BAM on Boxing

(Long-time boxing matchmaker, promoter, booking agent Johnny Bos passed away last weekend in Florida at the age of 61.  J Russell Peltz, member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, recalls his association with the man known as The Wizard of Bos).

The Wizard Is Gone

Johnny Bos forgot more about boxing than most of today’s so-called experts ever knew, but his career in the sport he loved had been a Shakespearean tragedy for years.   He could predict the outcome of most fights so long as one of his own guys was not involved.  We called him Wizard—the Wizard of Bos.

J Russell Peltz

Brittany Rogers, also known as BAM (Brittany Anne Michele)

I met him in 1969 outside what used to be called the Felt Forum on 8^th Avenue between 31^st and 33^rd Streets.  We were kids in love with boxing.  Bos was 17 years old.  I was 22.  The Felt Forum was the 5,000-seat arena inside the larger Madison Square Garden and I’d take the train up there to watch the Friday Night Fights which Teddy Brenner and Harry Markson were staging to develop talent for the bigger arena.  Today it is known as The Theatre at Madison Square Garden.

At the time, I was working on the sports desk at The Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia, located across the street from the 30^th Street Train Station.  In those days, Malcolm Flash Gordon and Bos were publishing Tonight’s Boxing Program, an un-licensed 10- or 12-page newsletter which served as the unofficial program for fights in New York City.  Flash printed the newsletter on a mimeograph he bought with his Bar Mitzvah money.  It was the hottest thing in boxing, a no-holds barred, tell-it-like-it-is publication which was a must read for everyone who loved or was connected to boxing.

Flash and Bos were two of a quartet of boxing groupies.  The others who wrote for Tonight’s Boxing Program were Jack Obermayer, then 25, and Donald Majeski, then 17.  At one Felt Forum card in 1969, the program included a 10- or 15-question boxing quiz with the winner getting his choice of a free one-year subscription to either Boxing Illustrated magazine or Tonight’s Boxing Program.  I won the quiz, getting every answer correct, but someone complained that I should have been ineligible since I was a sportswriter.  Flash said there were no restrictions on who could, or could not, enter and I chose Tonight’s Boxing Program as my prize and that started a lifelong relationship with the quartet.

In the 1970s, the four of them were a constant sight at my cards in Philadelphia.  Flash was with me from the beginning, selling programs at my cards at the Blue Horizon, Arena and Spectrum, but he went AWOL sometime in the 1980s.

Obermayer became a lifelong boxing junkie and probably has seen, and reported on, more fight cards in more cities than any man alive.  Majeski is an international booking agent with ties worldwide.  He is a member of the nominating committee of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, NY.

Bos, real name Johnny Bosdal, became the go-to guy in New York and elsewhere up and down the East Coast, working as matchmaker for dozens of promoters, including Hall-of-Famer Mickey Duff in England and several others in Europe.  He seemed out of place in boxing, a 6-foot-4 hip-hopper, about 240 pounds, with long blond hair.  He wore clothes he must have bought at thrift shops when the Beatles were in vogue.

In the 1980s, when I was promoting at the Sands Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, Bos and I worked closely.  He often reminded me how I kept him going financially—and health-wise–in those days.  He’d reminisce about hanging out at the bar at the Sands on the 2d floor and feeding himself with the meal tickets we gave to the fighters who boxed there.

His knowledge of current-day fighters and of the greats and not-so-greats of the past was uncanny.  He was an admitted alcohol and drug user and he’d usually stand in the back of the arenas on fight night, bee-bopping to music only he could hear.

Shortly after Prince Charles Williams knocked out Bobby Czyz to win the IBF light-heavyweight title in 1987 in Las Vegas, I got a phone call from Bos.

“That was the best job you ever did,” he said, “resurrecting a club fighter like Williams, who was going nowhere when you signed him, and taking him to the world title.”

Those were words of validation.

Bos never bothered with contracts and it cost him big money after developing several fighters who became world champions.  Without his guidance, who knows if Billy Costello, Tracy Harris Patterson or Paulie Malignaggi would have made it to the big-time?  He also delivered opponents for a couple of pretty good heavyweight prospects named Gerry Cooney and Mike Tyson.  Bos was the brains behind Tyrone Booze, a mediocre talent who won the vacant WBO world cruiserweight title in 1992 with a 15-10 record.

