Joe Gans

by Colleen Aycock

  Among those in attendance in Baltimore the night of the fight was Joseph Marias, manager of “Kid” Broad and secretary of the New York Broadway and Lenox Athletic Clubs. Marias stated that he felt sorry for Herford. “Al is one of the greatest directors in pugilistic battles who have ever visited New York,” and, he added, “one of the best losers.”38 He wagered a guess as to how much money Herford lost on the event and suggested that $5,000 would not cover it.

  By losing the fight if the fight were “faked,” what had Gans stood to gain? Gans had more to lose than just the winner’s purse for this match. A dispatch immediately sent out from Denver cancelled Gans’ next bout, scheduled for January with “Kid” Parker at the Denver Athletic Club.39 Gans had defeated Parker in the previous match less than a month earlier, but sentiment was so high against Gans and Herford that the rematch with Parker was cancelled. Sentiment would be similar in other parts of the country.

  Much has been made of the big shift in odds. Before the day of the fight the odds were even that Gans would be knocked out within the six rounds. There were numerous stories going around 24 hours before the fight that it had been fixed. This report caused the odds to shift, for example, 2 to 1 that McGovern would be on his feet at the end of 6 rounds. Betting was heavy and in favor of McGovern on the day of the fight. There was plenty of money to be bet against the Gans backers, but as soon as some of “the colored sporting men” began to bet similarly against Gans, the manager of Tattersall’s in Chicago smelled a rat. He brought Herford in and said that if there was any sign of a fake, the bout would be ruled no contest, all bets would be called off and McGovern would win Gans’ portion of the purse.

  But the most damning story was launched when William Arthur, assistant attorney for Chicago, said that “a colored gambler” came into his office offering to bet $8,000 at 8 to 5 on McGovern. Upon questioning, the gambler said that he had seen a written agreement whereby Gans would quit before the 5th round.40

  Another story circulated that the Baltimore crowd knew Gans had partied the nights away in New York instead of working in the gym during his training period. Perhaps the fear apparent on Gans’ face before the fight came in part from the realization that he had entered the ring without the fighter’s most reliable friends, training and conditioning. Nobody will ever know for sure exactly what happened in Chicago that night. That’s a secret Gans, McGovern, and their managers took to their graves. But we do know that the repercussions of the evening made the aftermath a desperate time in the life of the Old Master.

  To review events leading up to the fight: Gans had a nervous stomach, an arrest warrant, and a problem at weigh in. Had he been in hiding in New York to avoid the arrest warrant? Did he go into the ring as a result without proper training? Was he afraid of McGovern? Was the injury to the ribs excruciatingly painful, as anyone who has ever had a rib injury can attest to? Or was he afraid of the mob?

  Herford’s Quid Pro Quo: What Really Happened

  It should not be ruled out that McGovern hurt a weakened Gans with body blows. Eight years after the fight Gans recalled the power punches of Terry McGovern, “When he connected with one of those swings, his rival was certain to collide with the floor.”41 Perhaps Gans was so weak or afraid of being shot or lynched that he was truly dazed by one or several of McGovern’s grazing blows and although not truly knocked out, he was indeed hurt. However, our research indicates the following logical explanation for what happened, an explanation that has not been suggested in previous discussions of the fight. Although historians have said that McGovern was not in on the fix, he and his manager were often seen publicly chumming around with Herford. McGovern and his manager would be seen a year and a half later celebrating Gans’ victory over Frank Erne, riding in a car, sitting next to Gans in a parade through Buffalo when Gans won the lightweight crown.

