The fight game was a racket then and truly could be referred to as the sport of rogues. Although there were some honest promoters in New York when I covered the sports beat in those days, boxing as a whole was ruled by ruffians, gangsters, and politicians. The many fixed fights that soured the public on the sport were engineered by politicians with headquarters in Tammany Hall, which then, as in the days of John Morrissey and Bill Poole, had tremendous influence over the game. They told the police what to do and how to do it. They made the odds, brought about the fixes, and collected their bets. Hoodlums used to keep pugilists in line. We still have plenty of that today but the damage is done differently. Whereas in the “good old days” it was an up-and-above board game with the unsavory element, today it is all done through undercover agencies. Politicians and police turned their eyes to avoid “seeing” what was going on years ago, but in this era, city, state, and Federal investigations keep hounding the criminal element in an effort to keep boxing clean. When the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, that didn’t end the tie between the mobsters and the fight racket. To this day racketeers continue to infest the sport. Frankie Carbo furnishes an example of the continuing influence of underworld figures in boxing. They not only muscled in on boxers in the old days, but on the prosperous clubs as well. It was a case of take it or leave it with them. There was no middle channel. They often stole fighters outright, and it was worth one’s life to defy them. Practically every big city’s fight clubs had bootlegger’s dough financing the operation. The Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden gangs held sway in New York, the Boo Boo Hoff mobsters in Pennsylvania and the Al Capone gunmen in Illinois. I knew them all. As a reporter it was my business to associate with all classes, and I often found myself in the company of these criminals. I dined and wined with them. I often traveled to fights with them. I recall the bout down in Miami between young Stribling and Jack Sharkey, following the death of Tex Rickard. The late Steve Hannigan, one of our nation’s leading purveyors of publicity, and I handled the fight for the Madison Square Garden Corporation. About a week before the affair, Damon Runyon told me that Al Capone, then living in a “palace” on Hibiscus Island, had extended an invitation through Runyon for the New York sports writers to visit his home and enjoy a buffet dinner. I was asked to furnish the names of all who would accept and to make arrangements with one of Capone’s henchmen. We had more than 450 newspapermen down for that fight and of the group, I selected 62 to join in what promised to be an adventurous evening. And so it turned out.