50 YEARS AT RINGSIDE [Illustration] 50 YEARS AT RINGSIDE NAT FLEISCHER [Illustration] FLEET PUBLISHING CORPORATION, NEW YORK COPYRIGHT 1958 BY NAT FLEISCHER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PROTECTED UNDER INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTION AND THE PAN AMERICAN COPYRIGHT CONVENTION LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 58-8780 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD If the readers of this autobiography of one of the standout sports reporters of the half century, and a pre-eminent authority on boxing in particular, get half the thrills I enjoyed while going over the advance proofs, it will take its place with the most successful efforts of its kind. Here we have the eye witness accounts of the Pepys of the ring scene these last fifty years. This is a story which nobody has produced in the past, and certainly is not going to duplicate in the future. It is the life story of a man who lived through increasingly exciting eras of the nation’s history, and the nation’s sports annals. The conditions which obtained through those eventful decades will not come again. The man who banged his typewriter through these crowding years will not come again upon a similar sequence in the sports kaleidoscope. Here are behind-the-scenes pictures, the inside stories of so many developments which have waited, until now, for my lifetime friend Nat Fleischer to reveal them. Here are pathos, comedy, and intrigue; the seamy, sombre stories, and the funny ones as well. Ring heroes of the past come to life in these pages to reveal themselves in the full panoply of their championship stature, or in the meaner habiliments of the character on the fringe. It is a fine book, and I thank Nat for having written it. DAN DANIEL To Trudie TABLE OF CONTENTS [Illustration] FOREWORD BOOK ONE 1. THE DRAMA OF SPORT 3 2. MY BOYHOOD YEARS 7 3. MY WORK AS A REPORTER 13 4. AN INTERVIEW WITH ROOSEVELT 19 5. I FIGHT TO BE A SOLDIER 25 6. OLD NEW YORK 29 7. THE UNDERWORLD IN BOXING 45 BOOK TWO 8. AN AMAZING AMATEUR 55 9. THE MICHIGAN ASSASSIN 63 10. JACK JOHNSON 75 11. A BLACK OMEN 82 12. BOXING’S HARLEQUIN 90 BOOK THREE