When I was hired to make matches for ESPN in 1998, I paid Bos a weekly salary for advice.

His most beloved client was Joey Gamache, an over-achiever from Lewiston, ME, whom Bos maneuvered into winning the WBA world lightweight title in 1991.  In 2000, seven years after Gamache had lost his title and six years after failing to regain it for the second time, Bos put Gamache in with a comebacking Arturo Gatti in a 10-rounder on the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Derrell Coley main event at Madison Square Garden.

The official weights were 140 for Gamache, 140 ½ for Gatti.  To the end, Bos swore Gatti never made the contracted weight and claimed the New York State Athletic commission failed to do anything about it and even went so far as to claim the commission aided and abetted Gatti at the weigh-in. The next night, Gatti, weighing 160 pounds, blitzed the then-145-pound Gamache in two rounds.  Gamache claimed he suffered brain damage and was hospitalized for days.  He never boxed again.

When Gamache sued the commission, it marked the end of Bos’ days as a major player in New York.  In 2010, a judge finally ruled that the New York State Athletic Commission failed to properly weigh Gatti, but added that such failure did not cause Gamache’s career-ending knockout.  Since that lawsuit was filed, Bos had been unable to do any kind of official matchmaking work in New York.  Just a coincidence, I’m sure!

Bos permanently moved to Florida, found it hard to get decent work in boxing, and eventually had to sell his priceless boxing memorabilia collection, including autographs of many hard-to-find fighters from the early years of the 20^th century, to pay his bills.  He suffered from congestive heart failure and became bitter about the sport that was his life.  I saw him for the first time in years—and the last time ever–at Angelo Dundee’s funeral in Florida in February, 2012.  Seeing him brought back wild and whacky memories of years gone by.

When I called him last month, he told me that Malignaggi had recently sent him a check for $5,000.00, a generous act that went unnoticed.

“Things are pretty rough in boxing right now,” I told him.

“You have no idea how rough it is until you go looking through garbage cans for something to eat,” he said.

That conversation was a far cry from the one I remember we had in 1988, the night before my then-unbeaten welterweight, Hugh Buttons Kearney, was about to fight last-minute sub Jorge Maysonet on USA Network at the Blue Horizon.   Bos had delivered Maysonet, a Puerto Rican living in New York, to fight Kearney at the last minute.

“Well, whaddya think, Wizard?  I asked him on the phone the night before the match.

“Russell, you know exactly what is gonna happen,” he said.  “Kearney’s gonna go out of there as soon as Maysonet hits him.”

It didn’t take long.  Maysonet hit Kearney flush with a right hand, left hook combination 10 seconds into the fight.  Kearney went down like a stiff board and the referee did not even bother to count.

#          #          #

By Robert Ecksel on May 12, 2013

“Boxing is a brutal form of entertainment because nobody gives a fuck about nobody.”

The legendary Johnny Bos, once known as the matchmaker’s matchmaker, passed away today after a long illness. Bos was one of those notorious characters that only the sport of boxing could love. He always told it like it is, sometimes to his detriment, wore his heart on his sleeve, and cared more about the fighters than he cared about the fights.

For those who didn’t know or never saw Johnny, at 6’4” and 235 pounds he was larger than life. With his Fu Manchu moustache, long blond hair, dark shades, pimp threads, swagger and hip-hop ethos, he was unmistakably his own man.

But he also knew as much about the fight game as anyone.

“When I was a kid my father used to watch the fights at home on TV,” Bos told me with a raspy voice when I interviewed him several years ago. “The first fight I went to was the first Patterson-Liston fight on closed-circuit. First fight I saw live was Hurricane Carter versus Luis Rodriguez. I also hung out at the gyms. Bobby Gleason’s when it was on 149th, Harry Wiley’s on 135th, Jimmy Glenn’s Third Meridian on 125th, Cus D’Amato’s gym on 14th Street, Gil Clancy’s Parks Department on 28th Street. That was basically my education. I didn’t go through but nine years of high school. I remember Gil Clancy used to chase me out: ‘It’s not even three o’clock! What the hell are you doing here?’”

Bos was born to be a truant, but for someone who never graduated from high school he seemed pretty darn smart, maybe even too darn smart for his own good.

