Patterson, D’Amato, and company set up camp at a Chicago horseracing track closed for the season, Sportsman’s Park. It was a bizarre experience for Floyd. He did his roadwork on a course designed for racehorses and sparred in a makeshift ring erected in the grandstand penthouse. He shivered through the nights with his friend and unpaid trainer Buster Watson on cots in the jockeys’ quarters. D’Amato was consumed by fear that one of his enemies would attempt to poison Patterson, so he slept on a cot positioned so that it barred the door to Patterson’s room.
D’Amato’s peculiar behavior did not go unnoticed by sportswriters. At other training camps, they’d seen D’Amato actually sleep in the same bed with Floyd. Whatever his explanations, D’Amato’s actions seemed to go beyond propriety. He seemed obsessed with his fighter, but what was the source of his obsession? Was the guy a genius or was he half-mad? Or was there something else?
“I remember a story that Patterson told me,” author Gay Talese, who knew both Patterson and D’Amato well, once said. “I got the impression that D’Amato had a sexual thing for Patterson—not that Patterson reciprocated. Patterson told me he was lying in bed and D’Amato was lying next to him, slipped perhaps into bed, I don’t know. It was a training camp, you know. Prizefighters in training camp are intimately open, not sexually, but you are naked, you are free, there is a lot of openness. But this one time in bed, D’Amato had his foot on Patterson’s foot, sort of playing with his toes.” Perhaps it was totally innocent, an involuntary action by a man deep in slumber. But Talese was not alone in speculating about D’Amato’s feelings toward Patterson. It was hard to tell the truth of the matter, for D’Amato was such an off-center man. “D’Amato was an eccentric,” Talese said, “amusing, but I think probably borderline psychotic or paranoid.”5 But Floyd himself once gave a curious answer to a question about his relationship with D’Amato, one bound to raise eyebrows in the 1950s: “He makes mistakes, but the more they try to turn me against him, the more his quality comes out. Lucky he isn’t a woman. I might have married him.”6
Sleeping arrangements, worries about his pregnant wife, and the frigid weather aside, Floyd went through what he considered a successful camp at Sportsman’s Park, particularly in developing a game plan for the fight. In addition to running and sparring, Floyd spent hours with Dan Florio watching again and again the films of the Marciano-Moore championship bout. During each viewing, Florio noticed that Patterson would tense up at one particular point in the fight. He ran and reran the film until Floyd pointed out that Moore responded to right-hand leads with a right of his own. Floyd decided he should avoid right leads.
Of course, Florio had seen the same thing, but he wanted Patterson to detect it on his own, believing the lesson would be more effective if Floyd figured it out for himself. In the makeshift ring, Patterson worked on options to a right-hand lead with his sparring partners as he and Florio devised a strategy designed to keep constant pressure on the older, heavier Moore. They wanted to wear the Old Mongoose down, then put him away once he was fatigued.
At noon on November 30, Patterson and his entourage arrived via station wagon at the Chicago Stadium for the weigh-in before that night’s championship fight. Patterson registered at 182¼ pounds; Moore, at 187¾. Patterson retired to his dressing room and, as was his custom, went to sleep. But not all was calm in the hours before the opening bell.
That morning’s issue of the Chicago Tribune carried a story suggesting the IBC was up to its old tricks. Charley Johnston, Moore’s manager of record at the time, had inadvertently disclosed that Moore had been given an under-the-table $200,000 guarantee. This was at odds with contracts on file at the Illinois Athletic Commission, which called for each fighter to receive 30 percent of the combined gate receipts and TV and radio broadcast revenue. Promoters estimated that, based on this formula, each fighter should receive about $150,000. But the Tribune article suggested another agreement was in place, one kept hidden from D’Amato and Floyd. If Moore was guaranteed $200,000, regardless of the gate, that meant Floyd would be receiving less than D’Amato expected. In exchange for the $200,000 guarantee, Moore agreed to give the IBC exclusive ownership of his services as heavyweight champ. D’Amato was livid.7
Besides that morning’s Tribune story, there was an even bigger reason for turmoil in the Patterson camp. When Floyd tried to telephone Sandra after the weigh-in, there was no answer. He was sure that could mean only one thing—she had gone into labor earlier than expected. He hurriedly placed other calls until he was able to confirm that she was indeed at the hospital. He dialed Queens Memorial, and his brother-in-law came on the line to assure Floyd that she was fine and that nothing was happening yet. He promised to give Floyd a call when Sandra went into delivery. Later that afternoon, Patterson became the father of a six-pound, two-ounce daughter. But Floyd’s handlers did not let him know, fearing it might distract him from the business at hand. Four hours after Seneca Patterson drew her first breath, Patterson stepped into the ring in the Chicago Stadium to fight Moore.
