by Bob Halloran
“Micky, if you want to do this, if you want to work for me, we’ll do it right,” O’Keefe told him. “You’ll make some money down the road. In the meantime, we’ll just work. But you have to do it my way. I don’t want any interference from your family.”
Micky agreed. He and O’Keefe were both tough, hardworking, hard-drinking Irish guys who had managed to stare into the bowels of Lowell and step away from the precipice with good, clean hearts. O’Keefe, finally realizing that he was in fact a full-fledged alcoholic, stopped drinking in 1993, right around the time he started working with Micky.
Clean and sober, he began to sculpt Micky’s body and mold his mind. Neither task was especially difficult. Micky’s head was straight. His determination had returned.
There were reasons, he believed, for falling short the first time around. His hands were a big part of it. Confidence was another. The distractions introduced by his brother couldn’t be denied. And poor management had been an issue.
Now, he believed, everything was different. His hands were better and that gave him confidence. He was developing an undeniable faith in O’Keefe’s nurturing ways. What O’Keefe may have lacked in experience and overall knowledge of the professional fight game, he made up for in resoluteness and loyalty. It was strange and sad to acknowledge, but Micky knew that this time he had someone looking out for his best interests.
“I took control of the second half of my career,” Micky says. “I came back because I wanted to do it, not because of the pressure from Dickie fighting, or my family wanting me to fight. I didn’t have pressure from people saying I could or couldn’t do it. The second time, I didn’t care who wanted me to fight. I did it because I wanted to.”
So Micky and Mickey went to work. For more than six months they worked, with no prospects on the horizon. But neither man grew discouraged. They were making good use of time. Finally, one day while O’Keefe was holding up the pads and Micky was pounding out combinations, O’Keefe shouted above the thunderous punches echoing through an empty gym:
“Are you ready for a fight?”
“Damn straight, I’m ready!”
The question had been asked and answered many times before, but this time Micky sounded more convincing, and O’Keefe noticed. He dropped the pads and said:
“So am I.”
O’Keefe put his arm around Micky and walked him out of the ring. He was beaming like a proud father. And in truth, that’s what he had become. While George Ward was in prison, Micky and Mickey trained together every day, and on most days they ate the late dinners that O’Keefe’s wife, Donna, prepared. Theirs was a wonderful partnership, and though they weren’t blood, it sure felt like they were born to it.
As they got to the door to leave that night, O’Keefe stopped and looked back. Micky stopped, too, and waited. The gym was dark now, but the shadows of the heavy bags were silhouetted by the moonlight coming through the windows. O’Keefe spotted a couple of dumbbells slightly out of place along the far wall. He thought it might be time to get a new speed bag or two. And he looked upon the two boxing rings standing side by side and thought about the kids who had dared to enter. He was proud of this gym and the kids he’d helped along the way.
O’Keefe knew he had a lot of work to do now, too. He had to find Micky a fight, a good fight. Micky needed a fight that would prove he was back and better than ever. There were a million things running through O’Keefe’s mind—the gym, his job on the police force, his family, and now Micky’s comeback.
O’Keefe smiled, turned to Micky, and said, “Do you remember all those lonely days in this gym? Do you remember, in the heat of the summer, when it gets to be about 120 degrees inside this gym? It’s been just you and me: But we haven’t been alone. I know somewhere God’s been watching you. He knows. And he’ll take care of you.”
Now Micky smiled. After all, he had God and Mickey O’Keefe on his side. That and his devastating left hook to the body might be enough to get him to the top of the mountain this time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Getting back into the ring proved to be as difficult a venture as O’Keefe had anticipated. His first move was to contact Al Valenti, but Valenti was reluctant to get involved with Micky and his family again. Valenti had promoted the Ward-Rafuse fight at the Lowell Auditorium back in 1986 and had navigated his way through a financial battle between Alice Ward and Micky’s original managers, Bernie Bergeron and Don DiRocco. And then in 1991, Valenti had tried to put a card together with Eddie Andelman featuring a Ward-Rafuse rematch, from which Micky ultimately backed out, retiring a few months later. Valenti needed to be convinced that working with Micky and Mickey would not only be worthwhile, but also trouble free.