“Different people get different educations different ways,” Bos said. “The smartest people you’ll ever meet are drug dealers on the streets that have no education at all. But they know what they’re doing, they know business, they know money. They must be running it pretty good because there’s plenty of it around.”

Bos was a wild and crazy kid, and even as an adult he burned the candle at both ends. But he gave up drinking, which was killing him not slowly but fast, and never looked back.

I told Bos that I lost my taste for booze when I was 14. I didn’t embrace sobriety, per se. I just moved on to other things.

“Sunshine!” exclaimed Bos with a smile. “I used to get the clear light and drop it in a bottle of sangria and drink it, and whew! It was a helluva lot nicer. We would snort heroin to come down from the sunshine because there was so much speed in it. But like with LSD, I took that until I had a bad trip and then I stopped.”

Bos first made a name for himself in the 1970s alongside another boxing rebel named Flash Gordon.

“Me and Flash Gordon started Tonight’s Boxing Program‚ which became New York Boxing World. I was writing that up and working in the post office and I believe it was Harold Lederman who called Dennis Rappaport and had him call me to put together a show in January of ‘78. I was 25 then. From there the matchmaking kept growing.”

It was an auspicious beginning to what turned out to be a distinguished career.

“I was a matchmaker for most of the shows in the area,” Bos said. “In those days someone would come in and do a show when they didn’t have their own matchmaker. They’d use a local guy, whoever they were, and fortunately I got chosen for a lot of them. Nowadays every one of these companies has their own matchmakers.

“Matchmaking is not matchmaking anymore. That’s why you don’t have the 10-8 fighters. When they bring in a fighter he’s got to be 14-0 and the guy comes out and he can’t even fight. Now a promoter comes to you and gives you one side of the show and tells you to find an opponent for the rest. That’s not matchmaking.”

I asked Bos if he was alluding to the proverbial meat wagon.

“That’s just what it is. I don’t mind finding them, but fuck, I’m not God. Somebody calls me from Europe and they’re paying enough money and I’m gonna get paid and the fighter’s gonna get paid, that’s a big difference than paying some kid $400 to have his fucking head handed to him, and making a hundred calls to do it.

“What I am really is a personal matchmaker. I handle fighters and I make the matches for them or I okay the matches. Matchmakers are not what they used to be. Managers are not what they used to be. Managers nowadays are just fucking money guys that are going to do whatever the promoter tells them.”

For Bos, the 1980s were the “money years. Europe was flourishing then because of the ‘84 Olympics, and you still had communism. I wish they fucking kept communism,” said the politically incorrect matchmaker. “What happened was once communism stopped that opened up a lot of other countries to professional boxing, and instead of paying the Americans what they wanted, they could go to Russia, they could go to Poland, and get those guys to fight 10 rounds for a thousand dollars—they were starving people—and it dropped the money so much that Americans didn’t want to go to Europe anymore.”

Bos made some scratch during that time. He moved to Florida in 1988, bought a condo and planned on making a fresh start. “But it’s pretty hard to get up and work when you look out the window and see all these girls running around all the time.”

So Johnny Bos returned to the Big Apple.

“Boxing as it is in the United States should be banned,” he said. “Boxing is a brutal form of entertainment because nobody gives a fuck about nobody. The gloves now, even though they’re 10-ounces, have less padding over the knuckles than the six-ounce gloves used to have. That’s why you’re having so many hand injuries. But freaky things happen. Like how many times have you ever heard of a fighter dying in one round? But I’ll tell you something. When fighters do die, it’s usually in states where they give those exams.

“Basically what happens now is the fighters don’t have the respect for the trainers and the managers. They’ve become their own bosses and that’s not good. Some trainers are great in the gym and you put them in the corner and they’re dogshit. Or you got guys who are great cornermen but can’t train anybody. If the fighter tells the trainer he doesn’t want to stop, half the time the trainer ain’t gonna stop it, because he’s scared he’s not going to get paid.”

It’s the same old story, human sacrifice for filthy lucre, but Bos saw some light at the end of the tunnel.

“Instead of putting some idiot from the commission who’s standing in the corner and don’t know what the fuck he’s looking at because they’ve never been in the ring—if they got slapped they’d cry like bitches—get experienced cornermen who are not working that night who know what’s legal and not legal and pay them. And if they think the fight should be stopped, it should be stopped. They have no ties to anybody.”

