|
Excerpts from “The
Terror of Terre Haute . . .”
Excerpt
from Chapter 1:
. . . Instead, little Bud Taylor and the
other restless youths ran the streets, and when they engaged in disputes, they
settled them in the dirt and cinders of alleys and back lots.
“You had to know how to fight in my neighborhood,” Taylor
is quoted as saying,20
and that he lived in an area “where a kid protected his rights with his fists.”
21, “Taylor had more street
battles than any of the lads in his neighborhood,” according to a sportswriter.22
Taylor’s small stature would have made him
a target for older, predatory boys in the area and he may have learned to use
his fists out of fear or humiliation. Children often fight to bolster
self-esteem, and Bud’s may have suffered from shame over being poor, a lack of
male role models, or disinterest in school.
Floyd Patterson, heavyweight champion for
most of the late 1950s, remembers a poverty-laced upbringing in which his
exhausted father, a longshoreman, would come home at night so tired he would
fall asleep at the dinner table before he could eat. The family’s plight made
him feel terrible. Young Floyd’s self-esteem was so low he would point to a
photograph of himself on a wall in his house and say, “I don’t like that boy!”23
Likewise, boxing history is filled with
examples of great champions whose fondness for fighting begins before they
learned their fractions. Joe Frazier became so tough that at a mere age eight,
he accepted gifts of sandwiches or money from schoolmates in exchange for Joe’s
protection from bullies.24
Taylor’s fisticuffs began at as
early an age as Frazier’s, and McKeen
School’s overburdened and underpaid teachers didn’t seem to know what to do with
him. In one year alone, school officials expelled Taylor 13 times, all for
fighting.25 “Gosh,
it was a lonesome day when I didn’t have a fight with some other kid,” Taylor
said in 1925.26 He
could not have learned much in school, except perhaps a geography lesson about
respect for boundaries: Fighting on school property is especially forbidden. You
must cross the street before you pop the other kid. . . .
Excerpt from
Chapter 5 (refers to boxer Frankie Mason):
. . .
Mason was meticulous about his appearance, and in training wore protective
devices to keep from being struck in the face and head. 19 It was written that
his seconds avoided fanning him between rounds so they wouldn’t spoil the part
in his hair.20
A smitten
newspaperwoman named Louise Fritz, covering a Mason bout in 1919, actually wrote
in her story in the South Bend News-Times that she was glad he won “because I
think Frankie is cute.”21 Mason read the article, marched into the News-Times
offices and introduced himself to her. The couple married the following year.22
In the ring,
Mason boxed patiently, specializing in the left jab and expert defense.
For
Taylor, Mason represented his first opponent with a bona fide national
reputation in the sport. Taylor’s won-loss mark had reached 14-0, but his
victims had ranged from nobodies to those with only a modest measure of success
in the Midwest. Tex Johnson, hearing the talk around Terre Haute’s Nash’s and
Puff’s cigar stores and in the gyms, found local fans as worried about the fight
as excited.23 Old Jack Tierney, at various times a boxer, promoter and gym owner
in Terre Haute since roughly the turn of the century, didn’t think Taylor had a
chance against Mason. Boxing fan Ed Baker, one of the city’s best bowlers, also
thought Taylor would lose.24 For Johnson, the matchup was a gamble. As promoter
for the card, his mouth watered at the prospect of a huge turnout. But as
Taylor’s manager, he certainly didn’t want to rush him into a career-stalling
defeat.
In a
warm-up for Mason, Taylor won every round of a 10-rounder in the K of C on New
Year’s Day 1921 against Bobby Moon of Gary, Indiana. 25 Taylor’s growing
constituency sold the place out for the Moon fight. 26
Taylor
enlisted the help of an Indianapolis boxer, Don Curley, who had once served as
Mason’s sparring partner. Curley trained with Bud to help him learn the nuances
of Mason’s style.27
Mason had
been advised about Taylor’s dangerous right-hand punch. “I’ll probably polish
him off in four or five rounds,” he said two days before the fight. “He won't
even touch me with that supposed crack right hand of his.”
“One
thing for sure,” Taylor said, “I’m going after him from the first bell and I’ll
stop him in one round if I can …” 28
The fight on
Jan. 17, 1921 stirred the boxing community with the kind of anticipation that
puts circles on calendars and prompts lively chatter in offices and restaurants.
