Carpe Diem: Gans Seized His Day
Before the swamping of American culture in mass media, certain books could send out psychic sound waves that could be heard for generations. Nat Fleischer’s book discussing Gans seems to have left an indelible impression in the minds of boxing fans, that Gans was less than completely courageous and honorable as a fighter.
The Gans era was really a period of unprecedented creativity in America. Her teeming energy had not yet found an outlet in world affairs, and attentions were directed at mastering nature rather than at the Germans, Japanese, or Communists. Inventions of every sort were introduced, led by Thomas Edison’s brilliant mind and ability to channel his ideas into practical uses. Vaudeville, literature, sport, and music all pitched in to expand the American mind. Foremost among the athletes, and patron of the arts when he founded the Goldfield Hotel, was Joe Gans.
Besides performing at the highest levels of creativity throughout his life, Gans suffered through the greatest calamities of the time, racism and disease. He overcame the former and succumbed to the latter, but only after a long hard road. Given his immense popularity as world title-holder and even after his death, one would expect that Baltimore, the monumental city, would honor its favorite son with a memorial befitting his greatness. But none was ever built. H. L. Mencken commented on Gans’ fate, “It always amazes me how easily men of the highest talents and eminence can be forgotten in this careless world.... There is no Gans boulevard, avenue, street or even alley in the Harlem of Baltimore, and no Gans park. Some years ago I heard talk of raising a monument to Joe in Perkins Square, hard by his humble birthplace, with a marble effigy of him in ring costume on top of it, but the scheme faded out.”10 Even today, there is no statue in Baltimore to symbolize his crowning achievement or to memorialize the city that provided the bedrock for this master of the sport. There is only a cemetery stone in a forgotten graveyard.
It has become conventional wisdom that the great black boxers end up punch drunk or destitute. Gans’ good friend George Dixon died young and penniless after becoming a bon vivant in the wake of his boxing success. Joe Louis ended up owing the IRS huge sums, and clearly without all of his mental faculties. Muhammad Ali’s silver tongue began to fail him as a result of repeated blows to the head as he earned the adulation of the American public. In Gans’ case, it can be said that he went out on his shield, fighting in the shadow of death and refusing to go softly into that good night.
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Good Night, Sweet Prince:
Fighting in the Shadow of Death
Gans had been both bribed and threatened with death in the dog days of August leading up to the Goldfield shoot-out. A posse of Tonopah gamblers had offered him $25,000 the day before to throw the fight, twice the amount he would legitimately earn. Gans made a statement to the press a few days after the fight that he had rebuffed the gun-toting rowdies.1 One rumor spread to discredit Gans’ achievement was that he had “given them the double cross” by not losing as he had been paid to do.2
Gans was given an ultimatum to either win or be lynched. Those who had bet on Gans threatened to kill him if he lost. Gans was literally fighting for his life, in the shadow of death, when he entered the ring that fateful September day in Nevada. He left the state carrying the death germs of tuberculosis, and thus did not escape the specter of death even by winning.
Having worked a lifetime to achieve the pinnacle he reached at his 1906 Goldfield showdown with Nelson, Joe Gans was not about to let the dirty tactics of Nelson’s manager and a few pounds stand in the way of his destiny. Nelson’s manager, the overbearing Billy Nolan, knew this and took every advantage of the situation. In scaling down to 133 pounds (actually 1311⁄2 when Nolan demanded at the last minute that he make weight in full fighting gear) and then enduring three blistering hours under the torrid Nevada sun, Gans allowed the tubercular germs to gain a foothold in his weakened body. On the day of the fight, the temperature hovered around the 100-degree mark. The bell for Round One clanged at just after 3:00 P.M. with the desert sun at its zenith. One of the first films in existence of over an hour in length commemorated the Goldfield showdown. As the rounds wore on toward sundown, the lengthening shadows of the gladiators on the silent film speak volumes about the longest title fight in the history of gloved boxing.