Bos was a player for years and knew the fight game inside out and upside down. With his knowledge, experience and rarified sensibility, I asked if he has some parting words.

“Here I am dying—I’m 54, but I’m 84, if you know what I mean—but as bad a shape as I’m in, I may outlast the sport.”

Printed with permission from Boxing.Com - http://www.boxing.com/ten_count_for_johnny_bos.html

A product of Brooklyn, Bos had the unique ability to ferret out the right opponent for a fighter he was developing, allowing his boxer to learn and gain experience while also winning.

BY MITCH ABRAMSON / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013, 12:00 AM

Johnny Bos, who helped develop scores of young local boxers, dies Saturday at 61.

Johnny Bos, the gifted, colorful boxing matchmaker who developed the early careers of Mike Tyson and Gerry Cooney but had fallen on hard times as he feuded with the New York State Athletic Commission in recent years, died in his home in Clearwater, Fla., on Saturday. Bos, 61, was found by his brother Jeffrey and Jeffrey’s fiancé Suzanne McBee around 10:30 p.m., she told the Daily News on Sunday. Bos had been suffering from congestive heart failure.

A towering figure with bleach-blond hair and faux fur coats, Bos, whose birth name was “Bosdal,” was a popular, colorful matchmaker who was responsible for finding opponents for many of the area’s top young fighters.

A product of Brooklyn, Bos had the unique ability to ferret out the right opponent for a fighter he was developing, allowing his boxer to learn and gain experience while also winning. But Bos, trustful to a fault, didn’t believe in signing his boxers to contracts and relied on handshake agreements instead. As a result, many of the fighters he helped nurture soon left him after winning a title, according to the Manhattan-based promoter Lou DiBella, who worked with Bos for years. Bos was inducted into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame in 2009.

“It’s the passing of an era,” DiBella said of Bos’ death. “He was a Damon Runyonesque character. Johnny Bos touched a lot of guys. You can go through a laundry list of fighters who have ties to Johnny Bos, a lot of whom also forgot about him and left him in the rearview mirror once they made it.

“But Johnny was a legend. He was like one of the giant characters of the sport. He loved the fighters and he loved boxing and for a time, he was the biggest character and ambassador of the sport in New York.”

It was Bos who suggested to DiBella that he sign a little-known fighter from Brooklyn with modest punching power named Paulie Malignaggi in 2001. DiBella did and watched as Bos helped make Malignaggi into a top contender and later a world champion. Bos did the same with former middleweight champion Yuri Foreman, also of Brooklyn. But Bos counted his work with Long Island heavyweight Jameel (Big Time) McCline as his proudest moment since McCline took up boxing at 25 and had no amateur experience. Yet, working with DiBella, Bos turned the 6-6 McCline into one of the top heavyweight attractions of the last decade.

Bos’ career stalled, however, after Joey Gamache, a fighter he once managed, initiated a lawsuit against the New York State Athletic Commission in 2006 for negligence of its handling of a weigh-in involving Gamache and Arturo Gatti when they fought in 2000.

“The commission hurt Joey and destroyed me physically and mentally,” Bos said after testifying on behalf of Gamache in 2009 in one of many times he bad-mouthed the commission. Struggling financially, Bos moved to Florida in 2008, leaving his Manhattan studio apartment and all but disappearing from the business. The court ruled the state had been negligent in its handling of the weigh-in but that the negligence hadn’t determined the outcome of the fight. Gamache, who sued for $5.5 million, didn’t get a dime, depriving Bos of the large sum he hoped to win. That was one of the few failures he had in boxing.

“His world was boxing,” said McBee. “He loved it. That was his genius.”

Bos is survived by his brother Jeffrey and a niece and nephew, McBee said.

Mabramson@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/fight-matchmaker-bos-61-dies-fla-article-1.1342254#ixzz2TBI9DgTm

OF THE

HEAVYWEIGHTS

1881-2010

By Tracy Callis

Book Description

The Heavyweight Championship has long been the most valued prize in all of sports. Famous names among the champions include John L. Sullivan, Jim Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Vitali Klitschko and Wladimir Klitschko. A Brief History of the Heavyweights 1881-2010 traces the contests of these champions and other outstanding fighters of this weight class from the early bare knuckle days to the present. The author includes his rankings of the best boxers and bouts of different time periods in history as well as his all-time best rankings. The book is comprised of 308 pages, including numerous photographs, bout-by-bout lists of title contests, and an index.