Taylor
fans filled all 1,800 seats in the K of C, so Johnson instructed his ticket
workers to sell standing-room-only stubs. Even the SRO ducats sold out 30
minutes before the first preliminary started! 29
Excerpt from
Chapter 9:
. . . . Chicago, 1922: a metropolis rife with
the trappings of 1920s culture. Skyscrapers and traffic. Shoppers, flappers,
gangsters. Mass transit, art deco architecture, jazz, The Loop …
In the
first three months of the year, Bud Taylor divided his time between Terre Haute
and the mega-city 180 miles due north. In Chicago, his managers Kane and Long
pitted him against the best available competition. More importantly, the
co-managers hired Jack Blackburn to train Taylor and Sammy Mandell. 1
Blackburn
had nearly reached age 40 and was winding down his own fight career of 20-plus
years. He had been a talented boxer at various weights, back in the days when
fights lasted as long as 40 rounds and a fighter would be lucky to clear $35 a
bout.2 Blackburn’s specialty had been his left, which he used to jab and hook in
flashes, and about which he would impart his wisdom to understudies Taylor, Mandell and later, Joe Louis.3
Outside
the ring, Blackburn liked to aim his lefts and rights to his own lips with
bottles of beer, transforming an otherwise pleasant man--one who loved dogs,
fishing and playing cards--into a belligerent drunk. Blackburn shot three people
in 1909, one died, and he served four years of a 15-year prison sentence.4
Not
surprisingly, a lot of people were afraid of Blackburn. Even in street clothes,
he looked menacing, a balding man with a weathered face marked with a knife-scar
lengthy enough to impress a pirate--the remnant of a bar fight. But inside a
roped ring, the man was in his element. Blackburn knew boxing and he taught it
tactfully. For example, he avoided criticizing fighters in the presence of other
fighters, instead taking them aside to confer.5
Blackburn’s tutelage suited the promising young talent before him–and more the
greener Taylor than Mandell. Bud had considered his left-hand punch merely a
setup for his “sweetheart” right, but Blackburn laid the groundwork to change
that thinking.6
Eddie
Long liked what he saw in the progress of his newest acquisition. “He’s title
bound, that’s all there is to it …” he boasted about Taylor to a Terre Haute
sportswriter early in
1922.7
The
grooming to place Taylor in such contention continued Jan. 13, 1922, against
George Corbett, a south Chicago brawler. The fight took place inside what the
newspapers referred to only as a “suburban arena,” its site undisclosed
presumably to protect the principals from arrest.8
Corbett
was a popular fellow among the stockyards crowd, and Taylor heard the strains of
a hostile audience as the pair volleyed in the early rounds.9 The bout met its
abrupt end in the middle of the third round, when Taylor rocked Corbett with a
punch that broke his jaw in three places. The injury disfigured Corbett’s face,
but the wounded man gamely continued to flail away with his mouth open while the
crowd yelled wildly. Boxing writer Ed Smith, refereeing the fight, saw that the
front teeth of Corbett’s lower jaw had been smashed back into his palate. When
Smith heard Corbett making what Smith later described as “inarticulate sounds,”
Smith stopped the fight.10
In those
days, a broken jaw ended a fighter’s career. The injury forced Corbett to retire
from the ring, the main source of his income. A month later, Corbett’s friends
organized a benefit boxing exhibition/party for him in the visitation hall at
54th and Peoria streets, Chicago.11 The event raised $1,000 for the disabled
fighter.12 Taylor traveled to Chicago to box in the exhibition, paying for his
own way and that of a sparring partner, winning many friends by his kindness.13
. . . .
Excerpt from
Chapter 28:
. . . Los
Angelinos greeted Taylor with a reception befitting a dignitary when his train
pulled into the Southern Pacific Station on Oct. 28, 1926. A motorcycle escort
took Taylor and Long to City Hall, where they met with Mayor George Cryer.36
Taylor’s
bout in Vernon, California with Young Montreal had been set at the nontitle
weight limit of 120 pounds. 37 His opponent, 28, had grown up in Rhode Island,
and had been fighting since 1916. Early in his boxing career, he changed his
bookish-sounding given name of Maurice Billingkoff to the more palatable “Young
Montreal.” His most noticeable physical endowment--and a big boxing
advantage--was a pair of abnormally long arms, which he used to fire-hose his
way to a 38-3-3 start. 38 That hot start didn’t last, and Montreal began a
four-year-long habit of finishing second in boxing matches.
Then, in
September 1926, a single, jaw-dropping victory revived Montreal’s career.
Promoters had induced Bushy Graham into going to Rhode Island to fight Montreal,
and the two fighters battled twice in one month. Graham won the first, but
Montreal beat up Graham thoroughly in the second. Bushy left the ring with one
eye closed, the other half-closed, and a bloody mouth. 39 The victory emboldened
Montreal’s manager to trot before the New York Boxing Commission and ask that
Montreal be allowed to fight Rosenberg for the title. The commission told him
no, it preferred Graham.40
In
Vernon, Montreal’s manager, Charlie Rose, boasted to reporters that “if anyone
is champion in New York, it’s Young Montreal.” He said he would lay a $30,000
side bet on his fighter against Rosenberg or Taylor in any title fight.41
The
Montreal fight worried Eddie Long, according to the press. Anyone who could reel
in the gazelle-like Graham enough times to make his face rise like baked dough
deserved respect. “I’m not patting myself on the back for making this match,”
Long told a reporter. “I’ve made lots softer matches than this. I think Montreal
is the most dangerous man I could ask Bud to fight. He’s smart, he’s game and he
could punch.”42 Taylor went from a 2-1 favorite two days before the fight to
10-9 by show time.43
Taylor owned
the heart of the average West Coast boxing spectator.
