Cinderella Man Page 14

  Lewis had beaten Jim Braddock too, with a decision in San Francisco back in 1932. But despite his success and his well-connected manager, Lewis had not had much luck outside the ring since 1929. Though he was being groomed for a shot at the title, Lewis was just as financially strapped and fighting from hunger as Braddock himself. Both men’s futures were riding on the outcome of this one match.

  The bell clanged the start of round five. The sound had hardly faded when the boxers charged like mad bulls to the center of the ring, leather flying.

  “The fighters are still toe to toe. No one is giving an inch,” Ford Bond barked at his audience. “I have never seen a fight this ferocious go on for this long.”

  The sustained savage exchange finally broke. And it was Lewis who danced away, Jim who pursued him to the ropes, aggressively carrying the fight back to his opponent.

  Lewis countered with a venomous combination—left, right, left. The power of those punches drove Jim back, but he quickly pivoted and tossed a surprise uppercut that heaved Lewis up, backward, and down again, leaving him wavering on one knee.

  Jim stepped back, left poised to strike again as the ref jumped between the fighters and began the count—barely audible above the roar of the crowd.

  Lewis stumbled to his feet, and the referee reluctantly waved Jim forward. Braddock didn’t hesitate—

  Years before, just two months after he’d KO’d Tuffy Griffiths, Jim had climbed into this very ring to fight Leo Lomski. Jim had nearly KO’d Lomski too…Nearly. Instead of finishing him off, Jim had shuffled around and hesitated, squandering his opportunities long enough to give Lomski time to recover and win. Braddock wasn’t about to let that happen again—

  Rushing to the center ring, he delivered a trio of jabs. Lewis, still dazed from the knockdown, could not keep his guard up. Even Lewis’s legwork slowed, until he could not mount an effective defense, leaving himself open for a tremendous right cross that sent him reeling into the ropes.

  James Braddock threw up his arms and the crowd exploded. Their cheers blew off the roof, echoing loud enough to reach beyond the Garden’s walls to the busy Manhattan streets outside. Loud enough to rock the richly paneled executive offices of the Garden’s influential power broker, Jimmy Johnston.

  Jim Braddock’s upset victory over John Henry Lewis turned out to be a close win—a split decision rendered by the judges. A similar split opened among fight fans and members of New York City’s sporting press. Impartial witnesses deemed John Henry Lewis the winner of the first four rounds since he’d clearly dominated his opponent with quicksilver moves, amazing flurries, fancy footwork, and perfect timing.

  But after the fateful fifth round—when Jim Braddock had sent Lewis to his knees—the black fighter never recovered. His confidence shaken, Lewis’s poor performance tossed the next several rounds to the boxer from New Jersey. John Henry Lewis’s reputation was further tarnished by a low blow he threw at Braddock, unsportsmanlike behavior that caused Lewis to forfeit a round.

  That low blow—hurled by accident in the heat of battle—knocked the wind out of Braddock, though he refused to show it. Fortunately, the stunning smash came near the end of the fight, and Jim thanked his lucky stars for the money Joe Gould had fronted him because he’d used the cash to increase his strength and stamina under the tutelage of Joe Jeannette, the king of endurance fighters in his day. Jim realized that if he’d showed the faintest trace of weakness during the closing rounds, the decision would have surely gone to Lewis and ended Braddock’s fistic resurgence for good.

  Most sportswriters gave Braddock his due, and a few even declared his performance against Lewis the pinnacle of his boxing career. But not everyone sided with the Bulldog of Bergen. Writers who favored John Henry Lewis were especially unimpressed with the “Jersey stooge.” In their view, Jim had merely connected with a few lucky punches.

  But the split in the press over Braddock vs. Lewis was inconsequential compared to the spotlight on the bout that followed, in which New York favorite Bob Olin overthrew Maxie Rosenbloom to become the world’s light heavyweight champion. That titanic battle drew headlines away from the spectacular exhibition by Jim Braddock—media neglect that ensured Jim would enter his next fight with his underdog status as firmly fixed as ever. But it also made getting that next fight much tougher, an unpleasant truth that Gould never shared with his fighter.

