Boston's Boxing Heritage: Prizefighting from 1882 to 1955

Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.: Arcadia Publishing - An Imprint of Tempus Publishing, Inc., 2002. Frst Edition . Trade Paperback. Near Fine/No Dust Jacket. 6 1/2" X 9 1/4. 128 Pages. A rich history of prizefighting in Boston and the many characters that made the Hub city the home of champions. It is not only a pictorial history of the sport but also a tale of heroes and villains, gangsters and mobsters, contenders and bums, trainers and newspapermen, straight men and cheats. It is a saga of ethnicity and race, of color barriers broken and neighborhood rivalries settled and rekindled. At its core this story is truly about a city and its relationship with a sport. Bostons Boxing Heritage: Prizefighting from 1882 to 1955 covers the early bareknuckle years of boxing through the sports post-World War II boom. When Bostons John L. Sullivan won the heavyweight crown from Paddy Ryan in 1882, he took prizefighting from an illegal, red-light district pastime to the countrys most popular sport and in essence put Bean Town on the sporting map. For the next sixty years, Boston remained one of the elite cities in the boxing world spawning ring immortals such as George Little Chocolate Dixon, Joe the Barbados Demon Wolcott, William Honey Mellody, Rocky Marciano, Jack the Boston Gob Sharkey, and Sam the Boston Tar Baby Langford. Illustrated with over 200 photographs. 4 chapters; The Boston Strong Boy, The Boston Tar Baby, The Boston Gob, and The Rock and the Brown Bomber.