Joe Gans

by Colleen Aycock

  Other characters in the book that did not make it into the 1939 movie with Judy Garland are drawn from the dirty antics of some of the prize-fighters when boxing was moving out of the bare-knuckle era and into the gloved era when the rules were more or less determined by each referee. Head-butting, for example, was considered acceptable behavior in the bare-knuckle brawls. It was quite disallowed in the gloved-rings under the Marquis of Queensberry rules. That was not to say that a head-butt was always considered a foul at the turn of the century. It was a vicious antic to be sure, and the cause of Joe Gans’ terrible eye injury in the ring with Frank Erne in March of 1900. Many referees turned a blind eye to these and other fouls, but Gans’ eye injury was the kind of gory image that made ring news countrywide.

  Like many brutal gladiators in the ring, such as Battling Nelson, the hammerheads of the Oz books are experts in head-butting. Their powerful long necks, exaggerated for effect, are hidden behind their proper bow ties, but their head butts pack a wallop, as Denslow illustrates. The artist gives the hammerheads a fine set of clothes, and many historians have suggested that these clothes point to the rich and powerful businessmen of the day. However, readers of that period recognized a rising social class that could afford $5 suits, such as the flashy men of the ring. The hammerheads are illustrated wearing the colorful clothing worn by boxers and their seconds. Their shirts are far too bright and interesting—with polka dots—to have been worn by white-collar, suited businessmen. But ring men, on the other hand, enjoyed dressing up for the occasions when they would be in the spotlight. Like the hammerheads, ring seconds seldom wore coats and were invariably seen wearing suspenders in their active attendance.

  The scarecrow dressed as a gentleman suffers a dirty assault when the hammerhead butts him and sends his top hat and cane flying. Adult readers of the early Oz children’s books certainly recognized the familiar and scandalous characters of the ring and the social humor of the day portrayed by writer Baum and artist Denslow.

  Some scholars of American society suggest that by the end of the nineteen hundreds the movies had replaced religion in forming the country’s identity, mythologies, and cultural touchstones. Boxing movies such as On the Waterfront, Rocky, Raging Bull, and Cinderella Man explore the heroism as well as the dark underbelly of American life. Boxing as metaphor has outstripped boxing as sport in its importance to Americans today. Although moviemaking would find its primary home in Southern California, it would become a central part of all American and world culture, and its ties with pugilism would draw ever tighter.

  From 1902 through 1909, Joe Gans made nine pilgrimages to California. His biggest bouts would be staged in the West, still very wild. Each event was covered with keen interest by the local newspapers. The San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Times reported on the training camps of Gans and his opponents, the weigh-in, the fights and their aftermath. The chronicles of Gans’ triumphs and tragedies as told in the newspapers of the Golden State provided entertainment and inspiration, as part of the real-life action drama of the boxing ring.

  Gans had become the Old Master of fistiana. In addition to dominating the lightweights of the era, Gans squared off against some of the greatest welterweights in history, who were at that time plying their trades in the rings of California.

  13

  Forays at Welterweight

  If Gans were fighting in the early 21st century with its proliferation of world boxing titles, he could easily win five or six titles from featherweight to welterweight if he so desired. The prestige of winning titles in several weight divisions is a relatively new concept in boxing. Gans, as the record will show, could have been recognized as featherweight and welterweight champion in his own day. In fact, it is one of the curiosities of boxing history that he is not considered to be a lineal welterweight champion.

  Joe Gans never failed to take on the best men, large or small. From 1891 to 1897, records show Gans as the featherweight champion of Maryland, the Southern featherweight champion, and otherwise indicate that Gans was the premier boxer at the 126-pound limit. Of course history knows him as a lightweight champion.

  Gans fought more-or-less comfortably at lightweight from 1897 to 1903. After that time it was difficult for him to make the lightweight limit of 133 pounds ringside. His natural weight was somewhere between 136 and 140 pounds. Today, he would probably fight at junior welterweight and have easy pickings there. Instead, Gans was fighting men of sizes up to light-heavyweight.