  In October, two months before the Chicago fight, when Herford was still chasing Frank Erne for a match with Gans, newspaper accounts showed that Herford traveled to St. Louis to see Samuel Harris and Terry McGovern to enlist their help in obtaining a rematch for Gans against Erne.42 By October of 1900 the fixing of fights may have seemed the logical order of events to Herford. In Herford’s desperation to secure a rematch with Erne and enlist Harris’ aid in this endeavor, it would not have been above Herford to offer to throw a match to McGovern. Six to eight weeks after enlisting their help, Herford and Harris had arranged for Gans to meet McGovern on December 13, 1900. We can only speculate how Sam Harris could help Herford. Since McGovern had beaten Erne in a non-title fight, he may have agreed to forego a title bout, letting Gans have it instead in return for losing in Chicago. Shortly after the Chicago fight, Gans met Erne for the lightweight title.

  It is possible that the fear on Gans’ face in the Chicago ring reflected the realization of one of Herford’s shenanigans gone wrong. The arrest warrants, the climate of lynchings in America, and Gans’ knowing that he would probably be made a scapegoat all contributed to the psychological pressure on him that night. Gans knew that, in going forward with the bout, he would be served papers, and that he risked being put in jail. If he won the match and was subsequently incarcerated, his freedom, possibly his life, could be threatened.

  Four days after the battle, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance that codified the match as a “fake”: “Be it resolved that the City Council of the city of Chicago hereby expresses its disapprobation of ... the fraudulent affair which took place at the Tattersalls Building December 13, 1900.”43 The ordinance would ban boxing contests in the Windy City, except at private clubs where no admission could be charged. This put an end to the large gate receipts and rich purses that could be made in a prizefight in Chicago.

  Boxing was on its way to becoming a major industry when Chicago outlawed it at the end of 1900. The Windy City’s actions were the equivalent of putting the skids on HBO or MTV in the 1980s’ environment, in terms of economic impact. Imagine canceling baseball today because of the betting or steroid scandals. It is simply inconceivable. And yet, with a black boxer as a convenient sacrificial lamb, the biggest sport in America was nearly forced out of existence because of a match that lasted less than five minutes. What would have been lost in terms of American culture if the country had paid heed to the strident demands for the abolition of boxing in the wake of the Chicago fix?

  Why did Chicagoans react so vehemently? The city had paid a hefty price tag to get the fight, having out-bid San Francisco and having paid nearly $100 million in today’s dollars to bring the fight to Chicago. Part of the outrage was likely caused by the feeling of those in the Chicago area that they had been duped in a big way by small-time crooks. Faked boxing matches were certainly common and the outrage could not be credibly attributed to surprise.

  And what of Herford’s and Gans’ claims that the fight was for real? Even today, some who watch the film are not convinced that Gans was faking. A recent on-line discussion on the internet site East Side Boxing showed more than one commenter who thought the fight was genuine, and that Gans had been hit cleanly. To this the authors would say that it is not only the lack of punches taken by Gans, but even more to the point the complete lack of punches thrown by Gans, which marks the fight as fake. The best combination puncher in history to that point, Gans makes only feeble pawing motions at his attacker.

  A poster for a burlesque show starring Terry McGovern. In addition to boxing exhibitions and fight films, McGovern headlined in the Broadway plays Gay Morning Glory, Bowery After Dark, and Road to Ruin. He made $20,000 in the movies and spent $15,000 on racehorses. His manager estimated he made and lost over $203,200 during his fistic career. When McGovern’s family was penniless, Manager Sam Harris and boxing friends gave him a benefit at Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1907 (image from the H. C. Miner Lithograph Co., 1899).

  Gans’ and Herford’s statements the night of the bout are unconvincing, and Herford’s comments seem like a well-planned attempt to avoid fraud charges and obtain a lucr
ative rematch for this fighter. How quick and eloquent was the written statement of a man who should be expected to be somewhat shell-shocked if his greatest “pro-teege” had just been mowed down so easily by the much smaller McGovern. Surely he would have appeared to be more distressed. To his credit, Gans said very little, and what he did say has the look of having been contrived by others.

