Corruption. Violence. Greed. Gangsters in fedoras. Flashbulbs popping. Reporters chasing stories.
You can see it in ”The Untouchables,” the umpteenth movie supposedly dealing with Al Capone`s capers, currently playing in movie theaters.
Fifty years ago Monday, with Capone incarcerated at Alcatraz, the same colorful elements surrounded one of the most important days in Chicago sports history.
On June 22, 1937, Joe Louis became heavyweight boxing champion of the world by dethroning James Braddock in front of 41,675 paying customers in Comiskey Park. This was the first heavyweight title fight in Chicago in 10 years, and, though never popularized by Hollywood, the Louis-Braddock bout had the right stuff for a movie.
The leading men
Joe Louis–At age 23, the strong kayo specialist from Detroit was just entering his peak years and seeking to become the youngest heavyweight champion to date. After a successful amateur career, he had been extremely busy with 35 pro fights in three years and had fought a dozen times in the 13 months leading up to this first title shot.
Louis was seeking to become only the second black man to hold the crown. Almost 30 years earlier, Jack Johnson had become the first, and he had outraged the white community with his behavior. Joe was considered more acceptable by whites. He definitely had the ring credentials.
James Braddock–At age 31, this New York Irishman was hanging on and looking for a big payday for his family of four. Three years earlier, he had been thrown out of a bout because he was performing so badly and at the time had lost 11 of 17 previous fights.
Braddock went on relief and worked as a longshoreman while trying to salvage a ring career. He surprised everyone by winning the title a year earlier by defeating an out-of-shape Max Baer in a 15-round decision. Called the Cinderella Man by publicists, he fought only one exhibition before this first defense.
Background
This may have been a title fight, but it wasn`t necessarily the bout that America wanted. With Nazi rumblings growing louder in Europe, sports fans were more curious to see Max Schmeling climb into the ring with Louis, who had incurred his only loss as a pro to the German in a 12th-round KO a year earlier.
The smart money said Braddock and Schmeling would fight in June in New York, though Louis was next in line. The news in February that a Louis-Braddock bout had been set for Chicago was a shock.
Promoters claimed that threats of anti-Nazi rallies and boycotts made a Louis-Schmeling fight unworkable.
When Madison Square Garden, which had a contract with Braddock, sued to keep him from fighting in Chicago, a loophole in the agreement was found. Two courts over-ruled MSG`s effort to kill the fight, the last decision coming four days before the event.
James D. Norris and Arthur Wirtz made an effort to get the fight in the Stadium, and other interests wanted it in Soldier Field before Comiskey Park was decided upon.
During other wheeling and dealing several months earlier, one of Louis`
managers would report that he had been taken by two mobsters to hear a proposal by Braddock followers for an exhibition offer that he refused.
Supporting cast
Mike Jacobs–”Uncle Mike” hustled his way from being a dead-end kid in New York to forming the 20th Century Sporting Club after getting rich promoting an American tour by opera singer Enrico Caruso. When Louis` star rose, he shrewdly signed him to a contract and dominated boxing after the championship was won against Braddock. He wanted the fight in Chicago, where Louis had enjoyed an earlier big payday against King Levinsky. He kept the champ busy and became the sport`s czar before turning over his control to others and retiring to his New Jersey home, where he tended his beloved roses. Joe Gould–He was Braddock`s long-time friend and manager, as the two once worked together as New York longshoremen. He was a street-wise New York hustler, like Jacobs, and had close ties to organized crime. He sought the biggest payoff for his aging fighter but ended up suing Jacobs over proceeds after the fight. In World War II, he was court martialed by the Army for influence peddling in the awarding of contracts. He died at age 53 in 1950.
John Roxborough–A gambling king in Detroit, he spotted Louis as a promising amateur and bankrolled his early ring efforts and became his manager and close friend.
He carefully guarded the champ`s image and relinquished much control to Jacobs to help further the fighter`s career.
After serving time in prison, Roxie purposely took a low profile to protect Louis, but he sued the boxer in 1951 for lost earnings.
Julian Black–One of Louis` co-managers. The Kefauver Senate Crime Committee heard testimony naming him as one of Chicago`s kingpins of illegal gambling. A cafe owner, he was driving a car in which four performers from a musical comedy showing in town were riding when it crashed early one morning, killing an actress.
Sheldon Clark–A millionaire Chicago sportsman, who was chairman of the Sinclair Oil Co. He became head of the Illinois Athletic Commission and commodore of the Chicago Yacht Club, and in boxing was a judge at the Dempsey- Tunney ”long count.” He put up $500,000 for the Louis-Braddock fight to ensure it coming to Chicago.