  Gans Boxes Future Heavyweight Legend Sam Langford

  In 1903 at the welterweight limit, Gans fought a 15-round bout to a standstill with the “Boston Tar Baby,” Sam Langford. The immortal Langford is more known for his efforts against the great middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel, the “Michigan Assassin,” and his ability to fight great heavyweights like Jack Johnson on even terms. Langford would go on to greater fame as a top heavyweight.

  Gans fought Langford in Boston on the day after he met the tough Dave Holly in Philadelphia. Gans was always in need of money and fought Langford after his Holly bout and a train ride from Philly. A dispatch from Boston reported, “From a technical point the bout was a first-class one. Both men led well, blocked well and ducked well. The first three rounds were easily Gans.’ Gans was out-pointed and did not appear at all up to his usual form. It was said after the bout that he had been severely attacked with stomach trouble this afternoon, hence his poor condition.”1

  A recent survey of boxing experts rated Langford in the top 10 of all-time fighters. According to the ESPN poll:

  “The Boston Tar Baby” was an exceedingly strong, stout fighter of overwhelming ability and punching power. He had a great chin and heart. Although a natural middleweight he was at his peak as a light heavyweight in the 1910s. Sam scored knockouts over nearly all of the top heavyweights of his time. Langford is either first or second for scoring the most knockouts in boxing history depending on whose research one accepts. Sam defeated 6 Hall of Famers: Joe Gans, Dixie Kid, Sam McVey, Joe Jeannette, Harry Wills and Philadelphia Jack O’Brien. Langford received the second most first place votes, but was a distant second to Robinson. More than half the voters had Sam in the top 10. In the poll of experts, 25 of 30 voters had him inside the top 20.2

  Yet Gans would have likely beaten the future terror of the heavyweights if he had not been sick with a stomach ailment and exhausted from the overnight train ride from his fight with top welterweight Dave Holly the day prior. Although Gans’ recurring illness during the month of December 1903 was never fully described in the news, his poor condition caused him to miss a rematch that had been scheduled with Jack Blackburn in Baltimore for December 21.3

  Gans Wins Newspaper Decision over Barbados Joe Walcott

  In 1895, New York Sun writer Charles A. Dana stated, “There are two negroes in the ring today who can thrash any white man breathing in their respective classes ... George Dixon ... and Joe Walcott.” 4

  “Welter” means flurry, and it was an apt depiction of the century’s first champion of the welters, “The Barbados Demon,” whom Gans bested in 1904. In The Legendary Champions, Rex Lardner writes about how Walcott was Jack Johnson’s mentor. “Walcott, ‘the Barbados Demon,’ who was to become the world’s welterweight champion in 1901 (and beat quite a few heavyweights before reaching that pinnacle), was a short, thick-necked, strong-chested man with a formidable reach and a tremendous punch. Like Johnson, he had run away from home at an early age and had taken to boxing as his best way to earn a living, fighting for purses that at times were as little as $2.50. Walcott took a liking to Johnson, although this did not prevent him from handing the thin lad a walloping in their sparring sessions. The punishment meted out by Walcott, however, was a minor annoyance compared to the rods and racing on top of freight cars to avoid the cruel bludgeons of railroad guards. In the meantime, Johnson was absorbing a great deal of fighting knowledge, particularly learning how to defend himself.”5 Walcott easily battered the great future heavyweight ch
ampion, and yet Walcott was a man whom Gans defeated rather easily.

  Barbados Joe Walcott talked the talk and walked the walk of the rough-and-tumble Caribbean shanty towns from whence he hailed. Nat Fleischer and other ring authorities have rated him the greatest welterweight ever. Although he weighed only 145 pounds, he knocked out heavyweights and handled the men in his own weight class with ease. In 1900, Walcott knocked out the fearsome heavyweight Joe Choynski, the same heavyweight who went on to vanquish Jack Johnson the next year in a three-round knockout. It was Joe Walcott, the 5' 2" Barbados Demon, welterweight champion of the world from 1901 to 1904, who actually coined the phrase “the bigger they are the harder they fall.” In 1904, Joe Gans challenged for Walcott’s title in San Francisco.