  L’audace, toujours l’audace! Napoleon had said. Audacity always—that was his motto. And so it was also with Herford. How brazen and bold to stage a fake before the nation’s press and the movie camera to boot! But one must consider the stakes. For example, what would have been the odds of Gans losing in the way he did? At 10-to-1, Herford could have bet $5,000, won $50,000, and had quite a fortune. And if in addition Gans would get a future shot at the title, the whole shenanigans would have been worth the risk to a gambling man like Herford. The subsequent chumminess of the Gans and McGovern managers seems to contradict the idea that McGovern’s side was completely innocent on the fix. And yet Gans ended up taking all the blame.

  A report on Terry McGovern from the New York World indicated that the Brooklyn Whirlwind had earned for the year 1900 a total of $70,000 in prize winnings and another $13,000 in earnings from exhibitions and acting in the play The Bowery After Dark.44 This amount was twice what President McKinley made that year. Only a mention at the end of the article reminded readers that the Gans match should not have been called a fake considering the fact that no boxer against McGovern that year had gone longer than 8 rounds, and that included George Dixon. The Chicago fight had not harmed McGovern’s reputation. On the contrary, it appeared to have enhanced it.

  The Fate of Gans’ Predecessor, Peter Jackson

  In evaluating the fight, which resulted in the biggest scandal in boxing history, and whether or not Gans “strayed from the straight and narrow path,” consider the fate of an all time great black fighter who did play by the rules just prior to Gans’ day.

  The most celebrated black fighter in the years prior to Joe Gans was the great heavyweight Peter Jackson. In Black Dynamite Nat Fleischer describes Jackson as the model of how a black fighter should behave: “His record as a square battler was as clean as the proverbial hound’s tooth. Although little more than a light-heavyweight when in his prime, he defeated star heavyweights all through his spectacular career.”45

  If we assume for a moment this behavior was to serve as a model for what was expected of Gans, let us take a look at what it did for Jackson. Did it lead him to wealth and glory? It did not. At the zenith of his career he was living hand to mouth. After Jackson had climbed to the top of the heavyweight ladder, he was ready to take on California super-star Joe McAuliffe. When the match was made, Jackson asked that a portion of the purse be set aside for the loser. “I suppose there’ll be no harm in letting the loser get $500 out of the $3,000 purse,” he remarked, “but of course I don’t intend to be the loser. Then, you see, I have no money and couldn’t get any more fights, so I’d like to be protected in having at least enough to take me home.”46

  Fighters at that time had to put up a forfeit to secure the upcoming fight. A prizefighter without a stake was out of luck. In his last years as a fighter, Jackson wrote to heavyweight champion Gentleman Jim Corbett, “I ask in all fairness, what earthly chance have I of meeting the champion next December?... Age is now coming on me.... I am thirty-two.... Boxing, I think, is a manly sport.... If a man is fainthearted he should never step over the ropes. The man whose heart fails him suffers ... like the poor wretch on the way to the gallows.”47 Fleischer describes the last days of Peter Jackson’s life. “His fortune dwindled, his fame gone, drink having shattered his health, Peter was in a sad plight. He gave himself up to the Demon of drink and it wasn’t long before he was a physical wreck. He slept in the back room of saloons and ate only when friends came to his rescue. He was a pitiful figure. Already in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, Peter didn’t live long.”48 And yet Fleischer holds up Peter Jackson as a role model.

  Was Joe Gans forced to accept “deals” to achieve a chance at the world title? The evidence shows that he was. Boxing was known for shady deals and flimflam at the turn of the century, and the Chicago fix would be neither the first nor the last. So the sanctimony and outrage to come against Gans seems in part an opportunistic backlash against his inexorable rise through the ranks of great fighters that had taken him from oyster shucker to the brink of world-title glory. Gans’ path may have strayed from the straight-and-narrow, but he found his way back in due time.