There was all the usual pomp and circumstance associated with a heavyweight title bout at the Chicago Stadium that night. Photographers, cameramen, newspaper reporters, and broadcasters competed for space along all four sides of the ring. Past champions were introduced and waved at the crowd. Every two-bit politician worth his salt had nabbed a ticket in the front rows and showed up well preened, hoping to be seen, as did all manner of national and regional celebrities.
After the referee’s traditional midring delivery of instructions, the bell rang and Floyd took command, driving long jabs into Moore’s face, first from outside and then up close, scoring on the Old Mongoose seemingly at will in spite of Moore’s vaunted protective shell. The first round ended with a hard Patterson right smashing into Moore’s head. In the next round, the boxers exchanged blows fairly evenly, although Patterson clearly was the sharper, faster fighter. The third round was pivotal as Floyd opened a deep cut in Moore’s left eyebrow. Patterson thereafter beat Moore to the punch time after time, making the Old Mongoose look his age. At the close of the fourth round, Patterson drove Moore to the ropes with a flurry of lefts and rights, finishing with a hard right-hand body punch as the bell rang. A stunned Moore wobbled to his corner. Just past the two-minute mark of round five, Patterson floored Moore with a left hook. Moore made it back to his feet before the referee’s count ended, but seemed confused. When the fight resumed, Patterson hit him with a crisp combination of punches and Moore fell again. He struggled to a kneeling position, but this time could rise no farther. The heavyweight championship belonged to Floyd Patterson. Even so, Floyd found himself feeling sorry for Moore.
Patterson went through the celebratory motions, allowing himself to be hoisted to the shoulders of D’Amato and Florio. On the way from the ring to the dressing room, a reporter stopped Floyd to show him a wire service photo from New York of Sandra holding Seneca. And that’s how Patterson learned he was a father. After that, much of the fight melted into a blur for him as he thought about his new daughter. He was “the happiest ever.”8 With his purse of $114,257, it seemed nothing but good times lay ahead of him.
Though a victory party was planned at a Chicago restaurant, Floyd, ecstatic though he was about his win, ditched it. He and two friends climbed into an automobile and hit the road for New York. He had no time to celebrate the magnitude of what he had just accomplished, fighting the best fight of his career, humiliating Moore, who was widely considered to be among the twenty or so best boxers to ever tie on the gloves.9 But for now Floyd and his friends focused on the white lines of the two-lane highways of the upper Midwest as they roared through the crisp November night. Floyd ached to see his wife and Seneca.
