The Beast of Stillman's Gym, Part 8

Published

13 years ago

February 6, 2012

Springs Toledo

beast 9

Mary Darthard, surrounded by family members after the tragedy that was Lytell-Darthard II.

PART 8: THESE HANDS

Bert Lytell was haunted by a ghost. It followed him wherever he went for the last four decades of his life. Sometimes he’d be sitting in a chair at his brother’s house in Oakland, surrounded by light-hearted nieces and chattering relatives, and then he wouldn’t be there anymore. His eyes would dull and lower to something that wasn’t there. Ellen noticed her uncle staring at the floor and asked her parents about it. They told her what he saw.

He saw Jackie Darthard, the shadow of Jackie Darthard, dying on a hospital cot.

April 21^st 1948. Bert Lytell was 24 years old and 160 lbs when he marched down the aisle to fight his second main event at the Milwaukee Auditorium. He slipped through quivering ropes and paced the ring, rolling his shoulders and reveling in his physical prowess like boxers do.

Ten paces away, the sixth-ranked middleweight in the world reveled just as much. His name was Jackie and he was one in a parade of teenage glory-boys that boxing used to beckon, a slugger good enough to fight Bert to a draw the first time they met. “Once an opponent has been hurt, Darthard is after him without letup,” his hometown paper boasted. “He packs lethal wallops in either hand.”

Like most black contenders, Jackie had to take an extra job to make ends meet. He worked at a mattress factory and washed dishes when he wasn’t training, though he had high hopes about this rematch with Lytell. He was sure it would launch him into the big-time, and the lucky blue cap he wore into the ring and everywhere else would make it a cinch. His wife remembered that cap and the tiffs they had when he wore it to bed. She made the mistake of hiding it once; “I thought we was gonna get a divorce,” she said years later.

In the third round, Bert landed a right hook to Jackie’s head and a left that went deep into his stomach. Jackie went down on his face and didn’t get up until the referee counted nine. Another left sent him down again. He used the ropes to get to his feet and barely beat the count. In the fifth round, Sammy Aaronson peered under the ropes from the Lytell corner and saw a sick look on Jackie’s face. His instincts, honed over twenty-seven years in the racket, told him something was wrong and he started hollering at the referee: “That kid’s hurt! Stop the fight!” It seemed to be a stunt to get his man the win and the referee ignored him. “Get a doctor! Take that kid out of there!” An official leaned over his shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut,” he warned, “or you’ll be suspended.” Sammy knew he was breaking the rules but kept at it anyway. No one listened. After the round ended, he told Bert to take it easy.

In the closing seconds of the sixth round Bert crowded Jackie into a corner and then landed a clubbing left to his temple at the bell.

Jackie slumped on his stool. “Give me a drink of water,” he said as he draped his arms along the ropes. He started tossing his head and his trainer started worrying. “Jackie, how do you feel?” he asked.

“Give me a drink of water and I’ll get him this round.”

“You can’t go out this round.”

“No, don’t stop it. He’ll get a knockout on me!”

“You can’t go out this round, we are going to stop it.”

“No don’t stop it, don’t stop it.”

The trainer then asked Jackie where they were staying. Jackie said “sixteen, sixteen… Oh my head hurts, my head hurts, my head hurts…” The rest was incoherent and he went limp.

Sammy wasn’t even looking at Bert during the one minute rest. He was fixated on what was happening in the other corner and was already heading over there when Jackie slid off the stool to the canvas.

Officials rushed up the stairs into the ring. One of them scrambled under the ring, grabbed a stretcher and slid it under the ropes. Silence like a black veil fell over the 5,044 in attendance. Bert dropped to his knees. “Is he gone?” he kept asking. Jackie was carried out of the auditorium and rushed to the County Emergency Hospital.

A reporter approached Bert and asked him if he knew that Jackie was in bad shape. “I don’t know if he was talking to me or mumbling to himself but he said that he was hurt in the stomach,” he answered before excusing himself to go visit his opponent at the hospital.

By 1am reporters, state officials, and trainers from both corners were standing around in silent vigil outside of Jackie’s room. A few fans filtered in and volunteered to give blood transfusions. Sammy peeked into the room and saw the unconscious fighter’s head wrapped in bandages and his chest rising and falling with deep gasps that came too far apart. “I couldn’t stand it,” he said. Bert sat in a chair and prayed. Tears were seen streaming down his cheeks. A reporter from The Milwaukee Journal was watching him. He saw the flattened nose that all fighters eventually share and the scar tissue over the eyes. “It’s easy to see he packs a terrible wallop,” he wrote, “but when he talks it’s a quiet, gentle voice, you might say like a woman’s.” He was fondling a cigarette and the reporter remarked how it looked like a little white match in those big hands of his.