  Walcott had fought the great Sam Langford to a draw. His 20-round fight with Gans was also ruled a draw, although everyone thought Gans had won handily. The decision of referee Jack Welch was hissed when he announced his verdict. Welch told the press, “I feel my decision was the only one possible. Gans was the cleverer, but Walcott forced the fighting. Gans had the shade, but not strong enough to earn him the heavy end of the fighter’s share. Walcott landed frequently and I concluded that his aggressiveness offset Gans’ masterly boxing.”6

  After his fight with Joe Gans, Walcott made this statement to the press: “My left arm went back on me in the third round and I fought seventeen rounds with my right. If I wasn’t crippled Gans would have dropped for the count. The trouble wouldn’t have lasted more than ten or twelve rounds. I was always after him and kept him dancing around all the time. I think I was entitled to the victory, and I also think that the majority of the spectators will say that I showed that I am a better man than that nigger from Baltimore.”7

  Gans responded, “What’s the use of complaining? Mr. Welch says it was a draw. I refuse to express my opinion concerning the decision. I think it.... Well, I won’t say what. I wasn’t hurt at all and could have gone on for another twenty rounds. The only punches that hurt me were those that Mr. Walcott drove into my ribs. I stalled around near the end, figuring I had earned the decision. So far as I’m concerned I’ll fight him at any time and bet every cent I can get on myself. I’m Mr. Walcott’s master.”8

  The statements made by the referee and the boxers appeared the next day under the headline “Gans Outpoints Walcott, But Referee Calls It Draw: Ruling Makes Crowd Frown.”9

  Gans Defeats Jack Blackburn, Future Teacher of Joe Louis

  Gans fought Jack Blackburn three times. Gans won once, a decision on points in a 15-round bout, and he fought two no-decision bouts with the man who would one day make a great fighter of Joe Louis. Blackburn, described as a racehorse, was taller and bigger than Gans, weighing ten to fifteen pounds heavier than the lightweight. Blackburn could beat most middleweights and even heavyweights of his day. He respected Gans as a fighting master, but when his career was at its end, he became a bitter man. He would tell a young Joe Louis, “Every time you get in that ring, you got to let your right hand be your referee.”10 In other words, don’t trust the judging system that had deprived Blackburn of his due because of his color.

  One of the greats defeated by Gans. Here is Jack Blackburn (right) with his charge, heavyweight great Joe Louis. Blackburn is as tall as Louis, and yet Gans showed his mastery in their three fights (courtesy Tracy Callis, boxing historian).

  Gans Beats the English Champ

  On May 27, 1904, in his hometown of Baltimore before the Eureka Athletic and Social Club, Gans went up against the English lightweight champion “Jewey” Cook. Gans had studied his fighting record and assumed the champion to be a tough competitor. It was said that because Gans trained for the match, he “showed like the Gans of old. He fought more like himself than he has done in several months.”11 In addition to being the British champion, Cook was also the welterweight champion of South Africa. The two were to fight fifteen rounds. No punches were landed in the first round. There was swift sparring in the second and Gans knocked his man to the ground in the third. Gans took an uppercut to the jaw in the sixth, but in the seventh, Gans knocked his opponent down to a count of 9, and in the eighth, knocked him down again to a count of five, after which he got up, told the referee he was hurt, and quit.

  Gans Knocks Out Twin Sullivan, Twice

  Before his 1906 fight with Mike “Twin” Sullivan, the San Francisco Examiner reported on January 16, 1906, “If Gans Wins He’ll Hold Two Championships.” That he easily whipped Sullivan is clear. The day after the fight, the papers featured a splendid photo of a gladiatorial conqueror, in the person of Gans, standing over Sullivan. What is unclear is why Gans was never given proper credit for becoming a titlist at welterweight.

  Twin Sullivan was clearly a lineal welterweight champion after beating Jimmy Gardner, the Lowell man who was considered practically unbeatable. Gans, in turn, beat Sullivan not once, but three times, knocking him out twice. For some reason Sullivan continued to be recognized as the welterweight champion until 1908. Sullivan was so good that he was matched with Stanley Ketchel, whom Nat Fleischer rates as the greatest middleweight ever.