About the Author

Tracy Callis is a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, the Director of Historical Research for The Cyber Boxing Zone, an Elector to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Boxing Hall of Fame - Luxor Hotel Las Vegas. He is also co-author of the books Philadelphia’s Boxing Heritage 1876-1976 and Boxing in the Los Angeles Area 1880-2005.

Product Details

•           Hardcover: 308 pages

•           Publisher: WIN BY KO Publications (January 22, 2013)

•           Language: English

•           ISBN-10: 097998226X

•           ISBN-13: 978-0979982262

•           Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches

If you would like to purchase a signed or inscribed copy, please contact Tracy Callis directly @ ibro71@gmail.com The price of the book is $29.95. Postage in the U.S., to Canada, and overseas varies depending on mailing options.

The book is available for purchase via Amazon.Com [IBRO Store, page 4]. It is also available for purchase in Great Britain, Australia, Brazil and Germany.

]]> http://www.ibroresearch.com/?feed=rss2&p=7215 http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=6850 http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=6850#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:32:10 +0000 Dan Cuoco http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=6850 Joey: An Extraordinary Life & A Dream Fulfilled

By Scott Russell

BOOK Description

In Joey, Scott Russell has captured the mood and the feel of an America long past. It’s a world so gritty that you can almost feel the blows emotional and physical - that pummel the hero on virtually every page.

Make no mistake, this is not Rocky VII. These are not cartoon characters that conform to the timeworn clichés of a sport currently on life support.

This is an evocative story of a man who fought for everything he got, an everyman who survived the only way he knew how, with his fists. It is a story that doesn’t end neatly, with a penultimate knockout in the ring. Lives are seldom that simple. They extend well beyond our fields of glory.

This is a story of a man who could have been broken by life, but wasn’t. Strange then that it is also a love story - and a damn good one.

Jim Prime

15 Rounds of Fury a lifetime of honor

“Scott Russell has written an outstanding book about an unlikely American Hero.”

—- Peter Golenbock

“This book is a celebration of a life, a very special life. What a ride and what a memory. Brother, it’s your story.”

— Bob Tilelli

” A true boxing champion at a time when there was only one.”

— The Family

The true story of former Middleweight Champion of the World Joey Giardello. Over 100 rare photos included. Free shipping.

ISBN 978-0-578-11533-7         $24.95

This book can purchased by check or money order to:

Scott Russell - 47 Raymond Hall Dr. - North Attleboro, MA, 02760

We accept all major credit cards using PayPal

http://www.champjoey.com/

WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS using PAY PALWe

Peter Welch, Dan Cuoco and Ted Sares

On  Sunday, April 7, 2013, Ring 4 held its 66th annual Boxing Hall of Fame Award Banquet at Florian Hall in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Ring 4 was incorporated in 1947 and is the only boxing organization in Massachusetts. Over the decades, Ring 4 has kept the flame alive while fulfilling its mission to assist former boxers who have fallen on hard times.

The event opened with a social hour, followed by a Tribute to America, and the Final Count in honor of Ring 4 members and their loved ones who have passed away since last year’s award banquet.

After dinner, Ring 4 President Mickey Finn and Ring 4 Officers Mike Mullen, Charlie Dwyer, and Bobby Franklin formerly inducted the class of 2013. The inductees in alphabetical order are: Dan Cuoco: Longstanding Executive Director of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO), Dave Foley (posthumous): 1968  Greater Lowell and New England Golden Glove Champion and recipient of the Rocky Marciano Trophy, Ted Sares: Boxing writer who last year was awarded the Ring 4 Humanitarian Award,  Peter Welch: Former amateur boxer and owner and operator of the Peter Welch Gym in South Boston.

Eddie Fitzgerald, former amateur boxer and professional referee, was installed as a Lifetime Honorary Member of Ring 4, Doug Keefe, Past President of Ring 4, received The Brother in Boxing Award, and Patrick J. Leonard, Sr. (posthumous), received a  special award of achievement for his meritorious service to boxing.

Congratulations to all of the Ring 4 Boxing Hall of Fame inductees and Award recipients - you’ve earned this prestigious honor.

