Peter Maher, a Galway born, and Dublin reared fighter, laid a strong claim on sport’s greatest prize, The Heavyweight Championship of the world, in the 1890’s. For over ten years he was a top contender and his popularity was such that he was arguably the most famous sportsman in America at the turn of the Twentieth century. This popularity stemmed from his prodigious punching power, good looks and affable, good-natured and easy-going manner. He mixed with everybody from Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and William McKinley to Wild West icons Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean and a multitude in between. Yet today he is virtually unknown except to the anoraks of the boxing world. This book attempts to address this situation. It traces his career from the amateur days in Dublin, deals with all his big fights in the United States and the famous contest for the World Title against Bob Fitzsimmons in Mexico. It charts his downward spiral until his death in 1940 in Baltimore. The book also contains a records section where the career records of some forty of his opponents are published, some for the first time and most at least revised with corrections and additions. The book also contains many photographs from the period and attempts by the use of contemporaneous newspaper reports to accurately portray the man and his times.
Established in 1883, the Olympic Club catered to a variety of pursuits from target shooting to billiards to boxing--the most popular sport in New Orleans, despite legal prohibitions. A revised city ordinance and a vague state statute permitting boxing sponsored by chartered athletic clubs were frequently tested at the Olympic, the epicenter of boxing in America. Between 1890 and 1894, the club's 10,000-seat arena hosted six world championship and seven national or regional title bouts. The 1892 Fistic Carnival featured three world title fights on three consecutive days, culminating in the World Heavyweight Championship between John L. Sullivan and James J. Corbett.
For six decades the World Colored Heavyweight Championship was a useful tool of racial oppression--the existence of the title far more important to the white public than its succession of champions. It took some extraordinary individuals, most notably Jack Johnson, to challenge "the color line" in the ring, although the title and the black fighters who contended for it continued until the reign of Joe Louis a generation later. This history traces the advent and demise of the Championship, the stories of the 28 professional athletes who won it, and the demarcation of the color line both in and out of the ring.
**WINNER: WISHING SHELF PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2011** In the 1890s the fight game was changing. The prize-fighters and bare-knuckle brawlers were disappearing as the new “scientific” boxers emerged to fight under the Marquis of Queensberry rules. Irishman Tom Sharkey was the never-say-die fighter who bridged the gap between old and new. Within a short time of arriving in America he took on all the top boxers of his day: his hero John L Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons and the man who would become not only his greatest foe but his best friend, Jim Jeffries. Their 25-round world title fight at Coney Island was one of the most gruelling and compelling encounters ever seen inside a ring. I Fought Them All prints the fact and the legend, and is chocked full of the rich characters who dominated the sport and politics of the period, from Wild West gunman Wyatt Earp to Tim “Dry Dollar” Sullivan of New York’s Tammany Hall. It is the story of an Irish immigrant, a sporting celebrity who won and lost a fortune, and of a man described by the New York Times as a “ring immortal”. REVIEWS: “Hugely entertaining and exquisitely researched, I Fought Them All shines a penetrating and long-overdue spotlight on one of the most fascinating figures in boxing history. Revelations about Sharkey’s private life are eye-popping, and the book is especially thorough in covering the Earp controversy. ‘Sailor’ Tom himself would growl his approval, and his massive chest would swell even larger. It’s a great contribution to ring history.” Pete Ehrmann, boxing writer, contributor to The Ring “I Fought Them All is an excellent read. It’s well-researched and is good news for boxing fans everywhere. ‘Sailor’ Tom Sharkey was an aggressive, relentless and powerful heavyweight who ranks among the greatest who ever entered the ring. He was an earlier version of the splendid fighter, Rocky Marciano. Tom had the misfortune of fighting when boxing legends Jim Jeffries and Bob Fitzsimmons were at their best. Had he fought at any other time in history, he very likely would have been heavyweight champion of the world.” Tracy Callis, boxing historian “The book features an array of characters including Wild West gunman Wyatt Earp and boxing legends such as John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. At its heart is the astonishing 50-year rivalry and friendship between Sharkey and Jim Jeffries, which started after their 25-round world title fight at Coney Island and lasted until the two men died a few weeks apart in 1953.” Boxing Ireland “…it emits quality from the first opening crack of the hardcover until its final satisfying closing.” Marty Mulcahey, Max Boxing “…A fascinating story… Very well-researched piece of work with many anecdotal gems… I Fought Them All is a tale of one man who travelled from his homeland and ended up inAmericato swap blows with arguably the toughest pugilists to have ever fought in the ring. Along the way we are introduced to ‘injuns’, gun-slingers, shipwrecks, tragic love stories, gambling, acts of heroism and, of course, gruelling fights. I thoroughly recommend this book.” Glenn Wilson
The black prizefighter labored in one of the few trades where an African American man could win renown: boxing. His prowess in the ring asserted an independence and powerful masculinity rare for black men in a white-dominated society, allowing him to be a man--and thus truly free. Louis Moore draws on the life stories of African American fighters active from 1880 to 1915 to explore working-class black manhood. As he details, boxers bought into American ideas about masculinity and free enterprise to prove their equality while using their bodies to become self-made men. The African American middle class, meanwhile, grappled with an expression of public black maleness they saw related to disreputable leisure rather than respectable labor. Moore shows how each fighter conformed to middle-class ideas of masculinity based on his own judgment of what culture would accept. Finally, he argues that African American success in the ring shattered the myth of black inferiority despite media and government efforts to defend white privilege.
