Literary Notes: Jerry Izenberg and More (Book Reviews by Thomas Hauser)

Published

3 months ago

June 20, 2023

Literary Notes: Jerry Izenberg and More (Book Reviews by Thomas Hauser)

Long after he retired from baseball, Ted Williams (possibly the greatest hitter who ever lived) was stopped by a security guard and asked for identification as he entered Fenway Park in Boston. Williams (the story goes) responded disdainfully, “I may be old. And I may be fat. But I’m still Ted Williams.”

Jerry Izenberg (the dean of American sportswiters) will be 92 in September. He may be old. His legs might not carry him around the playing fields as surely as they once did. But he’s still Jerry Izenberg. And he can still write. Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark (published by The Sager Group) is his latest book.

Izenberg’s father was born in Lithuania and came to the United States at age seven. Baseball was his first real connection to America. “I became an American the first time I hit a baseball,” Harry Izenberg later reminisced. He dropped out of school in fourth grade after his father died and economic necessity required that he get a job. Later, he played minor league baseball before finding work in a dye factory.

When Jerry married, his father’s wedding gift to him and his bride was an American flag.

Jerry inherited his father’s passion for baseball. Harry Izenberg was an avid New York Giants fan. Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg (mixed metaphor coming up) was a patron saint in the Izenberg home, as he was for many Jewish fans. But Jerry didn’t inherit his father’s athletic genes. He was a lousy baseball player as a kid and didn’t improve with age.

He was also a “problem child,” both in and out of school. Money was scarce but Harry and Sadye Izenberg felt that a change in direction was necessary to save their son. With the help of an aunt, they pieced together the funds to send Jerry to a four-year military academy in Virginia.

“This is not a punishment or a test,” Jerry’s father told him. “It’s simply what you make of it. You need to understand the way life works. You can’t even think of breaking the rules until you understand what the rules are. You can’t do things only because you want to do them. It’s time you learned how to be responsible. It won’t be easy but you need to do it.”

Jerry had been Bar Mitzvahed at age thirteen, but religion was never at the core of his life. “My father,” he notes, “defended his religion more than he practiced it.” So yes, Jerry knew that his father’s family had left Eastern Europe to escape the threat of pogroms. He knew about Hitler, although the full horror of The Holocaust had yet to be revealed.

At the military academy, anti-semitism was a reality. Not deadly but akin to a hundred tiny paper cuts. At one point, Jerry was struggling with his studies and asked the commandant if he could have an extra hour after “lights out” to work on his homework.

“Why is it the Jewish boys always want an extra piece of pie?” the commandant responded.

Military academy was followed by college at Rutgers-Newark. Jerry began writing about sports. The book ends with his induction into the United States Army on November 6, 1952.

Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs is an entertaining memoir. The stories flow smoothly and evocatively. More than any of Izenberg’s previous books, this one comes from the heart. His first thirteen books are on a shelf in my library. Number fourteen is a welcome addition.

****

Glyn Rhodes was an average club fighter; a British super-lightweight who compiled a 33-27-5 (20 KOs, 14 KOs by) ring record between 1979 and 1993. After retiring as an active combatant, he turned to training fighters. Beyond Good and Evil (written with Mark Turley and published by Pitch) is his story.

Rhodes was a classic opponent. He had eight fights abroad and lost all of them. He fought five men who became British champions. Other ring adversaries claimed European, Commonwealth, and French titles. Eamonn Loughran (who decisioned Rhodes in 1991) later won the World Boxing Organization welterweight crown.

“I occupied a little niche and was known to be erratic,” Rhodes acknowledges. “A guy who could give anyone a battle on my day, but also someone who could not be relied on to turn in a good performance.”

Brendan Ingle trained and managed Rhodes for much of the fighter’s ring career. Rhodes acknowledges the contributions that Ingle made on his behalf but paints a portrait of his mentor as a snake who often cajoled him into the ring without adequate time to prepare. On one occasion, Ingle put him in a fight on short notice pursuant to a “special arrangement.”

“I was to make it look good, go the distance, and help pad out the card,” Rhodes writes.

“We’re all in it together,” Ingle told him.

Except the opponent went for the knockout.

There are places where Beyond Good and Evil is repetitious and moves slowly. There are too many descriptions of fights that mattered to the people who were involved but won’t matter much to readers.

That said; there are places where Rhodes’s story is worth reading. This is particularly true when he recounts Scott Westgarth’s tragic death from a subdural hematoma suffered in a fight that he won on points with Rhodes in his corner.