O’Keefe enlisted the help of his longtime friend, Danny Gilday. Gilday had grown up around the boxing gyms and had known O’Keefe from the days when Micky was still in the Golden Gloves. They were strange bed-fellows: O’Keefe was a cop, and Gilday was the nephew of William “Lefty” Gilday, who was convicted of killing Boston police officer Walter Schroeder in 1970. Lefty had been part of a gang of anti-Vietnam War activists who had rationalized that robbing banks could fund their efforts to end the war. While taking twenty-six thousand dollars from a Boston bank, Lefty had tripped a silent alarm. Schroeder, first to arrive on the scene, had exited his cruiser when Lefty opened fire from across the street, shooting him in the back several times with a Thompson submachine gun. Fourteen years later, Lefty Gilday was convicted of running a credit card fraud operation from prison.
Meanwhile, Danny Gilday was a member of the Teamsters Union and was friends with a fellow Teamster from Charlestown, John “Mick” Murray. Murray had spent time in prison after FBI agents and local police found him inside the Coolidge Bank and Trust Company in Cambridge well after business hours on December 23, 1989. Murray and his associate James McCormack claimed that they were fixing the bank’s roof when they accidentally fell inside. The two men were convicted of attempted bank robbery.
Murray had served his time and was out now. A friend of Valenti, Murray offered to introduce O’Keefe, and the meeting took place on March 15, 1994, at Dominic’s Pizza on Tremont Street in Boston. Dominic’s was right next door to the Roxy nightclub, and on this night the Roxy was hosting a live boxing show. So Valenti, O’Keefe, Gilday, Murray, and Micky Ward shared a couple of pizzas at Dominic’s and then went over to see the fights.
“Who are you?” Valenti asked O’Keefe after the two men had been introduced.
“I’m nobody,” O’Keefe answered. “I’m just a guy looking out for Micky. All I can tell you is he’ll be in shape. We’re not looking for a lot of money. We just want to get back.”
Valenti had arrived without much interest, and now, seeing that Micky was involved with another inexperienced outsider, wondered why this time around with Micky would be any different.
“I don’t know, Micky,” he said. “You know I like you, but I don’t want to put up with any of your family’s bullshit again. It’s just not worth it.”
“Look,” O’Keefe interrupted. “I’ve been training every day with him, and the family’s not involved. Micky’s making a comeback. He’s gonna be great, and you can really help us out. It has nothing to do with the family. I’m gonna be training him. I’m gonna be taking over.”
Valenti was summarily unimpressed by the stranger’s declaration that he’d be in charge. Then Micky added, “Al, here it is. I’m back in the gym. If anything comes up, I’d like a shot.”
Valenti offered nothing and made no promises. So, Micky and Mickey moved in another direction. Murray, it turned out, was also good friends with John Gagliardi, also known as “Johnny Gags.” Gags had been a long time promoter, but as far back as 1980 he had sworn to get out of the business when he lost nearly sixteen thousand dollars on a fight at the Hynes Auditorium between Vinnie Curto and Bennie Briscoe.
“I’ve had it. This is the last show I put on,” Gags said after the fight.
But Gags never did get out
completely, and now here was Micky Ward standing in front of him and looking to make a comeback. Ward was as close to a sure thing as Gags had ever seen. Certainly, there would be enough local interest to sell tickets to Ward’s first comeback fight. Boxing fans would definitely want to see that. Gags was going to make sure he didn’t lose money this time. He offered Micky only four hundred bucks.
“The last thing on my mind was the money,” Micky says.
Micky found success immediately. In his first two fights, both in Lowell, he knocked out Luis Castillo and Genaro Andujar. Both fights were scheduled to go ten rounds. Neither made it past the fifth.