Mickey Finn - President and Parliamentarian

12►

On Thursday evening, November 14, 2013, the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame will hold its 44th Annual Dinner and Induction Ceremonies at the beautiful Venetian, located at 546 River Drive, Garfield, New Jersey starting at 7:00 p.m.  Tickets are priced at ONLY $85.00 per person.

Fourteen (14) of Boxing’s finest will be inducted in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, and they are as follows: Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Ray Mercer, Bernard Fernandez, Joe Gatti, Gabe LaConte, Julie Lederman, Sal Lopez, Carl Moretti, Barbara Perez, Frank Savannah, Otho Tyson, Harry Ertle (posthumous), Carlos Hernandez (posthumous).

Also, the NEW JERSEY BOXING HALL OF FAME will be honoring our Senior Amateur, Junior Olympic Amateur & Professional Boxer of the Year as well as the Amateur Official Coach of the Year and our “2013 Man of the Year,” (Poochie Hill)… PLUS Essay Winner Awards!!!!!!

For additional forms, tickets or information, contact our President, Henry Hascup at 59 Kipp Ave.,, Lodi, NJ 07644 or call him at 973-471-2458.  Email: hhascup@yahoo.com, or fax 973-470-8301

]]> http://www.ibroresearch.com/?feed=rss2&p=4006 http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=7158 http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=7158#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:57:01 +0000 Dan Cuoco http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=7158 Veteran Boxers Associations

by Ted Sares

“I wasn’t getting $5 million in one lump. They gave me a million here, half a million there. Back then, there was no financial advisors like fighters got now. Back then, they gave you your money, you spent it and then later on you learned about taxes that you had to pay and Uncle Sam was your partner.”-Iran Barkley

“The biggest battles facing some of our former world champions and the brave fighters who entertained us over the years often take place well after their careers are over and promoters have long cast them aside to make room for the next generation of revenue generating superstars.”-Sharon Scrima

Thanks to the research and compilation by noted historian Henry Hascup from New Jersey, here is a list of Ring veteran Boxer Associations through the years. Many of these non-profit Ring Chapters no longer exist, but at one time they did with their associated locale. Ring 4 (Boston), Ring 8 (New York), Ring 10 (New York), Ring 14 (Hudson County, NJ), and Ring 25 (Morris County, NJ) still exist and are very active. The mission of these organizations is to help boxers down on their luck. It’s simply a matter of helping those who cannot help themselves and to do it without passing judgment. Ring 4 was incorporated in 1947 and is the only boxing organization in Massachusetts as it fulfills its mission of assisting former boxers who have fallen on hard times. I am a member of both Ring 4 and Ring 8, which has been in existence since 1954.

Ring 10 in New York City is a new organization and has been quite active since its inception, helping Riddick Bowe get out of foreclosure. Iran Barkley has also received much needed assistance from Ring 10 and other non-profit groups. The once intimidating Barkley was found by a member of Ring 10 with only a bag of clothes and his championship belt, which he has since been forced to sell. The organization helped him find living quarters in the Bronx and assisted with furnishing the apartment. They also provide him with a monthly food credit and help him find work as he strives to become self-supporting.

Perhaps this blog will prompt information and additional vignettes about other Ring Organization’s that are also active.

LINK TO ARTICLE: #mce_temp_url#

By Pete Ehrmann

Special to IBRO

3/27/13

Jack Dempsey with Pat Leonard, Sr. in 1980.

Writing about the history of boxing is usually its own reward, but when I had a piece about White Hope Luther McCarty published in The Ring magazine in mid-1991 I hit the jackpot. Not monetarily, for sure, but because the article brought me to the attention of Patrick J. Leonard Sr., and launched a 22-year long-distance friendship with the man whose marvelous exploits as a writer, historian (boxing and more), Pinkerton detective, debunker of mentalists, ghost-busters and other such fakers, believer in the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, and onetime secretary of Boston’s fabled Ring 4, fill the stacks of letters from Pat I’ve been re-reading since learning of his death on March 19 at age 95.

A new letter postmarked Braintree, MA, was always cause for celebration here even the few times Pat neglected to type “Writer Nonpareil” under my name on the envelope. Each one was so charming, engrossing and enlightening that my wife, who would rather sit through another re-run of a sitcom that has already put her to sleep a few hundred times than hear another word about Ad Wolgast, “The Battle of the Long Count” or whether George Chuvalo was tougher than Sailor Tom Sharkey, demanded I read it aloud to her. Even when they ran into five or six single-spaced pages, which was frequently and most-welcomely the case.