  Sullivan, although closer in poundage to middleweight than lightweight, was actually another pretender to the lucrative lightweight title that Gans had never abdicated. In the terms for his fight with Gans in January 1906, it was agreed that both fighters could weigh ten pounds over the lightweight limit. The odds before the fight were fairly even and Gans surprised the San Francisco crowd by thrashing his opponent in a one-sided fight, knocking him to the ground in the eighth and out in the tenth round.

  Joe Gans and Mike “Twin” Sullivan pose for the camera before their January 19, 1906, welterweight title fight at Woodward’s Pavilion in San Francisco. Gans won by KO in 15 rounds. Sullivan claimed the welterweight title after facing Gans. (The Old Master knocked Twin out twice.) Also pictured are Gans’ “second,” fighter Willie Fitzgerald and Civil War veteran and famed ring announcer Billy Jordan at age 74. Jordan is later portrayed as the chief angel in the play “Heaven Can Wait.” Photograph from the Dana Studios, San Francisco, 1906 (courtesy Tracy Callis, boxing historian).

  The fight also put Gans back into the good graces of the San Francisco boxing public by defeating the rugged welterweight champion Mike “Twin” Sullivan. After the fight, famed sportswriter Naughton wrote: “Now Gans is the Idol of Boxing Patrons:” “Gans and his marvelously well balanced fighting talents being the one and only subject of discussion.... The sports of this city want to see more of him.” The pen that had poisoned his reputation earlier and made life so difficult for him now added: “There was none willing to advance the argument that a better man than Gans, at equal weights, is to be found boxing for a living to day.”12 But nothing was ever mentioned again about transferring the welterweight title to the ebony champion.

  Gans Shares Headlines with Kid McCoy

  One of the welterweights that Gans did not meet (because he was fighting heavier men), but who is worth noting as emblematic of the era, was the famous Kid McCoy, whose real name was Norman Selby. McCoy, a slick hustler of the day, was also one of the all-time great fighters, and the first of many to use the “Kid” moniker. The Kid knocked out all comers, from welterweights to heavyweights, with his famous twist of the wrist “corkscrew punch.” McCoy fought at weights from 140 to 180 pounds in the gay ’90s. He defeated welterweight champs Mysterious Billy Smith and Jack Ryan. For years, fight fans eagerly anticipated a match between McCoy and Gentleman Jim Corbett.

  Alexander Johnson, in his boxing history Ten-And Out, describes how McCoy won the welterweight title. “McCoy was always a sly bird, and he managed to have Tommy Ryan misinformed to the effect that McCoy was not in good training.... In the fifteenth, just after the bell rang starting the round, McCoy caught Ryan in the wind with his left, then crossed his right like a shot, and there was a new welterweight champion. This bout was hailed all over the country as a magnificent example of the doublecross. McCoy held the welter crown until the
end of 1897.”13

  In an era fraught with dishonesty and fraud, McCoy’s heroic and earnest battles with the heavyweights drew the attention of sportswriters. McCoy had been off and on as a fighter, and in and out of an institution for a complete mental breakdown, but when he was on his game, he was a terror. After his knock-down, drag-out with Joe Choynski in 1900, one of the sportswriters exclaimed, “Last night we saw the ‘Real McCoy.’”14 Like Gans, both Walcott and McCoy gave the English language a trademark phrase that would become part of the national lexicon. But unlike Gans, the Kid squandered his talent through drinking and chasing women. He frequently got drunk, engaged in saloon brawls, and was prone to street fights. In a separate article in the same paper where sportswriter and referee George Siler summarized the notable pugilistic year of 1900 and his accomplishments, the Chicago Tribune reported that McCoy was nursing an injured hand, with possible blood poisoning, from a street brawl.15 On his tenth wife, the Kid was found with another man’s wife. It was not his corkscrew punch but a handgun the Kid used to show the irate husband who was boss. For the man whose party never ended, the road ended in San Quentin. Kid McCoy was accused of everything from being a flimflam artist to committing murder. He spent seven years in prison for manslaughter. One thing nobody ever accused him of was cowardice.