The invasion of TB can be likened to that of an invading army. Numerous assaults may be launched and repelled when the defenses are strong, as those of the Turks at Gallipoli. But once a foothold is established, as the Allies did so famously at Normandy, the doom of the defenders is sealed. In 1906, when TB was the leading cause of death in America, a very large percentage of the population carried the disease in an asymptomatic form. Soon after the apocalyptic bout with the Durable Dane the indications of Gans’ illness began to surface. The strenuous training conditions and extreme fluctuations in the weather—fighting under temperature variations of over 100 degrees within a four-month period, from Goldfield’s 100-plus degree day to Tonopah’s 0 degree temperature—didn’t help his condition.
Winning the Labor Day 1906 fight at Goldfield cemented Gans’ celebrity, and on October 25, the great George “Kid” Lavigne would pass the symbolic torch to Joe Gans. The pairing of the two was a marquis coup for the city of Detroit, where the two engaged in a 3-round boxing show. The French named Detroit Des Etroits, meaning the narrows, after the river straights that flow between the Great Lakes. The site would connect the two boxing generations. Here were the marvels—Gans, the current master of the lightweights, and Lavigne, the former champ who was retiring into history. Lavigne had claimed the lightweight title after an exhibition fight in 1896 with the first world lightweight titleholder Jack McAuliffe, when McAuliffe decided to retire. “The Saginaw Kid” continued to hold the crown until it was taken from him by Frank Erne on July 3, 1899. Gans would be the fourth American fighter to hold the title.
Tonapah—When Nevada Turned from Furnace to Ice Bowl
Looking back at the event over a century later, and knowing how difficult it is in present times to get people together for anything despite modern transportation, the Nevada extravaganzas, Goldfield in 1906 and Tonapah in 1907, are truly amazing. On New Year’s Day 1907 with the temperature sinking to zero in Tonopah, Nevada, the Pride of Baltimore met the Pride of Chicago, and the Nevada town’s citizenry hoped to eclipse the success at Goldfield.
Nevada means snow-capped in Spanish, and that is what it was on New Year’s day of 1907 when Gans successfully defended his title in a fight to the finish against “Kid” Herman Langfield, also called the “Ghetto Kid.” It was a fight that pitted experience against youth; this “Kid” was nine years younger than Gans. The papers noted that Gans had no difficulty making the 133 weight. Notwithstanding the inclement weather, the bout drew so many “experts on pugilism” that the ringside seats could not hold them all—the first two rows were designated for the esteemed sportswriters. Retired heavyweight Jim Jeffries had promised the Casino Athletic Club’s manager, Mike Riley, that he would referee, but at the last minute backed out, wanting no more of the fight business due to criticism he had received from his call of the Burns-O’Brien match.3 He was replaced by veteran referee, Jack Welch.
The New Year’s Day blizzard delayed the incoming Goldfield train filled with ticket holders, causing the 2 P.M. event to be postponed for several hours. Gans, having fought in 100-degree weather four months earlier, would now be fighting in frigid 0-degree weather. Upon arriving, the fight fans had to slosh a quarter mile through snowdrifts from the business district to the new 8,800 seat boxing arena, built at a cost of $40,000 (comparable to an $80 million basketball gym today without the benefit of heat). A full house was expected to bring box office receipts to almost $100,000. The purse for the event was $20,000, with sixty percent going to the winner and forty to the loser.
The sharp north winds blew through the “greatest prize-fight amphitheater ever constructed.”4 Inside, spectators huddled together in the coliseum-like encl
osure, and sportswriters took notes with gloved hands. Concerned as he was about his health and about the pavilion’s frigid conditions, Gans had insisted on the fight beginning no later than five minutes after the contestants disrobed. During the introductions, fight promoter Mike Riley announced that he would offer $30,000 to the winner for an upcoming match with Jimmy Britt. Not to be outdone, Tex Rickard upped the stakes. When he was introduced, Rickard offered a purse of $50,000 to the winner for a match with Battling Nelson, an offer that would be too good for Gans to pass up even though he would not be in good health. Excited by the stakes of the battle they were about to witness, the audience at Tonopah exploded with enthusiasm, when the announcer appeared on stage to read the now-famous telegram from Gans’ mother, instructing him “to bring home the bacon.” Instead, the announcer read a different message. Gans had sent his mother a Christmas present in the form of a check for $6000. Her telegram read: “Thanks, Keep Stepping, Joe.”5 A new phrase would become popular.