Pat and boxing became an item when he was 15 and got a job in a Beantown rubber mill by signing a form that said he was 18. Down the street from his house was a gym run by his “hero and mentor” Gus Brown. Pat started boxing and wrestling at weekly smokers there, and when hauled into the office of the parish priest once for questioning “a lantern-jawed, stone-faced nun who told us that only people who were baptized Catholic would ever go to heaven,” he was told “to believe what I was told and also that a boy like me should not be boxing at the smokers as he understood foul and profane language was used at those places.”

A frequent opponent in the smokers was Irish Dan Leahy, later a professional heavyweight who seconded Pat’s nomination for secretary of Ring 4 by bellowing, “I wanna vote for Pat Leonard and I want the rest of you … to vote for Pat. I put him on his ass seven times one night and he got every damned time, and that’s the kind of guy we need for secretary!”

Fellow Ring 4 member Lefty Luongo provided Pat with the philosophy that carried him through the death of his beloved wife Rosanna and the physical problems that mounted up in the final years of his life: “You gotta keep punchin’ or da odder sonuvabitch will win!”

Pat was very proud of his accomplished children, son Pat Jr. (a noted ring historian in his own right) and daughter Mary. The latter, he wrote in one letter, “was born with a natural left hook. She beat up a seven-year-old bastard when she was four. He was pushing other little girls off their tricycles. Mary objected, and he walloped her right in the face. It was like hitting Paulino [Uzcudan]. She never flinched, got him with the left with all her body behind it, and his nose spurted blood all over his clothes. That night his dad came over and demanded to know who was the big girl that beat up his son. Rosanna pointed to Mary, who had a cherubic expression and was obviously only four. The bully avoided our area for years afterwards.”

Because he didn’t like or trust computers, Pat continued to bang out articles on a typewriter until just a few months before his death. Thanks to a brilliant short story he wrote about the famous Charley Mitchell-John L. Sullivan 1888 heavyweight championship fight in Chantilly, France, in which Sherlock Holmes surreptitiously stood in for Mitchell, Pat’s membership in an exclusive London-based society of Holmesians was endorsed by the daughter of Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

His talents even included painting, and once he sent some photos of pictures he had done. “I used house paint, cannot draw, and am almost completely colorblind,” he explained. “But why let lack of ability stop you?”

The one time he ever expressed annoyance with me was when I wrote that I considered him a great man. Too bad, Patchmor, but guilty as charged.

“This is another excellent and diverse class of inductees,” said John DiSanto, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame. “Every year we do our best to honor the outstanding members of our local boxing community, and it is always exciting to see who gets voted in. For instance, Burley was one of the best middleweights in the world, let alone Pennsylvania, and he is long overdue.”

Roy “Tiger” Williams, who faced Larry Holmes, Earnie Shavers and Jimmy Young during his 13-year professional career, was elated to hear the news of his upcoming induction.

“This is excellent,” Williams said. “It’s about time they recognized me.”

Mario Saurennann fought numerous top welterweights between 1965 and 1978, and won the PA State Title in a classic 1971 Blue Horizon battle with C.L. Lewis.

“I feel very proud,” Saurennann said. “Being honored this way tells me that my hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

Steve Smoger is one of the top referees in the business today, with more than 20 years in action and almost 200 championship bouts to his credit.

Upon hearing of his inclusion this year, Smoger said, “This is a marvelous class. I’m honored to be a part of it.”

“May 19th will be a great day,” DiSanto said. “Getting an opportunity to recognize and honor these memorable boxing people is extremely special to me and the rest of the PA Boxing Hall of Fame group. We love this sport and it is people like our 2013 class that got us hooked, kept us hooked, and made us the boxing fans we are today. I can’t wait to welcome these guys to the Hall of Fame and celebrate all of their accomplishments.”

The 2013 PA Boxing Hall of Fame Banquet & Induction Ceremony will be held at Romano’s Caterers, in Philadelphia, on Sunday, May 19, at 4PM. For ticket information, please call John Gallagher at 215-920-8791.

For more on the Philly past and current fight scene, visit www.PhillyBoxingHistory.com.