“Taylor
is the idol of idols in Los Angeles,” it was written, and so adored that fans
rearranged their daily schedules to attend his fights.44 Among his rabid
boosters was Carlo Curtis, manager of the Main Street Athletic Club. Curtis
canceled the weekly Monday night fight show at the club so that he and all the
club regulars wouldn’t have to miss the Taylor-Montreal fight.45
Taylor
needed just one round to solve Montreal’s awkward style. Taylor’s left jabs and
right cross landed almost at will in the second round, and he floored Montreal
twice. Before Taylor could finish him off, with Montreal clinging helplessly to
the ropes, the referee interceded and stopped the bout.46
The
victory, Taylor’s 13th straight, prompted syndicated sports columnist Bob Edgren
to write that the bantamweights finally had an authentic champion, “the most
aggressive and most dangerous fighter of his weight seen in recent years and
nobody who ever sees him will think him a cheese champion, such as the class has
been affiliated with recently.”47 Well-known sportswriter Damon Runyan called
Taylor “the outstanding bantam of the land.”48 . . .
Excerpt from
Chapter 37:
. . . . A left
hook put Phil Zwick on the canvas, but it was bad luck that counted him out on
Jan. 24, 1928.
Taylor
landed the hook in the second round in Milwaukee, then watched as the
Clevelander capsized. Zwick maintained his senses, however, and kneeled as if
ready to rise. While waiting, Zwick glanced over to his corner, and lost track
of the referee’s count. When the ref swung his arms to count him out, Zwick
leapt to his feet, but it was too late. The bout was scored as a knockout. A
heavy underdog, Zwick had come out swinging and battled Taylor on fairly even
terms until the odd ending, which left the embittered loser and his fans forever
to speculate, “What if?”1
The Zwick
anomaly was one of two nontitle Taylor outings in January 1928, the other being
a decision over Roy “Babe” Ruth in Chicago. Taylor fought both fights around
121-122 pounds, the midway point between bantams and feathers. Fighting at this
weight meant that if his featherweight opponents scaled at the limit, Taylor had
to give up four to five pounds. But if Bud took on extra weight to even the
poundage out, he sacrificed quickness, and the tradeoff wasn’t worth it.
Taylor
continued to fight the more numerous featherweights, while Long worked out a
deal to defend Bud’s bantamweight title. Two of those potential bantamweight
title fights made it onto Taylor’s schedule: Jan. 20 against Willie Smith, who
had displaced Teddy Baldock as British “world” banty champ; and in mid-February
against Kid Francis, French champion of the division. Those bouts fell through
for reasons not apparent; neither gained further mention in the press as their
dates neared.2
Instead,
Taylor’s attention shifted to his nemesis, Joey Sangor, for a meeting in the
Chicago Coliseum on Feb. 9 with a 126-pound limit.
The Chicago
sportswriters, well aware of the bad blood between the two fighters, exploited
the rift to juice up their stories. They induced Sangor to talk at length about
how he beat Taylor in their previous encounters. Taylor relies on his hook too
much, Sangor said.
“You know
that I punch straight with both hands,” Sangor said. “By doing this, I beat
Taylor to the punch consistently. I’ll show you why. Put an object on a table in
front of you. If you want to pick up the object, your natural impulse is to
reach straight out for it. That is the way I punch … Now if you were to make a
hook motion … I would be able to pick it up a second quicker than you would.
That is how I beat Taylor. I punch straight. He hooks. Simple, isn’t it?”3
Sangor’s
comments appeared in the next day’s papers, and of course, the reporters beat a
path to Taylor’s feet for his retort. “Where does he get that stuff?” Taylor
said. “I’ll show him what a straight punch looks like Thursday night and when I
connect, he’ll think the building has fallen in on him.”4
Taylor needed a
victory over Sangor to mount any serious campaign for the featherweight title.
His record against Sangor stood at 1-2, and to lose a third straight time to him
would mean any legitimate route for Taylor to the title first would have to go
through a fighter who obviously had his number.
Ten
thousand customers filled the Chicago Coliseum, with the ringsiders paying $7 a
ticket.5 About a hundred Terre Hauteans filled the gas tanks of their Model A
Fords and Durants at 15 cents a gallon and made the half day’s drive north.6
Taylor weighed 121, Sangor 126. 7
The fighters went at it like two
men with a grudge to settle. . .
|