  Gans had fought the last match under the Horton law in New York in 1900 when he beat Dal Hawkins and the last fight in Chicago on that cold December night. The year 1900 came to a close with much moralizing, grandstanding, and humiliation on the part of the politicians. Alderman Patterson said that Gans’ “fake” fight made Chicago the laughingstock of the United States, at which the Chicago City Council quickly passed an ordinance to ban boxing. Editorials in the Chicago Tribune proclaimed the end of Gans’ career, while the New York World still proclaimed Terry McGovern “that wonderful little fighter.”49 Meanwhile, Gans went back to work to become a champion, do or die.

  8

  Long Road Back

  While the pundits in Chicago were hypocritically patting each other on the back for their courageous stands against the scourges of pugilism and gambling, in the wake of the fin de siècle corporate scandals, flimflam, and a presidential race that featured bombastic warnings of a nation “crucified on a cross of gold,” Gans went quietly back to the daily grind in his quest for a world boxing title.

  More so than in other professions or callings, morning comes early for a prizefighter. The bruised and battered body screams for rest, but there is none. Only a powerful, driving force can propel the fighter outside, day after day, for his crushing routine of roadwork, to be followed by long days of hard training and sparring.

  Boxing comebacks were legend worthy in twentieth-century America. Gans’ plight rivaled that of Ali in the late sixties when he was stripped of his title and livelihood for refusing induction into the army to fight in the Vietnam War. The second-coming of Muhammad Ali has been raised to the level of American myth in such movies as When We Were Kings.

  Songs of redemption resonate in African-American art perhaps more than any other psychic arena, for reasons that are the subject of many other great books, which the authors could not possibly do justice to in this story of Joe Gans. Suffice it to say that the quest to overcome past adversity is seen throughout African American and Caribbean art and literature. From slave-era spirituals to Bob Marley, redemption songs allow one to feel the pain through a triumphant spirit of hope.

  At the end of 1900, no one was more in need of redemption than Joe Gans. He had been used by the boxing establishment as a scapegoat, scandalously criticized in the papers for quitting in his title bid against Frank Erne, and he seemed destined to fade into obscurity after the Chicago fiasco. The loss of the title fight, after he had spent his mature life working up the professional ladder to attain it, meant that there would be no quick ride to a second chance, only a steep, uphill march. Gans’ future would tax both manager and fighter. Who would take him on now? He was 26 years old (although newspapers said he was 24). Could he maintain his stamina and winning record, or was he on the backside of his career? And most importantly, could his manager ever entice Erne to grant him another shot at the title?

  Amid the uncertainties, Gans was back in the prize ring. Anticipating a more successful year for 1901, Gans and his wife Madge moved to Druid Hill Avenue in Baltimore. It would be years later when the civic health authorities determined the Druid Hill area to have been a concentrated incubator for tuberculosis.

  In the interval between Gans’ two fights with Frank Erne, manager Al Herford proved himself a bulldog in his quest to get Joe a second chance at the title. And Gans proved conclusively that he could take his lumps, learn from a loss, and come back to defeat fighters who had beaten him. His first defe
at had been a disputed 15-round decision loss against Dal Hawkins of San Francisco in 1896. Gans had been substituted for Erne when Erne bowed out of the fight, and a famed referee, ironically known as “Honest” John Kelly, had given the decision to Hawkins against the view of the crowd and the New York sportswriters who saw Gans winning every round after the fifth. Over a fight that should have been to his credit, Gans appears to have suffered twice from the loss, first in the record book and second in the rumor mill.

  Nat Fleischer notes that there was talk of scandal surrounding this fight, implying that Gans had perhaps been instructed by his manager to fight so that the decision would go to Hawkins. In fact, it was popular referee Kelly who suffered the greater consequence from the bout. Kelly was conspicuously absent from the ring in his hometown afterward, refereeing only rarely during the next four years.1 Fleischer said of this fight, “At times it seems that Gans was purposely refraining from doing his best, and judging by the speed with which he ended the return encounter, there may have been ample reason for such conjecture, but there was no proof that he was not trying.”2