After Westgarth died, Rhodes went into psychotherapy to deal with a lifetime of pain. What he learned about himself in the journey of self-exploration that followed is worth repeating:

“I saw and acknowledged that boxing had done me harm in a lot of ways. Boxing can be a harmful thing. Anyone that denies that just isn’t dealing with reality. What’s hard to acknowledge for people in and around the sport is that you can’t change or dilute that harm because it’s built into boxing and the culture which surrounds it. Turning up to a gym and getting punched in the face every day changes the way you see the world. It changes your relationship with violence. Some people want to condemn boxing. I get that. Others want to glorify it, which I can understand too. I don’t do either. I accept the lot because you can’t make boxing safe without destroying what makes it special. It’s not part of regular society, so people who live only in that world don’t understand it. But those who have laced on a pair of gloves, even if only for a spar, they know.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – In the Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – 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, Hauser 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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Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

Published

23 hours ago

September 24, 2023

David A. Avila

Skavynskyi and Bustillos Win on a MarvNation Card in Long Beach

LONG BEACH, Ca.-A cool autumn night saw welterweights and minimumweights share main events for a MarvNation fight card on Saturday.

Ukraine’s Eduard Skavynskyi (15-0, 7 KOs) experienced a tangled mess against the awkward Alejandro Frias (14-10-2) but won by decision after eight rounds in a welterweight contest at the indoor furnace called the Thunder Studios.

It was hot in there for the more than 600 people inside.

Skavynskyi probably never fought someone like Mexico’s Frias whose style was the opposite of the Ukrainian’s fundamentally sound one-two style. But round after round the rough edges became more familiar.

Neither fighter was ever damaged but all three judges saw Skavynskyi the winner by unanimous decision 79-73 on all three cards. The Ukrainian fighter trains in Ventura.

Bustillo Wins Rematch

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In the female main event Las Vegas’ Yadira Bustillos (8-1) stepped into a rematch with Karen Lindenmuth (5-2) and immediately proved the lessons learned from their first encounter.

Bustillos connected solidly with an overhand right and staggered Lindenmuth but never came close to putting the pressure fighter down. Still, Bustillos kept turning the hard rushing Lindenmuth and snapping her head with overhand rights and check left hooks.

Lindenmuth usually overwhelms most opponents with a smothering attack that causes panic. But not against Bustillos who seemed quite comfortable all eight rounds in slipping blows and countering back.

After eight rounds all three judges scored the contest for Bustillos 78-74 and 80-72 twice. Body shots were especially effective for the Las Vegas fighter in the fifth round. Bustillos competes in the same division as IBF/WBO title-holder Yokasta Valle.

Other Bouts

In a middleweight clash, undefeated Victorville’s Andrew Buchanan (3-0-1) used effective combination punching to defeat Mexico’s Fredy Vargas (2-1-1) after six rounds. Two judges scored it 59-55 and a third 60-54 for Buchanan. No knockdowns were scored.

A super lightweight match saw Sergio Aldana win his pro debut by decision after four rounds versus Gerardo Fuentes (2-9-1).

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Tedious Fights and a Controversial Draw Smudge the Matchroom Boxing Card in Orlando

Published

1 day ago

September 23, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Tedious-Fights-and-a-Controversial-Draw-Smudge-the-Matchroom-Boxing-Card-in-Orlando

Matchroom Boxing was at the sprawling Royale Caribe Resort Hotel in Orlando, Florida tonight with a card that aired on DAZN. The main event was a ho-hum affair between super lightweights Richardson Hitchins and Jose Zepeda.

SoCal’s Zepeda has been in some wars in the past, notably his savage tussle with Ivan Baranchyk, but tonight he brought little to the table and was outclassed by the lanky Hitchins who won all 12 rounds on two of the cards and 11 rounds on the other. There were no knockdowns, but Zepeda suffered a cut on his forehead in round seven that was deemed to be the product of an accidental head butt and another clash in round ten forced a respite in the action although Hitchins suffered no apparent damage.

It was the sort of fight where each round was pretty much a carbon of the round preceding it. Brooklyn’s Hitchins, who improved to 17-0 (7), was content to pepper Zepeda with his jab, and the 34-year-old SoCal southpaw, who brought a 37-3 record, was never able to penetrate his defense and land anything meaningful.

Hitchins signed with Floyd Mayweather Jr’s promotional outfit coming out of the amateur ranks and his style is reminiscent in ways of his former mentor. Like Mayweather, he loses very few rounds. In his precious engagement, he pitched a shutout over previously undefeated John Bauza.

Co-Feature

In the co-feature, Conor Benn returned to the ring after an absence of 17 months and won a unanimous decision over Mexico’s Rodolfo Orozco. It wasn’t a bad showing by Benn who showed decent boxing skills, but more was expected of him after his name had been bandied about so often in the media. Two of the judges had it 99-91 and the other 96-94.

