Newspaperman/Playwright/Author Bobby Cassidy Jr Commemorates His Fighting Father

For Bobby Cassidy Jr., boxing is in his blood. Literally and figuratively.

Cassidy’s father was a well-respected New York boxer who was a contender in the light heavyweight division during the mid-1970s.

“First of all, my father was a fighter, so I was around the sport at a very young age. I was about 10 or 11 years old and he was taking me and my brother [Chris] to the Gramercy Gym on 14th Street. I was meeting fighters like [Edwin] Chu Chu Malave and Mustafa Hamsho,” explained Cassidy, who began his sportswriting career in 1987 and has led Newsday’s multimedia department for a decade and a half where he has claimed numerous awards. “Paddy Flood managed my father, so I was around him a lot. It was an incredible childhood. The Gramercy was where they filmed the training scenes for Raging Bull. As I got older, I came to appreciate the one-on-one aspect of boxing. When the fight starts, the cornermen, the manager, everyone else turns around and walks back down those steps. The fighter has to rely on himself. No one else.”

The elder Cassidy, born in 1944, began boxing professionally in 1963, fought until 1980, and along the way carved out a record of 59-16-3 with one no contest and delivered 27 knockouts.

Cassidy wrote a play about his dad, titled Kid Shamrock, which ran Off Broadway, opening in 2007. More recently, he penned a book about his father.

“I am very grateful to Michael Dolan and WindingRoadStories for publishing it. My dad led an incredible life. He was ranked No. 1 in the world as a light heavyweight in 1976,” he recalled. “He made friends with so many people through boxing. Actors, politicians, wiseguys. He was friends with Robert De Niro and James Caan. Burt Young was one of his closest friends for a long time and Burt got him a part in the first Rocky movie.

“U.S. Congressman Pete King inducted him into the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame. Sonny Franzese, who at one time was the underboss of the Colombo Family, was also a close friend. Sonny used to go see him fight. Joe Galizia was another good friend. My father trained his son Larry. Larry was an outstanding college football player who made it to the semifinals of the New York Golden Gloves. But his life was so much more than just boxing.

“[My dad} overcame an abusive stepfather as a child. And later he overcame alcohol. That was probably the biggest win of his life, his victory over the bottle. And he did all of that while raising me and my brother. He was an incredible father. Rarely did he miss a game.”

Cassidy’s journey from idolizing his father to writing about sports took time.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky. Steve Farhood gave me my first job, hiring me at The Ring magazine. From there, I went to Newsday and then I wrote for a little while for the New York Post,” he said. “Then I came back to Newsday.  As I was progressing at Newsday, they started to make it clear that once Wally Matthews left the paper, they weren’t sure if they were going to replace him with a boxing beat writer.

“I had a Sunday boxing column for about two years. But this was post-[Mike] Tyson and papers started to eliminate the boxing beat. There was an opening with Newsday’s digital team and I was hired over there. A few years later, the technology advanced to the point where you could start uploading video to the Internet. They asked someone to volunteer and I raised my hand. I knew nothing about shooting video, but my brother was a photographer-filmmaker and he helped a lot in those early years.”

When Cassidy was poised ringside for over 200 world title fights, he felt at ease and wrote stories that would resonate with the readers.

“The goal is always to report the fight accurately and fairly. The next goal is to make a deadline,” he said. “For me, the third priority was to entertain the reader. Some might look at that as the wrong order. Like anything else, the longer I did it, the better I got at achieving all three.

“When I was covering fights for Newsday, the main event often started after the first deadline. So it could be very tight to get that story in for the final deadline, particularly if it went the distance. I would have to write a story about another bout on the card for the first deadline. And then follow that up with a story on the main event. So for a long time, I was basically writing two stories per night. That helped a lot, constantly turning over stories on deadline made me a better writer.”

Many ratings numbers indicate that boxing is having a renaissance of sorts.

Canelo Alvarez is still popular as is Terence Crawford and David Benavidez is on the way to becoming a superstar. There is also a bevy of international talent like Naoya Inoue, Oleksandr Usyk, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, making key inroads.

“I think boxing is becoming more global. There are stars coming from all different countries and huge fights are taking place in many different countries,” Cassidy said. “I think that’s broadening the appeal of the sport. I also think the women are really helping to lift the sport.”

Boxing’s appeal for Cassidy has been evident from the start and despite some flaws, he still enjoys the fight game.

“I think some people just see it as too violent. I think people have a hard time wrapping their head around a sport like this in a modern city. I love it because it’s the purest form of competition,” he offered. “One against one. No timeouts. No teammates to help you. When a fighter lays it all on the line, when he’s hurt and fighting back, those are some of the most exciting moments in any sport. I also love it because I have seen first-hand what it does for people. Boxing has changed the direction of the lives of many young men.”

Cassidy hasn’t been ringside for a while but he still appreciates what the sport has to offer.

“Unfortunately, I don’t get to cover it as much any more. But when I do, I have to tell you, that moment right before the opening bell of a big championship fight, it still gets to me,” he said. “It’s so exciting. I’ve been so lucky to have covered all the major sports. I’ve seen a Triple Crown in horse racing when American Pharoah finally snapped the streak [in 2015]. That was incredible. The intensity of playoff hockey is exciting, especially overtime. But there is nothing like the drama of a big fight.”

Getting to the core of a person isn’t easy but one way to enter that realm is by talking with them.

For Cassidy, most boxers were willing to be interviewed, but not all.

“Vinny Pazienza is always a great interview. So is Bernard Hopkins. Buddy McGirt is a great interview. I am a little biased because my dad trained him, but Donny Lalonde is incredibly smart and articulate,” he stated. “I always enjoy talking to him. I was covering fights at the Felt Forum when Kevin Kelley and Junior Jones were both starting out and I watched their careers grow.

“I maintained a good relationship with them and was able to talk freely with them over the years. The same with Lonnie Bradley, another fighter my father trained. When you cover someone at the beginning, they usually don’t forget that. I wrote the first-ever story on Hopkins for The Ring. He was a prospect at the time. He will never forget that.”

Cassidy added: “As far as bad interviews, I was never able to get much out of Tyson,” he admitted. “But I think it was due more to the timing of when I was trying to speak with him. For a stretch in the late 1980s, there was never a good time to speak with Mike.”

Aside from the action in the ring, boxers make for a good story, according to Cassidy.

“For the most part, boxers are very easy to talk to. So many of them have great stories and like to share them. They also aren’t usually surrounded by a team of public relations people who are running interference, like so many of the athletes in the other major pro sports,” he said. “I’ve covered most pro sports and out of all of them, fighters are the most real, the most honest. And usually the most accessible.

“There are good guys in every sport, but so many of them are guarded or indifferent. David Wells, the former pitcher for the Yankees, once said to me in the clubhouse, “Well that’s a really dumb question.” I never had a fighter say that to me.”

Boxers are willing to open up about how they arrived at this point and where they came from.

“So many fighters have incredible back stories. I have heard so many over the years. From Beau Jack fighting in Battle Royals at the Augusta Golf Club to 10-year-old Jake LaMotta fighting on the streets of the Bronx for the entertainment of the adults,” Cassidy noted. “One other that stands out to me, and I cannot believe this isn’t a movie yet, is Matthew Saad Muhammad. The story of his abandonment as a young child is gut wrenching. And to witness how far he came is a testament to his incredible courage.”

These ring pugilists and the men and women who chronicle them are just one reason why the world of boxing is so fascinating and Cassidy saw much of it.

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