy.tiff" width="235" /></a><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Far from being a bygone, sepia-toned relic,
Sullivan’s story is a familiar one. Everything we know of modern sports—the
hype machine, the press coverage, the hero worship by fans, the pitfalls of
celebrity, the endorsements, the greed and ungodly sums of money, the gambling,
the intersection of show business and athletics, and the gossip—all appear in
Sullivan’s tale. The man known as the “Boston Strong Boy” starred in theatrical
productions, sought political office, owned his own bar, and shilled products
for advertisers, activities that all seem commonplace for athletes today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">John L. Sullivan’s left his imprint on American
culture in three significant ways: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">1. John
L. Sullivan was the first American sports hero.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">If sports are America’s secular faith, Sullivan is
not only among the pantheon of athletic gods, he is our Zeus. His decade-long
reign coincided with the birth of American mass media, and his oversized personality
gave birth to America’s celebrity obsession with athletes. Long before
athletes’ private lives became fodder for TMZ, Deadspin, and ESPN, there was
Sullivan’s dirty laundry being aired in Richard K. Fox’s <i>National Police
Gazette</i> and Joseph Pulitzer’s <i>New York World</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">2. John
L. Sullivan was the first Irish-American idol.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The legendary spirit of the fighting Irish that was
made flesh in Sullivan transformed him into a hero for tens of thousands of
sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle who had felt emasculated in the wake of
the Great Hunger. At a time when millions of Irish Americans sought respect in
their new homeland, Sullivan earned it with his fists. His strength and
self-confidence were elixirs for a people who had suffered from malignant shame
after the famine, and it transformed him into an Irish-American idol. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Because
he meant so much as a minority champion, he prefigured Joe Louis, Jackie
Robinson, Billie Jean King and the many other athletes who became genuine
heroes to the people they represented,” says illustrious sportswriter Frank
Deford. “The Great John L. is as important a cultural figure as he was a sports
idol.”</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">3. John
L. Sullivan modernized the sport of boxing.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The last of the bare-knuckle champions and the first of the gloved
title-holders, Sullivan was a transcendent figure in boxing history. By
insisting on fighting with gloves under the newly developed Marquis of
Queensberry Rules, he revolutionized the sport from barbaric, outlawed
bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today. “The Boston
Strong Boy” pulled boxing from the back woods onto the front pages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ld958R61OAY/Uin494_hCBI/AAAAAAAABGo/aShRk3RvpLE/s1600/Strong+Boy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ld958R61OAY/Uin494_hCBI/AAAAAAAABGo/aShRk3RvpLE/s320/Strong+Boy.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">My latest book, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Strong Boy,</span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> tells the story of the self-made man who personified
the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. In vivid detail, the 368-page book
offers readers ringside seats for Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round
bout against Jake Kilrain and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he
literally challenged all of America to a fight. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strong Boy</i> also chronicles Sullivan’s battles outside the ring with
a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging
alcoholism.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> While he struggled with personal demons, his life story is ultimately a
redemptive one. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Even those who aren't boxing fans will be
entertained by Sullivan’s incredible exploits both inside and outside of the
ring as they learn about America’s sports-obsessed culture, the seedy
underbelly of Victorian society in the Gilded Age, and the rise of Irish
America in the latter 1800s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">While Sullivan is referred to in some quarters as
the “Babe Ruth of boxing,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strong Boy</i>
readers will discover that in truth, Ruth was the “John L. Sullivan of
baseball.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strong
Boy</i>, which will be available November 5, 2013, can be ordered online at
<a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780762781522" target="_blank">Indiebound</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strong-boy-christopher-klein/1113111100?ean=9780762781522">Barnes & Noble</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762781521/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0762781521&linkCode=as2&tag=hubtr-20">Amazon</a>. For more on John L. Sullivan, visit
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strong Boy</i> web site at <a href="http://www.strongboybook.com/">www.strongboybook.com</a> and keep watching
this blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><i>Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress</i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Christopher Kleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14150671164442092860noreply@blogger.com0