Meanwhile, as a huffing Moore sat sweating in his dressing room, fight reporters swarmed in to get his postbout comments. Moore hoisted himself onto a bench and said, “It seems that even I must bow to the thing called youth. Youth and those fast legs. I came to the end of a very hard road, and when
I got there I found the gate closed.”10 Moore’s manager, Charley Johnston, listened, but didn’t believe him. Once the reporters had cleared out of the dressing room, Johnston lit into his fighter: “I don’t know what was going on out there but it didn’t look good to me. As a matter of fact, it looked goddamned funny.”11 Moore protested that he’d fought as well as he could. Johnston refused to believe it. Later, Moore said that he was under undue stress in Chicago because a former lover was attempting to blackmail him by claiming, among other allegations, that Moore had raped her twelve-year-old daughter. Moore said that because of the blackmail ruckus, his head just wasn’t into fighting Patterson. The bout was like something he watched as a spectator, not participated in. But allegations that Moore had taken a dive in a fixed fight began to spread. Eventually, Moore felt obliged to respond by releasing a statement:
I must protest strongly when it is hinted that I dumped the fight. To do so I would have had to have a reason, and the only reason would be that I had bet money on Floyd. It takes a minimum of two to make a bet, and if the man I bet with will come forward I’ll be glad to meet him for the first time. If I had won the fight, I would have been the holder of the heavy and light-heavyweight titles. I think it would have meant quite a few dollars in the Moore bank account. The odds were favorable for a “killing,” because I was a 6-to-5 favorite, and when you rule out money there isn’t another reason for me to go into the tank . . . I openly admit I was beaten fairly by a good fighter. I’ve lost many fights but never did I lose one in such a sorry fashion as the night I fought Floyd Patterson.12
Moore’s statement, however, only fueled fixed-fight speculation.
Naysayers aside, plenty of writers were impressed by Patterson’s victory, none more so than Arthur Daley of the New York Times. “Patterson appears to have the brightest of fistic futures,” he said. “Being the youngest man ever to hold the richest prize in sports, he faces the opportunity of becoming the greatest of heavyweight champions. In many respects he’s better equipped than Joe Louis was when the Brown Bomber ascended to the throne at the age of twenty-three.”13
Others agreed with Daley. Less than two weeks after the Moore fight, Patterson was voted the unanimous winner of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Plaque, an award given to the fighter of the year by the New York Boxing Writers Association. This put him in the company of such luminaries as Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Benny Leonard, and Jack Dempsey. Chicago boxing writers and broadcasters chimed in as well, giving Floyd their boxer of the year award. Even more significant, The Ring magazine, “the Bible of Boxing,” named him its fighter of the year.14
The hubbub surrounding him was not something Patterson relished. He discovered he could not step into a restaurant or stroll among the rides at Coney Island without people stopping to stare at him. He rode in a victory parade and felt awkward: parades were for kings or presidents. He retreated to the comfortable house he’d recently purchased in Rockville Centre, a well-scrubbed suburb populated by families of professional men who took the train to and from their day jobs in Manhattan, traded their Brooks Brothers suits for chinos or Bermuda shorts once they returned home, and sipped highballs as they congratulated themselves for living out the American dream. Floyd, too, could congratulate himself, his uneasiness aside. As a twenty-one-year-old black man, he’d accomplished what the middle-aged white men living in Rockville Centre had spent decades trying to achieve. He was wealthy enough to liberate not only himself and Sandra from the ghetto, but also his parents and her parents. He was famous, respected, and stood at the peak of the boxing world as the youngest man ever to do so. How could he top all of this?
7
A Black Champion in America
BY JANUARY 1957 Patterson was back at training camp, this time at Greenwood Lake in New York, though his next opponent had yet to be announced. Floyd thrived psychologically and physically in a rural training-camp setting, removed from the distractions of family and fans, surrounded only by trainers and sparring partners. This set him apart from other champions who dreaded the Spartan regimen of camp. Floyd rationalized away any concerns he may have had about being absent from his new daughter and wife, saying that once he retired from boxing, he would have much more time on his hands to devote to them than the average breadwinner. So he was back into training—but for whom?
Plenty of fighters wanted a shot at the new king of the mountain. But D’Amato asserted his power as Floyd’s manager, letting it be known that the IBC would have nothing to do with determining who challenged his fighter. In May D’Amato indicated that he had received five offers from promoters not affiliated with the IBC, including one possibility in the United Kingdom. He chose to cut a deal with his old associate from the Eastern Parkway Arena, Emil Lence, to promote Patterson’s first defense at the Polo Grounds. D’Amato was so confident of the outcome, he announced that Floyd’s second title defense would take place somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. As for whom Patterson would fight, D’Amato said he planned to start at the top of the rankings of contenders. At the time, Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson stood as the number one contender, so he was the first choice. But in order to get the fight, Jackson had to accept Lence as the promoter and agree to his terms. If not, Jackson would be out and D’Amato would move on to the number two contender. Jackson’s handlers were willing to make the deal—albeit only after a good deal of haggling—and the Polo Grounds fight was set for July 29, 1957.