Castillo was a New York kid with a losing record who was knocked out in the second round the only other time he had stepped into the ring with a quality opponent. That defeat was suffered at the hands of Keith Holmes who would go on to win the WBC middleweight title. Still Castillo was an experienced fighter.
The fight took place at the Lowell Sheraton, not exactly world renowned as a boxing venue. Basically, folks checking in or waiting for beds to be turned down could step into a side ballroom and watch a less-than-spectacular fight card. But anyone who chose to do so on June 17, 1994, can say they saw Micky Ward’s first fight in more than two and a half years, and they saw him knock out Castillo in the fifth round. It took a while for Micky to shake off some rust, and punches that were missing early started landing late. He depended on his old reliable—the left hook to the body. After a few of those brought the crowd to its feet, Micky dropped Castillo with a short right uppercut to the solar plexus. Castillo went down, and he didn’t get up.
“That’s the hardest I ever got hit to the body,” Castillo said later.
Referee Mike Ryan grabbed Micky’s right hand and raised it over his head. It was the first time in more than three years that Micky’s hand was raised in victory.
Thinking back to his retirement Micky says, “When I left, I never thought I’d come back. I was so bad that night against Meyers. That’s the reason I stopped. But it was still inside me. If I didn’t do this now, it would have built up and built up and I’d have done it at thirty-five and probably got killed. I just want to see what’s there. I just want to give this one last shot. It may be only this one time, but I want to know what I got left. This time, if my mind ain’t a hundred percent, that’s it. After the fight, if I don’t feel good, I got the keys to the roller. I’ll just jump back on and roll away and I’ll know. I don’t want to leave no doubts.”
Clearly, Micky could still land hard punches.
Just three months after his comeback fight, Micky was contracted to fight a cagey veteran from Puerto Rico, Miguel Santana. Seven years earlier, Santana thought he had won a share of the lightweight title by defeating Greg Haugen, but the outcome of the fight was reversed the next morning on a technicality. Santana hadn’t won, but he had battled Haugen evenly. He had also given stern tests to the likes of Pernell Whittaker, Terrance Alli, Buddy McGirt, and Sharmba Mitchell—all of whom won at least one title during their careers. True, by the time Micky came along, Santana had lost twelve of his last fourteen fights, but he had been facing some of the best fighters in his division. Plus, Santana was routinely fighting at about 150 pounds and would likely come in much bigger than Micky.
Micky’s management team was wiser and more protective this time around. When Santana showed up at the Lowell Auditorium on fight night at 151 pounds, he was told that he couldn’t fight. Santana was 7 pounds over the limit established in the fight contract. Johnny Gagliardi and Mickey O’Keefe took the decision out of Micky’s hands, simply notifying him that a replacement fighter would be provided, one that weighed the right amount. That turned out to be a transplanted New Yorker now living in Maine, who had fought and lost three weeks earlier, Genaro Andujar.
Andujar wasn’t in the same class as Santana, nor was he anything close to being Micky’s equal. Micky knocked him down three times in the second round with a series of lefts to the body. Then, fifty-one seconds into the third round, Micky landed another vicious body shot, and as Andujar began to crumple, Micky knocked out his mouthpiece with a short right hand. Ten seconds later, the fight was over. Referee Jimmy Kasilowski counted out Andujar and then sprinted from the ring. Kasilowski’s wife, Linda, had just given birth to a baby boy thirty minutes earlier up the street at Lowell General Hospital. Two months later, Micky’s promoter and primary matchmaker, Johnny Gags, was one of eight men indicted in connection with a drug ring based at the Lawrence Municipal Airport. Gags pleaded guilty to five separate counts related to possession and intent to distribute more than one thousand pounds of marijuana. He was convicted and sentenced in U.S. District Court to eight years and one month in prison and four years supervised release. Three years later, Gagliardi’s son Joseph was found dead of an overdose in the men’s room of a Cambridge public library. And six years after that, his other son, John Jr., died in the Boston Public Garden at noon-time after shooting up heroin with two other men.