  As Gould handed Braddock his share of the seven-hundred-dollar purse, he offered some advice to go with it. “Always keep your hands up, Jimmy. Take care of yourself and keep in shape. Our luck has changed at last. I can feel it in my bones.”

  Jim trained fairly steadily after that, but he also went back to the docks to work part time to feed his family. Meanwhile, Joe Gould visited Jimmy Johnston’s offices daily, pestering the promoter for another bout. He sometimes brought Jim Braddock along with him, as if to show him off. While Gould pressured Johnston for another Garden match, Braddock planted himself in the outer office where he charmed Johnston’s seasoned, tough-as-nails secretary and guardian of the gate, Francis Albertanti.

  Braddock became quite a fixture in subsequent weeks, and every time Johnston passed the fighter on his way in or out of his office, he muttered a curse under his breath. One day, Johnston protested out loud. “You’ve spoiled two guys for me, Braddock. Two fighters I was grooming for a shot at the championship.”

  “So,” Jim replied with a guileless shrug, “when are you gonna throw me another?”

  It would take a considerable amount of wheeling and dealing by Joe Gould to get Jim another bout, but circumstances helped his cause.

  In December, 1934, a month after the Braddock vs. Lewis fight, Jimmy Johnston publicly announced what Joe Gould and many others had long suspected—that the Garden would soon host a series of elimination bouts to determine which fighter would be a suitable challenger for Max Baer’s championship title. A rematch with the man Baer snatched that title away from was a given, which placed Primo Carnera at the top of the list.

  Other contenders included Art Lasky, an up-and-coming, left-handed bruiser from Minnesota; Max Schmeling, who’d just returned to his native Germany to be celebrated by its newly elected chancellor, Adolf Hitler; Steve Hamas, a former four-letter man from the University of Pennsylvania; and “Big Ray” Impelletiere, whom Tommy Loughran had recently beaten in a decision despite a cut over Tommy’s eye that almost stopped the fight.

  Of course, Joe Gould wanted Braddock to have a shot at the title, but he ran into a hitch named Johnston. After his victory against John Henry Lewis, Johnston had concluded Braddock was more than lucky—he was good—and because he didn’t want another of his rising young prospects to get smashed by the wild card from New Jersey, Johnston resisted Braddock’s entry into the competition. But in his efforts to exclude Braddock, Johnston encountered a hitch of his own—Joe Gould, who badgered him day after day, week after week for another bout.

  “How about a fight with Al Gainer?” said Johnston after Joe Gould burst into his office one chilly December afternoon.

  Joe Gould waved that suggestion aside along with a cloud of cigar smoke. “How about Lasky?” he replied.

  Johnston knew that Art Lasky—a fighter who’d chalked up a string of victories in the West—was a good deal slower on his feet than John Henry Lewis, the man Braddock had just defeated. So he refused to sanction the match, and said so.

  “How about a series of bouts in the spring?” Johnston countered. “I can line up maybe five fighters for your boy, take him through next Christmas.”

  “How about Art Lasky?”

  “Okay. But how about another fight before Lasky?” Johnston offered, hoping the other boxer would knock Braddock down and out of the running.

  “I want Lasky,” came Joe’s reply.

  Johnston threw Gould out of his office that day, but Joe came back the next, and the next. Gould stuck to his guns, and eventually Johnston—after listening to the confident Lasky crowd—began to believe that he’d been
underestimating Art Lasky’s fistic abilities and overestimating the boogie man named James Braddock.

  In the end it was Jimmy Johnston who called Joe Gould into his office after Christmas 1934 to offer Braddock the Lasky match, with a contract that stipulated the bout would take place in the Garden on February 1, 1935. Gould fronted Jim some money and he went off to train. But on the eve of that fight, Lasky was stricken with pleurisy and the tussle was postponed—a sharp disappointment to Gould and Braddock, who were both sparring with hungry wolves at their debtridden doors as they waited for the long-delayed purse.

  On February 1, the day the fight was originally scheduled to take place, Braddock paid a visit to Art Lasky in the hospital, posed for pictures and wished his future opponent a speedy recovery. The next morning, Jim rose early, kissed Mae good-bye, and headed back to the docks to scrounge for work. The fight was rescheduled for March 15, then postponed again by Lasky’s trainers and the boxing commission, to March 22.