Although a top contender who could land a fair share of hard punches, Kid Herman was clearly outclassed by Gans and was forced to fall back on dirty tactics. Disregarding the rules outlined in the Articles of Agreement stating there would be no fighting in clinches, the “Kid” did just that. In the first round during a clinch he swung his right around to smack Gans’ kidney. The two mixed it up, each receiving hard blows in the early rounds, with Gans sending Herman to the floor in the third. The crowd went wild when the “Kid” pounded Gans’ body and drove him to the ropes in the fifth. Gans came back in round six determined to put an end to Herman’s aggressiveness. Gans landed so many short hard left and right punches to Herman’s jaw, “jolting his head back a foot” that Herman’s seconds screamed “Cover and fall in!” In the eighth round Gans sent powerful left and right blows to Herman’s jaw that dropped him so cold it looked as if he had been “hit by a board.” The fight was reported to be as “clean a knockout as ever took place in a ring.”6
The film of the bout was one of the earliest made, yet it is a great improvement over the grainy Goldfield film from four months prior. Because it was such an exciting fight to watch, the 32 minute boxing film circulated throughout the United States for the next two years. On the film, the Old Master is lightning fast in picking off Herman’s punches and landing his own counters. The quickness of both fighters is startling. Their stances differ from modern fighters in that their hands are held low. Holding the gloves up by the ears was not commonplace until the thirties. The old-timers compensated for the lower guard with quick head and hand movements. Gans cornered Herman against the ropes and drew Herman’s most powerful punch, the right hook. When Herman threw his weight into the punch, Gans shifted and pulverized the challenger’s head with his own right, leaving him in a heap on the canvass. Herman was counted out, during which time he seemed lifeless. His corner men rushed to his aid and Gans, ever the gentleman of the ring, was down with the group of men lifting Herman to his feet.
A point can be made here about Gans’ ring genius. First, it is very hard to knock unconscious a professional fighter who is a well-conditioned athlete. Anyone who has seen bar fights or modern heavyweight boxing matches knows that a fighter is more likely to cave to exhaustion than a clean knockout. The effects of the right hook-uppercut with which Gans hit Herman can be seen in the way Herman’s head seems to throw splinters all over the frame of the film where the punch lands. The speed of the film can’t keep up with the concussive speed with which Herman’s head is jolted back. He falls as if he is dead.
Gans and his contemporaries did not have access to films of their opponents. The viewer of this film can actually witness Gans sizing up Herman for the kill. In round three when Herman went to the ropes, he dipped his head to the left when throwing a right. Gans figured this out and used Herman’s own momentum to maximize the impact of his short KO punch. A true ring scientist in action.
During the spring and summer of 1907, Gans finally took time to reap some of the rewards he deserved from his success while his new manager, Ben Selig, tried to arrange another lucrative match. In March efforts were made to stage a match between Gans and the middleweight Joe Thomas, but a disagreement on weigh-in terms shelved the bout. A planned lightweight title match between Gans and Harry Lewis also fell through. In July the Nevada State Journal was boasting of a Labor Day fight to be held in Reno between Gans and either Jimmy Britt or Battling Nelson, but this event also failed to materialize.
From Nevada, Gans went to New York, where he starred in theatrical engagements at one of Gotham’s show houses, sparring three rounds with partner Adam Ryan. He opened on January 15 with matinee and evening performances, thrilling large audiences who favored him with rousing ovations when he appeared on stage. At one performance the crowd shouted for a speech. As professional as he was in the ring, Gans was uncomfortable in the spotlight and declined to give them a formal oration. He did, however, speak about his future boxing plans. He would take Tex Rickard’s offer to meet Nelson again, but the next time would be on his own terms and conditions. “I’ll fight him 65–35. That’s 10 per cent better than he gave me at Goldfield.”7 He added that he would also fight him for a $10,000 bonus, winner-take-all. The papers reported that day that he looked in “splendid” physical condition. In his discussion with the crowd, he publicly stated that he was going to stay a lightweight and take on no welterweight or middleweight boxers. He also said that he had “laid the bones aside” and was no longer gambling.8 His immediate plans were to return on February 1 to Tonopah to begin training for the Jimmy Britt return bout, originally scheduled for St. Patrick’s Day in March.