Jackson was the ideal choice to be the first challenger for Floyd’s title. Their closely fought encounter the previous summer had ended in a split decision, which left unfinished business for Patterson, who, up until his bout with Jackson, had been demolishing the opposition. If Patterson could win convincingly over Jackson in their rematch, it would clear up any nagging questions about whether he truly was Jackson’s ring superior. Floyd looked forward to the summer matchup.
In the meantime, Patterson went on a five-city American tour fighting exhibition matches. Such tours were common for champions at the time. The matches were essentially sparring bouts conducted in front of paying audiences to earn the champ some extra cash while keeping his boxing skills sharp and his name in the paper. But Floyd’s tour also gave him an opportunity to take in what he saw around him and to reflect on what it meant for him to be a black champion in mid-twentieth-century America. While champion from the late 1930s into the 1940s, Joe Louis had never decried racial prejudice in the United States. Patterson would break with the Louis tradition. As he made his exhibition tour, he decided that the time was right to begin speaking out. “Segregation and discrimination were not anything new to me,” he said. “I had lived with them all my life, and like a good many Negroes, I was powerless to do anything about them until I gained a distinctive position.”1
There was plenty of prejudice to confront, as stops on his exhibition tour proved. In Kansas City, Floyd, Dan Florio, Buster Watson, and two sparring partners were refused service at one downtown restaurant after another. Finally, the group stopped at a grocery store and bought cheese, crackers, and milk. Then they retreated to their hotel. A seething Patterson told his friends that if he hadn’t been contractually committed to the exhibition that night, he would have left town. When Floyd learned that Jersey Joe Walcott was staying at the same hotel, he and Florio decided to visit the one-time champ in his room. Walcott greeted his old trainer and the new world champion enthusiastically. Patterson noticed a bottle of milk and a bag of cookies on the bedside table. It was clear that Walcott, too, had been unable to eat in the downtown restaurants.
After other stops on the exhibition tour, Patterson and his entourage boarded a train for Fort Smith, Arkansas, where the tour would wrap up. At the time, the state was the center of the conflict over integration. Its demagogic governor, Orval Faubus, had rebuffed the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In just a few months, federal troops would be deployed to ensure that black students were enrolled at Little Rock’s Central Hi
gh School. With racial tensions already inflamed, Floyd arrived at the Fort Smith station to find an all-white “reception committee” waiting for him. They glared as he stepped onto the platform, then formed a semicircle to block his path. No one spoke a word, but Patterson understood their message. A short standoff ensued as Patterson glanced around for the exhibition’s promoter, who, as it turned out, was nowhere to be found.
A few anxious moments later, a priest appeared on the platform, waded through the crowd, and introduced himself to Patterson. Samuel J. Delaney, who pastored the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in town, offered to transport Floyd and those traveling with him into town. Floyd gladly accepted the ride, as well as Father Delaney’s proposal that Floyd and company stay at the St. John the Baptist rectory that night rather than lodge at one of Fort Smith’s “colored” hotels. As it turned out, Father Delaney numbered among the soldiers in the integration movement in the South. For eight years he’d been working to persuade his white parishioners to welcome African Americans to the church. Delaney was also involved in the movement to integrate the public schools.
That night, Patterson showed up at the arena for his exhibition match—again, only to fulfill his contract. Not until he climbed through the ropes, tested the tautness of the canvas a couple of times, and then looked around did he realize that he was performing before a segregated audience. Every face he saw was white. The crowd was well-enough mannered, though subdued, offering up only polite applause. Once the fight began, though, Patterson heard blasts of enthusiastic cheers coming from somewhere in the distant shadows of the big room. It was only after the match that he discovered where those ovations came from—a single, remote section of seats where black fans were allowed to sit. In that instant, Patterson resolved he would never again fight at a venue that was not fully integrated.
Floyd Patterson Page 9