Those hands killed a contender. A nurse came out of the operating room and said that Jackie Darthard was gone. It was 8:40 in the morning on April 22^nd 1948 and Jackie was still wearing his boxing trunks. Bert was inconsolable. The county medical examiner said that the cause of death was “a brain hemorrhage, caused by external violence.” Bert killed him, and he knew it. He was going to quit the ring.

Mary Darthard was Jackie’s mother. She and a few family members were on their way to Milwaukee in a borrowed Buick when a newsflash said that Jackie had died that morning. When they arrived into the city, they went to the District Attorney’s office where an official hearing was being conducted. Bert was already there. He was standing further down the corridor when he saw the family come in. He watched Mrs. Darthard sob convulsively while Jackie’s sister and younger brother dabbed at her tears and stayed close. Some minutes passed before he was able to gather up his courage and approach the slender, well-dressed woman.

“I’m Bert Lytell,” he murmured, “I just want to say I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Darthard quickly composed herself and took his hands into her hers. “I know how you feel, son. Just like Jackie would have felt,” she said, “it wasn’t your fault. It was God’s will, I guess.”

The most feared middleweight in the world began to cry.

“Brace up, honey,” she told him. “Don’t let it ruin your life.”

Bert wouldn’t let it ruin his life. But it changed him. He began pulling his punches whenever he had an opponent hurt and he could no longer bring himself to stage those all-out attacks like before.

The beast was gone. Only the man remained.

…..

Twenty years later, the hands that killed Jackie Darthard were shining shoes in an Oakland Laundromat. Their power to startle was undiminished. “I can still see his knuckles and joints, all worn and beaten,” his nephew Kelvin told me, “—they were huge.” Bert probably looked at them with both pride and sorrow. Those hands could not offer a glittering championship belt for his nephew and nieces to admire, but they could offer a lesser treasure more dear: a fraying scrap book with old newspaper clippings carefully taped to pages. It told the story of what he was —.

Bert Lytell’s scrap book was lost. More losses would follow.

In 1986, he was 62 years old and evicted from his apartment on Sunnyside Street. He moved only as far as the driveway and was determined to stay right there. His girlfriend was with him. At 4’5 she must have reminded him of Tiny Patterson. Her name was Patricia Taplin and she was less than half his age —“Pat” he called her. The police were called by the new tenant and the couple refused to make a statement after being admonished for trespassing. The responding officer wrote “offense likely to continue” in the report.

Soon after that, Ellen got word that her uncle was living in his car and she too responded to the call. She became his angel. Never far from her mind were those Christmas packages he used to send to her, her brother, and her sisters, wherever he was. She would be there for him now, wherever he was. Ellen set him up in a hotel room in downtown Oakland and paid the bill.

The old fighter eventually found an apartment with his girlfriend and was on solid ground …for a little while. Pat died, unexpectedly, in 1987. The loss devastated him. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to turn, so he went for the bottle with both hands. He tipped and drained, tipped and drained, and tumbled down into alcoholism. He stayed there, uncomfortably numb, until a doctor told him that unless he wanted to die he had no choice but to give up drinking. Bert gave up drinking.

In June 1989, he was chosen to receive a special acknowledgement at an awards banquet for distinguished former athletes in Cuero, Texas. Someone even remembered his right name: The Victoria Advocate announced him as “Calvin Lytle, middleweight boxer.” He didn’t attend. In January 1990 he was admitted into Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro, California after he couldn’t endure the pain in his abdomen any longer. A liver biopsy revealed that he had a “metastatic adenocarcinoma of unknown primary origin” —cancer.

It was too late to save him.

____________________________

THE BEAST OF STILLMAN’S GYM winds down to its conclusion this Thursday. Don’t miss it.

Graphic is from The Milwaukee Sentinel, 4/23/48 (Frank Stanfield, photographer).

Darthard tragedy covered in The Milwaukee Journal 4/22,23/48, The Milwaukee Sentinel 4/22,23/48, and As High As My Heart: The Sammy Aaronson Story by Sammy Aaronson and Al Hirschberg, pp.87-91. Telephone interviews with Kelvin Lytle and Ellen V. Choyce, October 2011 and January 2012. Description of Darthard’s syle in Kansas City Times, 2/10/48. Pete Ehrmann’s “The Jackie Darthard Story” was another resource for this essay and is highly recommended. It offers more details about Jackie Darthard as remembered by his wife. Awards banquet reported in Victoria Advocate, 6/17/89. Cause of death found in Bert Lytell’s Certification of Death, State of California, #000693.

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com“>scalinatella@hotmail.com.

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Springs Toledo

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

15 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

4 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

4 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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