The Hauser Report: Literary Notes and Other Nuggets

Published

4 years ago

March 23, 2021

The-Hauser-Report-Literary-Notes-and-Other-Nuggets

“More than anyone else,” Kenneth Bridgham writes, “John Morrissey personified the links between sports, gambling, high finance, politics, and crime in nineteenth-century America.”

That’s the theme of Bridgham’s new book – The Life and Crimes of John Morrissey – published by Win by KO Publications.

Morrissey was born in Ireland in 1831 and, as a young boy, came to the United States with his parents. He was a thug and a drunk who made his mark as a bare-knuckle prizefighter. Then he became a gaming house owner and was Involved with thoroughbred horseracing at the highest levels. He was, Bridgham writes, “the first true Irish mob boss in American history.”

In 1866, backed by New York’s corrupt and powerful Tammany Hall political machine, Morrisey ran for Congress. His criminal record at the time included four indictments for assault with intent to kill and three for burglary. Despite his past transgressions, he was elected.

Morrissey was an ineffectual Congressman, largely disinterested in and incapable of performing the job properly. After serving two terms, he had a falling out with his Tammany Hall backers and left the House of Representatives. He subsequently served for three years in the New York State legislature after being elected as an anti-Tammany-Hall candidate.

He died in 1878 and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the “pioneer” category in 1996.

Bridgham recounts Morrissey’s transformation from violent thug to mob boss to a millionaire businessman who “doubtless attained a significant portion of his wealth through means that were illegal.” The book is thoroughly researched and gives readers a feel for the squalid underside of life in New York as well as bare-knuckle prizefighting in the mid-19th century.

But as Bridgham acknowledges, many of the nineteenth-century tales regarding Morrissey’s life are allegorical. Thus, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. And Bridgham’s writing style is a bit heavy.

Despite the book’s entertaining storyline, The Life and Crimes of John Morrissey reads slowly at times and never quite catches fire. Still, it’s an interesting window onto a bygone era.

* * *

Question: What do Leslie Odom Jr (who won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the Broadway production of Hamilton), Michael Imperioli (who won an Emmy for his portrayal of Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos), and Seanie Monaghan (29-3, 17 KOs) have in common?

Answer: They each have roles in the Amazon biopic One Night in Miami that centers on the hours after Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston in Miami Beach to claim the heavyweight championship of the world.

Monaghan retired from boxing in 2019 and works nights as the supervisor on a construction project. During the past year, he has helped home school his children (Seanie Jr, age 9, and Maria, age 6) during the day because their school was closed as a consequence of the coronavirus.

Monaghan was cast in the film as Henry Cooper after Gerry Cooney recommended him to Hollywood veteran Robert Sale.

“They filmed my scene in New Orleans in February right before the coronavirus hit,” Seanie recounts. “I was down there for a week, and it was pretty cool. The first few days, I worked with the stunt coordinator going through the routine. I shared a dressing room with Michael Imperioli and told myself not to annoy him. But he was very nice. And in my free time, I walked around New Orleans to see what it was like.”

“Filming the scene where Cooper knocks Clay down was bizarre,” Seanie recalls. “At first, I was throwing punches that for a boxer would be correct. And they kept saying, ‘Throw them wider so it looks good on camera.’ It was the opposite of everything I’d been drilled on for years. Also, I can throw a punch and miss by an inch. But the actor who played Cassius Clay was getting nervous, so they told me to miss by a foot. Throw wide and miss by a foot. So that’s what I did, and they’d say, ‘That’s great, Seanie. That looks great.'”

Will there be more acting in Monaghan’s future?

“The stunt coordinator and Robert Sale said they’d like to use me again,” Seanie reports. “They even suggested that I move to Los Angeles so I could train actors to box and get more parts. But I’m a Long Island guy. That’s where my life is now.”

One Night in Miami focuses on the relationship between Cassius Clay, football great Jim Brown, soul singer Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X.

“I’m reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Seanie says. “It’s a special book. I didn’t read as much as I should have when I was young, but I read a lot now. ”

* * *

Over the years, several feature films about boxing have been entitled Knockout. Recently, I watched the 1941 film of that name.

The plot is typical for its era. Middleweight contender Johnny Rocket (played by Arthur Kennedy) decides to quit boxing and begin a new life with his soon-to-be bride, Angela Grinnelli (Olympe Bradna). Johnny’s plan is to become an instructor at a gym and eventually open up a health spa of his own. But his unscrupulous manager, Harry Trego (Anthony Quinn), doesn’t want to lose the money that Johnny generates. So, he arranges to have Johnny fired from his new job and makes it impossible for him to find employment elsewhere. With Angela now pregnant, Johnny is desperate for money and returns to the ring. Back in action, he catches the eye of socialite Gloria Van Ness (Virginia Field), whose father owns a major newspaper and has assigned his daughter to write about boxing as a lark.

“Maybe I’ll write a story about you one of these days,” Gloria tells Johnny.

“Well, maybe I’ll give you an interview one of these days,” Johnny counters.

Eventually, a love rectangle develops. The evil Gloria seduces Johnny as her boy toy. Angela, who still loves Johnny, leaves him because of his philandering and is pursued by the gentlemanly Tom Rossi (Cornel Wilde) who has a crush on her.