Gen. John Reed Kilpatrick–As president of Madison Square Garden, he tried unsuccessfully to block the Louis-Braddock fight in Chicago. Later, he and Jacobs entered into a partnership that monopolized boxing. A Yale grad and brigadier general in the Army reserves, he later became chairman of the Citizens for Eisenhower committee in the 1950s.
The build-up
Chicago was throbbing with sports fever at the time of Louis-Braddock.
Three days earlier, the high rollers began invading town for the prestigious American Derby at Washington Park, won by a thoroughbred owned by Robert Kleberg, who also owned the famed King Ranch in Texas.
Legendary golfer Babe Didrikson, in town for the Western Women`s Amateur, took $150 off a male golfer in an exhibition two days before, and a day before the fight a feisty young tennis player by the name of Bobby Riggs won the United States Clay Court finals in suburban River Forest.
The Cubs were in a tight for the National League pennant after moving into first place 10 days earlier. On the day of the fight, they beat the New York Giants 5-0 on a seven-hitter in front of 27,197 Wrigley Field fans. Not to be outdone, the White Sox whipped the As in Philadelphia behind Monty Stratton`s three-hitter.
Both fighters had set up local camps a month earlier. Louis trained in Kenosha, Wis., after an attempt to locate in Lake Geneva Wis., was blocked by the homeowner`s association. Braddock trained at Pinewood Inn in Grand Beach, Mich.
Sportswriters detailed every move they made weeks in advance. They quoted Louis` parrot, interviewed a 2 1/2-year old boy befriended by Braddock, described every dish served at the training tables and accompanied the champ on a trip to see a movie in Michigan City, Ind.
The scene
On Fight Day, special trains and planes began arriving from all over the country.
Several hundred blacks, complete with their own marching band, arrived from Memphis.
The area had been raked by a bad storm two days earlier, but weather was no problem on June 22. Tickets went from $3.50 to $27.50, and the crowd was a Who`s Who. Naturally, Mayor Ed Kelly of Chicago attended, along with dozens of other state and local officeholders. There also were governors from five states and a Canadian premier.
Local socialites included the Cudahys, Clarks, Florsheims, and Hertzes, some of whom hosted other such well-known figures as actor Douglas Fairbanks and his wife, J. Edgar Hoover, American League President Will Harridge, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and Redskins owner George Preston Marshall.
More than 500 credentials were issued to the press, whose ranks included Damon Runyon.
Legendary announcer Clem McCarthy described the action for an NBC hookup that included 120 U.S. stations and outlets in Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and South America.
Louis` wife, Marva, listened on the radio at their nearby home at 4320 S. Michigan Ave.
The fight
Braddock surprisingly floored Louis with a right uppercut in the first round, but the challenger quickly got to his feet, and, by most objective accounts, it wasn`t close the rest of the way.
Louis hurt Braddock badly in the second and didn`t follow. The challenger knocked Braddock off balance in the fourth, but the champ didn`t fall.
Louis continued to dish out gruelling punishment against Braddock, whose courage impressed everyone. Heading into the eighth, which would be the final round, the rapidly weakening champ had a cut over one eye and a split lip.
His punches were harmless, and the bout finally ended with an overhand right, which toppled Braddock with a slow, face-first fall into the canvas. He remained unconscious after he was counted out by referee Tommy Thomas.
The aftermath
Louis went on to become, arguably, the greatest of all heavyweight champions and the first black sports superstar in the U.S. and destroyed Schmeling in his fourth defense exactly one year later.
With World War II as a backdrop, the genial, generous Brown Bomber added to his stature by enlisting in the Army, refusing a commission, staging hundreds of exhibitions and donating proceeds to relief funds.
With millions of blacks and whites following the action on radio, Louis kept busy with 25 official defenses before retiring as undefeated champion in 1949.
But, plagued by massive tax problems through his own generosity and mismanagement by handlers, he came back to fight three more years before a knockout by Rocky Marciano signaled the end in 1951 at age 37.
He was elected to Boxing`s Hall of Fame in 1954 and died April 12, 1981, in Las Vegas, where he was working as a greeter for a casino.
Braddock faded into boxing obscurity after losing the championship, rating but a single entry in the Ring Record Book. The Cinderella Man fought just twice more and then quit, declaring: ”Boxing owes me nothing, and I owe it everything.”
He entered the Army in 1942, was elected to boxing`s Hall of Fame in 1964 and died Nov. 29, 1974, in North Bergen, N.J.