  Gould exploded when he heard the news. “Another postponement? They’re afraid of Braddock, that’s what they are. They’re giving us the runaround, the dirty snakes.” He complained loudly and long, but in the face of such rank favoritism toward Lasky, he could do nothing but agree to the change. Jim Braddock was again left waiting at the altar.

  Two days later, Johnston called Gould into his office to inform him that the fight had been rescheduled yet again—to the original postponement date of March 15!

  “Is that so?” Gould cried. “Well, they can go to hell. What do they think this is, anyway? What do they think I’ve got here, a four-round fighter or something? Well, we won’t fight on the fifteenth, no matter what the commission recommends. I got a contract and we’ll fight on March twenty-second—and that’s that.”

  Before anyone could stop him, Gould stormed out of Johnston’s office, went directly to Joe Jeannette’s gym in Union City and instructed Jim Braddock to train for a fight on the 22nd. Then Joe Gould vanished. For the next two weeks, Johnston’s men searched all over the city for him, but Braddock’s manager could not be found. Only after it was too late to do anything else, and the New York press confirmed the fight’s official date of March 22, did Joe Gould resurface at his familiar haunts.

  By the time the date of the Lasky vs. Braddock fight arrived, Hamas and Carnera had been eliminated from competition, and Max Schmeling refused to return to the United States to fight Baer. With no one left to promote, Johnston understandably hoped for a quick and definitive Lasky victory, one that would push Braddock out of the competition altogether.

  From the opening bell, it looked as if Johnston’s hopes would be dashed. Braddock easily dominated the first round, beginning with a hard right that threw Lasky against the ropes. In the second and third rounds The Leftie from Minnesota seemed unable to penetrate Braddock’s defense. Nose bloody, chin bruised, Lasky absorbed lots of punishment, though he managed to land a sinker to Braddock’s chin in the fourth round before eating a left, right, left to the head that forced Lasky to retreat.

  But the tide seemed to shift in the fifth round. Lasky flew out of his corner with a furious body attack that knocked the wind out of Braddock. Moving close, Lasky landed a right cross and left jab on Braddock’s mug, followed by a body blow with his right. Braddock’s response was tepid and misdirected—he was warned by the referee that he was hitting low—and he swallowed another body blow as the round ended.

  Things got worse for Braddock in the sixth round, with Lasky planting a hard right to his chin and a left to the gut. As he backed away, Braddock managed to connect with Lasky’s jaw, and tossed four shots to his head. But the damage had already been done to Braddock—Lasky came away from the sixth a winner.

  Art Lasky’s momentum continued in the seventh round, with Braddock continually backing away, Lasky always on the offensive. The eighth round ended with a near technical knockout when Braddock laid open a gouge under Lasky’s eye, but the man’s fury remained undiminished, and at the start of the ninth, Lasky came out fighting, landing successive hits to the torso climaxed by a wallop to Braddock’s stomach that elicited a loud grunt. Meanwhile, Braddock’s punches seemed mistimed and ineffectual.

  Announcer Ford Bond was beside himself. “After his dazzling victory against John Henry Lewis, the comeback of Jim Braddock has just hit a wall named Art Lasky in the ninth round…”

  Lasky had Braddock trapped in a corner and was pounding him with bone-jarring shots to Jim’s ribs. Braddock just managed to escape—and rock Lasky with a right to the chin—when the bell rang.

  As Lasky crossed to his corner, he raised his fists in triumph.

  A corner man worked on Jim’s bruises, and Joe Gould leaned into his face. “He’s a bull rusher,” Gould said. “He’s going to keep doing this all night.”

  Jim looked up. For a moment the lights seemed to descend from the ceiling and explode in his brain. Gould shook him. “Where are you, Jim?” The lights receded. Jim squeezed his eyes, shook the sweat and water out of his hair. When he looked up again, the lights were right back where they belonged.

  “Jim!” yelled Gould. “This is Lasky’s house. You got to stop him breathing, you get me, Jim?”

  Their eyes met, and a shared darkness passed between them.

  “You hit him in the nose,” said Gould, eyes blazing. “You keep hitting him there, you get me? Make him bleed—”

  The warning buzzer sounded.

  “—Fill his face with blood.”