Born to former slaves on St. Croix in 1860, Peter Jackson made his name as a boxer with his smooth, fast style and a dangerous one-two combination. After immigrating to Australia, Jackson became that country's national heavyweight champion in 1886 before moving on to the United States and claiming the title of Colored Champion of the World in 1888. For the next ten years Peter Jackson remained undefeated, finally losing to the great Jim Jeffries in 1898. Although he never received a shot at the heavyweight title--reigning heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan refused to defend his title against a black man--Jackson remains one of the greatest heavyweights ever.
Richard O. Davies won Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Bronze Medal in Sports for The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip. Davies' book was chosen as one of the best indie books of 2014. As the twentieth century dawned, bare-knuckle prizefighting was transforming into the popular sport of boxing, yet simultaneously it was banned as immoral in many locales. Nevada was the first state to legalize it, in 1897, solely to stage the Corbett-Fitzsimmons world heavyweight championship in Carson City. Davies shows that the history of boxing in Nevada is integral to the growth of the sport in America. Promoters such as Tex Rickard brought in fighters like Jack Dempsey to the mining towns of Goldfield and Tonopah and presented the Johnson-Jeffries “Fight of the Century” in Reno in 1910. Prizefights sold tickets, hotel rooms, drinks, meals, and bets on the outcomes. It was boxing\--before gambling, prostitution, and easy divorce\--that first got Nevada called “America’s Disgrace” and the “Sin State.” The Main Event explores how boxing’s growth in Nevada relates to the state’s role as a social and cultural outlier. Starting in the Rat Pack era, organized gambling’s moguls built arenas outside the Vegas casinos to stage championships\--more than two hundred from 1960 to the present. Tourists and players came to see and bet on historic bouts featuring Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, and other legends of the ring. From the celebrated referee Mills Lane to the challenge posed by mixed martial arts in contemporary Las Vegas, the story of boxing in Nevada is a prism for viewing the sport. Davies utilizes primary and secondary sources to analyze how boxing in the Silver State intersects with its tourist economy and libertarian values, paying special attention to issues of race, class, and gender. Written in an engaging style that shifts easily between narrative and analysis, The Main Event will be essential reading for sports fans and historians everywhere.
They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State can certainly boast of immense ranches, vast oil fields, enormous cowboy hats, and larger-than-life heroes. Among the greatest of the latter are the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum continues to honor these legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. While upholding a proud heritage of duty and sacrifice, even men who wear the cinco peso badge can have their own champions. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 2: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1874-1930, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ivey begins with John B. Jones, who directed his Rangers through their development from state troops to professional lawmen; then covers Leander H. McNelly, John B. Armstrong, James B. Gillett, Jesse Lee Hall, George W. Baylor, Bryan Marsh, and Ira Aten—the men who were responsible for some of the Rangers’ most legendary feats. Ivey concludes with James A. Brooks, William J. McDonald, John R. Hughes, and John H. Rogers, the “Four Great Captains” who guided the Texas Rangers into the twentieth century.