Once again, Micky was managing to stay clean in a dirty world. He admits to using a little marijuana as a kid. And some of his closest friends have suggested that he may have been a functioning alcoholic at times, but Micky was able to dodge serious trouble and keep his nose clean. He didn’t inherit his father’s propensity to steal the life savings away from little old ladies or his brother’s aptitude for robbing people at gunpoint. Somehow, he walked through the middle of the underworld of Lowell and rose above it.
In addition to his own family, Micky mingled and dined with the likes of Mick Murray, Johnny Gags, and even O’Keefe’s friend Danny Gilday. Unbeknownst to Micky and Mickey at the time, Gilday’s involvement in racketeering and extortion was growing. By the mid-nineties, the FBI was keeping a close eye on Gilday, Murray, and two of their known cohorts, South Boston gang members James “Whitey” Bulger and Kevin Weeks. They suspected that Murray was orchestrating a computer theft ring in which computer parts were stolen by Teamsters from hijacked UPS trucks. The FBI’s break in the case came in 1997 when Gilday stole a package with an FBI tracking device.
“Micky was in the middle of all this,” Gilday says. “But he didn’t know any of it. I went to prison for hijacking the trucks, but I made a lot of money doing it. A lot of money! I was the steward, and I used my power to take the computer parts. I got caught, pled guilty, and did my time. I was in Pennsylvania and did about fifteen months. I could have walked out, but I didn’t cooperate with the investigation.”
But it was the Johnny Gags incarceration that handcuffed Micky. His career was on hold because he had signed a deal with Gags giving him exclusive rights to promote his fights. And Gags wasn’t about to give up those rights just because he was in jail and completely incapable of promoting any fights. After several months of haggling, Murray contacted someone on the inside to convince Gagliardi to release Micky from the contract. The frustrating process took more than a year. Micky had knocked out Andujar on September 10, 1994, and didn’t fight again until December 30, 1995. It was almost like a second retirement. “That’s just the way things went,” Micky recalls. “I got away from it again. There wasn’t that much going on. I wasn’t really discouraged, maybe a little. But the time just flew by. I didn’t have a steady job. I was doing side jobs and under-the-table jobs. I was working here and there.”
Between here and there, Micky could have been anywhere, but he was at the gym. He could have succumbed to the temptations of the street. He could have gotten flabby on beer and pretzels. He could have made any number of mistakes, but he had O’Keefe to guide him now. O’Keefe was committed to helping Micky, and Micky, in turn, was committed to not letting O’Keefe down.
“He was giving me everything he had. So, I had to give him back everything I had,” Micky says. “It’s pretty simple, really.”
So, Micky showed up at the gym every afternoon at 4:30 and met O’Keefe’s son, Brian. The two of them would run four miles and return to the gym at 5:00 to find O’Keefe waiting for them. O’Keef
e would put Micky through a tough workout that included several sets of sit-ups, push-ups, curls, and dips. It was an old-fashioned, tried-and-true boxing workout. No Pilates. No aerobics. Just a lot of sweat, plenty of laughs, and several rounds inside the ring with Micky bap, bap, bapping on O’Keefe’s hand pads.
Despite the inactivity and the lack of anything on the career horizon, O’Keefe managed to keep Micky motivated. Sometimes he’d tell Micky what he couldn’t do and then sit back and watch him do it. Other times, he’d tell Micky he could do anything, as long as he kept his mind right and his body in shape. Micky listened. And he remembered that his return to boxing wasn’t as much about the money as it was about being something, being someone. And simply by showing up at the gym every day and working his ass off, Micky knew that he was something much more than a part-time, unemployed laborer. He was a boxer. And that made him feel good.
Still, Micky didn’t have a lot of opportunities to spar, so it was difficult to gauge just how skilled a boxer he was or how far back he’d come. He looked like the same old Micky when he pounded his left into the heavy bag, but he needed to shake off some ring rust. In February 1995, partway through his ordeal with Gags, Micky got a chance to test himself against another talented boxer.