  But Jim just couldn’t pull it off. Instead, he tried to hold Lasky back with his left, but the ploy didn’t work. In the eleventh round, Braddock found himself pinned into a corner once more. Arms down, elbows in tight to protect his ribs, Braddock’s head was totally exposed. Lasky took advantage of the opening with a flurry of punches and jabs.

  “Art Lasky is putting an end to a story that’s been getting a lot of attention…” Bond cried into his microphone. His rapid-fire commentary was suddenly interrupted when Lasky dished up a right hook to Jim’s temple potent enough to dislodge Braddock’s mouthpiece and send it sailing across the canvas. It was the most powerful punch Lasky possessed in his arsenal, and the crowd seemed to grow still as they waited for the result.

  Jim Braddock just stood there, holding Lasky’s eyes, his ferocity undiminished. Without the referee’s intervention, Braddock turned, walked calmly across the ring and retrieved his mouthpiece.

  “I…I can’t believe my eyes,” cried Bond. “Braddock just took Lasky’s best punch and it didn’t even faze him. He’s showing inhuman determination…”

  Braddock popped the mouthpiece into place with a gloved hand. Then he grinned to the howling audience and closed on Lasky. Feeling fear for the first time, the man from Minnesota tried to end the round in a clinch, but a savage uppercut from Braddock’s right snapped Lasky’s head back and put an end to that failed strategy.

  His confidence restored, Braddock came out swinging in the twelfth, landing blow after blow on Lasky’s temple, his eyes, his chin. Lasky’s cut reopened and blood seeped from the wound. Still Braddock pressed, continuing the assault on Art Lasky’s cranium in the thirteenth and fourteenth rounds. Now Jim fought from a distance, employing Gould’s advice, repeatedly jabbing Lasky’s nose, turning it into a red balloon.

  By the start of the fifteenth and final round, both fighters were displaying fatigue. Lasky managed to make a show of charging, but was halted by Braddock’s walloping left. With Lasky flailing, Jim landed thudding rights, varying his attack with a feint to the body, and finally a right cross that landed on his opponent’s face. Lasky’s nose exploded, blood drenched the ring.

  “This is incredible,” said Ford Bond. “Braddock will not be denied.”

  As Lasky staggered around the center of the canvas, Jim was on him with a series of lethal punches that sent his opponent to the ropes—the only thing keeping Lasky upright as the final bell sounded, ending the fight.

  The crowd was on its feet while the fighters were stil
l in the middle of the ring. Through the glare and the tobacco smoke, Jim found Gould looking at him, offering his fighter a respectful bow. Jim winked in reply, then threw his bloody gloves above his head and punched at the Garden’s ringing roof.

  “And the winner is…James J. Braddock!”

  The cheers were loud enough to reach across America’s heartland, to Branson, Missouri, where their echoes drowned out the sound of manager Ancil Hoffman’s labored breaths, the click of heels across hardwood floor. He raced down a hotel corridor, to come to a stumbling halt at the bridal suite.

  He tapped the door, then pounded on it. A muffled sound, then the door flew open.

  “What?” roared a naked giant. Eyes simmering, Max Baer gripped the doorknob with a powerful fist, chest heaving, muscles rippling like a pagan warrior god. Traces of crimson lipstick streaked his face, neck, and pectorals like tribal war paint. Behind the heavyweight champ, Ancil saw two young women sprawled across a queen-size bed, one stripped to her lingerie, the other stark naked except for silk stockings. Both were giggling, drunk.

  Ancil met his fighter’s angry glare. “Max…Jim Braddock just beat Lasky. He just got to be the number-one contender for your title.”

  Max Baer smirked. The women laughed wildly.

  “I’m going to paste that guy,” growled Baer. “He’s nothing but a chump. Why not tell his manager to stand him on Fifth Avenue in front of the crosstown bus. If he can take that, maybe he can get in the ring with me.”

  Max was about to close the door when he paused. “Tell Johnston to get somebody who can fight back.”

  “You gonna bust your contract?” Ancil cried. “Too late. It’s a done deal, Max.”

  Baer slammed the door in Ancil Hoffman’s face. Peals of feminine laughter rolled after the fretting manager as he retreated down the hall.