Return Bout with Jimmy Britt and Easy Wins
Articles of Agreement for the second Britt fight were signed on August 9 with the Occidental Athletic Club for a guarantee of $25,000, and the fight was moved to the afternoon of September 9, 1907, to be held at the open-air San Francisco Ball Park under the management of John J. “Jack” Gleason. Since Goldfield and Gans, the purses had skyrocketed in the lightweight division, purses that would lead the way for the large ones that would come later in the heavyweight division. The signing of the articles in San Francisco created a scandal when the “fight trust” offered a “large sum of money” to the Pacific Athletic Club of Los Angeles to break up a fight scheduled in the city of angels for August 16 between Jimmy Burns and Joe Gans.9 The powerful trust believed the match in Los Angeles would draw publicity away from the Britt-Gans Occidental bout scheduled two weeks later. The Los Angeles crowd was “agog” over the payoff.
Jack Gleason owned the Frisco Ball Club where he promoted the Gans-Britt fight at a baseball game by tethering 100 kites to stakes around the stadium. Attached to the kites were tickets to the prestigious boxing event with seat prices as high as $25. At the end of the game, the kite strings were cut and the wispy bundles floated over the city to the excitement of the sports crowd.
Gans seldom received major news coverage without some mention of his race. Caricaturist Chopin glorifies “Sir Edward” and his attempt to climb “the cullud Gibraltar” in the final battle between Gans and Jimmy Britt. In a racist jab, the cartoon credit in the San Francisco Examiner on September 10, 1907, reads, “from Baltimo.’”
Before the fight, betting odds were in Gans’ favor, at 10 to 7, although not by as much as Gans had formerly known. Bookmakers explained that Gans might have left much of his stamina in Goldfield. Gans’ hometown paper, of course, predicted that he would win. “Gans is in all respects regarded the master of Britt. He is a more scientific boxer, he is a harder hitter and he has more endurance. Gans’ performance in battling 42 rounds with Nelson, when the champion had been weakened by a compulsory reduction to 131½ pounds ringside, was a remarkable exhibition of stamina and courage.”10 One California writer said that Gans would have KO’d Nelson had he not been forced into a weakened condition before the match. California betting men, however, believed the match was leveled by age. By boxing standards Gans was considered old at 34
, and Britt was a healthy seven years younger. San Francisco editor W.W. Naughton had noticed that while Gans was great at gymnasium stunts, he was unable to do roadwork or quick sprints without becoming feverish.
Anxious to take the title from Gans, Britt of San Francisco was noted to be in his best condition ever. Days before the fight, Britt was at a training weight between 135 and 136. Naughton described the unusual sparring exercise devised by Britt’s trainer, Tiv Kreling, which attracted spectators to his quarters. Allowing his boxer full range of target and force during practice bouts, Kreling created a boxing mitt as “big as a sofa cushion” that he could wear on his right hand.11 On his left hand he wore a regulation-sized glove. Britt could practice swinging with full force into the trainer’s face, as the intervening pillow would soften the blow. Part of the attraction for spectators at the camp was hearing Kreling spout off Native American Indian words he had picked up as signals for various punch locations, i.e. ribs, jaw, stomach. Once when Kreling called off the Indian word for face, Britt confused it with stomach and the surprised squire stopped the assignment with a string of curse words leveled at his charge.
Naughton told his readers that Britt and Gans were, beyond argument, the two most talented of the small men in the ring, and this match promised to be the most thrilling since the battle at Goldfield. Interest was nationwide, but to Californians in particular it was the re-match of the century—a chance for the San Francisco boy to prove that he could be the real master. The pre-fight publicity in the San Francisco Examiner included the racist cartoon “You Joe! Bring Home Dat Bacon.” The scene on Mission Street in San Francisco told the story—a throng of a thousand people gathered at fight time to read the round-by-round notices posted on the bulletin board outside the newspaper offices of The Examiner. The world, one more time, came to a standstill for three-minute intervals. So popular was the match that over 10,000 people assembled in front of the newspaper’s branch office in San Jose.
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