Meanwhile, Johnny gets greedier and more insufferable with each ring victory. Finally, he decides to manage himself, at which point Trego arranges for a “chemically prepared mouthpiece” to do Johnny in. Incapacitated as a consequence of being drugged, Johnny is knocked out. Worse, because of his poor performance, he’s accused of taking a dive and barred from fighting by the state athletic commission. At that point, Gloria Van Ness loses interest in him.

Thereafter, Johnny fights under assumed names in small arenas across the country, getting knocked out for short money. Eventually, he suffers a brain bleed and is told that his fighting career is over.

“I guess I’ve been a fool,” Johnny tells Angela after she pays his hospital bill despite their being separated.

But Tom Rossi (remember him?) isn’t about to abandon his pursuit of Angela. He confronts Johnny and tells him, “I’ve thought about it a lot. And I figured, if you ever came back, we’d better have it out. You had your chance with Angela and you threw it away. You haven’t any right to ask for another. All you’ve ever given her is a lot of grief and tears. She trusted you and believed in you, and you let her down. The one decent thing you can do now is get out of her life completely so she can have a little happiness. The only feeling she has left for you is pity.”

Johnny decides that Tom is right and takes one more fight, knowing that doctors have told him that one more punch could kill him. Angela finds out about it, rushes to the arena, and throws a towel into the ring to stop the fight as Johnny is being brutalized. Johnny and Angela are happily reunited, and he takes a job working at a camp for children.

If that all sounds corny; well, it is.

The fight scenes in Knockout are cartoonish. The actors who portray the fighters don’t look like fighters. And their boxing technique makes Logan Paul look like Andre Ward. The film is mindless entertainment. But there are times when it’s fun.

* * *

Total Olympics by Jeremy Fuchs (Workman Publishing) is short on boxing. But there’s one piece of trivia that might be of interest to fans of the sweet science.

In 1920, a Yale college student named Eddie Eagan won an Olympic gold medal in boxing in the light-heavyweight division. Four years later, he sought to medal again – this time as a heavyweight – but lost in the first round of competition. Thereafter, Eagan hung up his gloves and embarked upon a career as a lawyer. But his competitive fire remained strong. So strong that he took up bobsledding and won a gold medal at the 1932 Winter Olympics as a member of the United States four-man bobsledding team. He later served (from 1945 through 1951) as chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

To this day, Eagan is the only Olympian to win a gold medal at both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

* * *

And a non-boxing literary note . . .

With fewer good fights to watch these days and no press conferences or other boxing-related events to attend, I’ve been reading more lately.

I love books. At last count, I had roughly 4,500 on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in my apartment. It’s a nice collection and a passageway to the wisdom of the ages.

Some of my books are valuable. There’s a nine-volume set printed in 1802 that has all of William Shakespeare’s plays. Each volume is 27-by-13 inches in size and illustrated with extraordinary engravings. The great majority of my books are of little monetary worth. But the collection as a whole has enormous sentimental value to me.

Several shelves in my library are devoted to young adult classics, many in editions published in the early twentieth century by Charles Scribner’s Sons with illustrations by N.C. Wyeth. These books have a special feel. Their heavy paper, large type, exquisite art, and yellowing pages draw a reader back in time.

Recently, I took Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson off the shelf and began to read.

Stevenson was born in Scotland in 1850. Treasure Island is his most famous work. It appeared in installments in a magazine called Young Folks in 1881 and 1882 and was published in book form one year later. “It was to be a story for boys,” Stevenson later explained. “No need of psychology or fine writing.”

Treasure Island shaped the image of pirates for generations of young readers. It’s a wonderful page-turner and an easy read. There’s lots of drama with pitched battles, a map telling the location of buried treasure, and sayings that have become part of the vernacular (“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum”).

Jim Hawkins – in his mid-teens at the time the events in question occur – is the story’s narrator. He’s joined by characters like Dr. Livesey, John Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Ben Gunn, and – most memorably – Long John Silver.

Silver is the tale’s primary antagonist and one of the most treacherous, manipulative, greedy, cunning, clever, opportunistic, deceitful, charismatic characters in young adult literature. Sort of like Don King.

Treasure Island carries with it the imprimatur of the ages and is a gateway to earlier times. Stevenson left the date of the adventure open, but indications are that the tale he recounts is set in the late-1700s. The book itself, though written in the early 1880s, was immensely popular with boys through the first half of the twentieth century.

I remember being seven or eight years old and my father reading Treasure Island to me – one chapter at a time – when he put me to bed at night. It was a way of linking his childhood to my own.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – Staredown: Another Year Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective,-Chap.-323:-Benn-vs-Eubank-Family-Feud-and-More.jpg

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.

This is huge in British boxing.

Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

This is about family pride.

The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.

Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.

Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.

Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.

Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.

Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.

This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.

Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.

“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”

Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.

“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.

Eubank smiles.

“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.

Supporting Bout

Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.

“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.

McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.

It’s youth versus experience.

“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.

Monster in L.A.

Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.

It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.

Pomona Fights

Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.

Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.

Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).

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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.

Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”

Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.

Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.

The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.

It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.

Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.

Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.

When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.

Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”

Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.

Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.

Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.

Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.

It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.

Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.

For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”

It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.

Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.

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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

5 days ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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