Benn (22-0, 14 KOs) was a late addition to the card although one suspects that promoter Eddie Hearn purposely kept him under wraps until the week of the fight so as not to deflect the spotlight from the other matches on his show. Benn lost a lucrative date with Chris Eubank Jr when he was suspended by the BBBofC when evidence of a banned substance was found in his system and it’s understood that Hearn has designs on re-igniting the match-up with an eye on a date in December. For tonight’s fight, Benn carried a career-high 153 ½ pounds. Mexico’s Orozco, who was making his first appearance in a U.S. ring, declined to 32-4-3.

Other Bouts of Note

The welterweight title fight between WBA/WBC title-holder Jessica McCaskill (15-3-1) and WBO title-holder Sandy Ryan (6-1-1) ended in a draw and the ladies’ retain their respective titles. Ryan worked the body effectively and the general feeling was that she got a raw deal, a sentiment shared by the crowd which booed the decision. There was a switch of favorites in the betting with the late money seemingly all on the Englishwoman who at age 30 was the younger boxer by nine years.

The judges had it 96-94 Ryan, 96-95, and a vilified 97-93 for Chicago’s McCaskill.

In the opener of the main DAZN stream, Houston middleweight Austin “Ammo” Williams, 27, improved to 15-0 (10) with a 10-round unanimous decision over 39-year-old Toronto veteran Steve Rolls (22-3). All three judges had it 97-93. Rolls has been stopped only once, that by Gennady Golovkin.

Photo credit: Ed Mulholland / Matchroom Boxing

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Zhilei Zhang KOs Joe Joyce; Calls Out Tyson Fury

Published

2 days ago

September 23, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Zhilei-Zhang-KOs-Joe-Joyce-Calls-Out-Tyson-Fury

Joe Joyce activated his rematch clause after being stopped in the sixth frame by Zhilei Zhang in their first meeting. In hindsight, he may wish that he hadn’t. Tonight at London’s Wembley Stadium, Zhang stopped him again and far more conclusively than in their first encounter.

In the first meeting, Zhang, a southpaw, found a steady home for his stiff left jab. Targeting Joyce’s right eye, he eventually damaged the optic to where the ring doctor wouldn’t let Joyce continue. At the end, the fight was close on the cards and Joyce was confident that he would have pulled away if not for the issue with his eye.

In the rematch tonight, Zhang (26-1-1, 21 KOs) closed the curtain with his right hand. A thunderous right hook on the heels of a straight left pitched Joyce to the canvas where he landed face first. He appeared to beat the count by a whisker, but was seriously dazed and referee Steve Gray properly waived it off. The official time was 3:07 of round three.

Zhang, who lived up to his nickname, “Big Bang,” was credited with landing 29 power punches compared with only six for Joyce (15-2) who came in 25 pounds heavier than in their first meeting while still looking properly conditioned. One would be inclined to say that age finally caught with the “Juggernaut” who turned 38 since their last encounter, but Zhang, 40, is actually the older man. In his post-fight interview in the ring, the New Jersey resident, a two-time Olympian for China, when asked who he wanted to fight next, turned to the audience and said, “Do you want to see me shut Tyson Fury up?”

He meant it as a rhetorical question.

Semi-Windup

Light heavyweight Anthony Yarde was matched soft against late sub Jorge Silva, a 40-year-old Portuguese journeyman, and barely broke a sweat while scoring a second-round stoppage. Yarde backed Silva against a corner post and put him on the deck with a short right hand. Silva’s body language indicated that he had no interest in continuing and the referee accommodated him. The official time was 2:07 of round two.

A 30-year-old Londoner, Yarde (24-3, 23 KOs) was making his first start since being stopped in eight rounds by Artur Beterbiev in a bout that Yarde was winning on two of the scorecards. Silva, a late replacement for 19-3-1 Ricky Summers, falls to 22-9.

Also

Former leading super middleweight contender Zach Parker (23-1, 17 KOs) returned to the ring in a “shake-off-the-rust” fight against 40-year-old Frenchman Khalid Graidia and performed as expected. Graidia’s corner pulled him out after seven one-sided rounds.

In his previous fight, Parker was matched against John Ryder who he was favored to beat. The carrot for the winner was a lucrative date with Canelo Alvarez. Unfortunately for Parker, he suffered a broken hand and was unable to continue after four frames. Tonight, he carried 174 pounds, a hint that he plans to compete as a light heavyweight going forward. Indeed, he has expressed an interest in fighting Anthony Yarde. Graidia declined to 10-13-4.

The Zhang-Joyce and Yarde-Silva fights were live-streamed in the U.S. on ESPN+.

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