South Philly Review

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that layed him down

Or cut him ’till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

I am leaving, I am leaving

But the fighter still remains

—Paul Simon

He had a tattoo of a boxer on his forearm. The boy never asked him why; he just knew that his father seemed embarrassed by it. And then one day, for no apparent reason, his father told him about the mysterious tattoo. His father had once been an amateur boxer.

He hadn’t been very good at it, his father admitted. The boy was surprised because to him his father was good at everything he attempted. His father smiled. He had decided to end his quest for a career in boxing when, one night, he got knocked out in the first round. “Your Uncle Sammy was the fighter in the family,” he told the boy. “Sammy was a helluva fighter.”

The boy always knew that he would never be as strong as his father. He felt that, deep down, his father was disappointed. He liked to fool around and shadow box with the boy, jabbing at him until suddenly he would throw an overhand right that would just stop short of the boy’s chin. His father would continue to bob and weave and make this strange snorting sound through his nose that the boy guessed boxers must make when they fought in the ring.

His father would eventually become bored because, instead of feigning to fight back, the boy would only turn away. Years later, when the boy became an adult, he finally realized that shadowboxing was his father’s way of showing his affection. His father was a product of his time; men didn’t show affection for other men, even their sons. He never heard his father actually say to him,” I love you.” It just wasn’t the way strong men acted.

The one sport his father really loved and understood was boxing. His parents bought their first TV set in 1951, a 12-and-a-half inch, black and white Admiral three-way combination with a radio and phonograph. The boy loved watching boxing on TV with his father. His father would regale him with stories of the great old-time champions such as Tommy Loughran, who was from South Philadelphia. But the fighter his father adored the most was Jack Dempsey. He made all of Dempsey’s great fights come alive for the boy like the night that the “Manassa Mauler” had Gene Tunney knocked out, but failed to go to his neutral corner. The “long count” was what they called it. Tunney was on the canvas for 14 seconds, but was never counted out, and he came back to defeat Dempsey. Eventually Rocky Marciano replaced Dempsey in his father’s heart. Ethnic pride won out.

It was a great era for boxing. There were three televised bouts a week. The big fights were on Wednesday and Friday nights, but there were some wild, rough-house brawls televised from Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway Arena on Monday nights too.

His father would fire “punches” at the television screen and dance around the set as if he were in the ring. His mother would laugh at how excited his father became in the heat of the TV battle. They watched Sugar Ray Robinson defend his title in a bloody battle with Jake LaMotta, one of six times the “Sugar Man” would fight LaMotta. His father rooted wildly for LaMotta while the boy silently hoped Robinson would endure. The boy was entranced by Sugar’s style and grace and lethal left hook. He thought that he had never seen someone as beautiful and elegant as Sugar Ray.

His family had a connection to middleweight champion Joey Giardello. The boy’s cousin was godmother to one of Joey’s kids. A Giardello fight became a real family event. They cheered at every punch that Giardello landed and winced when Joey got hit. Boxing is a brutal and often corrupt sport, but it also has a savage beauty, and boxing brought the boy and his father closer than anything else in their lives.

His father took him to South Philadelphia’s Toppi Stadium to see his first live fight — Joey Giardello against Otis Graham. And finally on July 7, 1952, his father took him to the one and only title fight that he ever saw in person — the welterweight championship bout between the champ, Kid Gavilan, and the challenger from Strawberry Mansion, Gil Turner. Turner was a rising star, but he was not ready for the Kid. Gavilan wore him down with his famous bolo punch and ended Turner’s dreams of a championship in the 11th round.