klompton wrote:McGrain wrote:I'll be surprised if it doesn't compare positively with the Paxton book.
I wonder if it's possible for the book to contain any true revelations? It's almost certain to become the definitive Greb work, i'm keen to know if there are any overturned NWS or anything like that.
Klompton, you say you included no wire reports - at all? I mean I very clearly understand the idea of not "counting" repeated reprintings of the same wire report, but why exclude the wire reports all together?
My record does alter some of the newspaper decisions based on a comprehensive survey of local sources. There were only two instances where I used wire reports for the description of a fight. They were fights Greb fought in small towns on a saturday that had no local newspaper coverage on Sundays meaning they didnt report the fight. I make this situation very clear in the book and point out that it is less than ideal. There are also several instances pointed out in the book which illustrate the unreliability of wire reports.
Beyond that the only wire reports I use are from syndicated columnists with a byline that were actually at the event.
I dont use wire reports without a byline because if a town has six newspapers and I have all six of those papers cited the odds are that the wire report is either A. A rewritten version of one of those sources (or not rewritten at all). or B. A fictitious report generated by someone close to one of the fighters (this is VERY common). I have found that it is very rare outside of major fights for newspapermen to travel, even from a neighboring town 10 or 20 miles away, to the scene of a fight and report on it. I cast a wide net for sources and far more often than not the search doesnt bare fruit outside of the local sphere of newspaper coverage. So its really a major pet peeve when I go look at a record on boxrec and it gives a description for a fight held in Peoria from a newspaper in Lincoln Nebraska.
Some of the examples of this can be found in a fight where Greb broke his arm, lost the fight, and turned in a horrible performance. The wire reports for the fight call it the most exciting bout witnessed in the area for years and give the newspaper decision to Greb. Nope. That report probably originated with Red Mason, Greb's manager. Against Bill Brennan in Syracuse Greb won easily and yet the next day a wire report hit the presses originating from the "Syracuse Herald" stating that Brennan won. When one looks up the actual report from the Syracuse Herald it states clearly that Greb won nearly every round. That wire report originated from Leo P. Flynn, Brennan's manager. I can literally recount dozens of such occurences from this period. It gets better as the twenties go on but during Greb's lifetime they were still pretty unreliable.
But to me thats not good enough. I am also bothered by awarding a newspaper decision to a fighter based solely on one newspaper from a town that has six or more. Thats ridiculous. That one newspaper might be the only one that voted for that fighter.
All excellent points, and i have to say that as McGrain said, there is no doubt that this will be the definitive Harry Greb reference book. Almost certainly of all time.
Not being too critical, and i know that you would have probably had problems reducing the word count as it is, but it would have been good to see these Wire reports included so that people could see just how bad some of them really are, for themselves.
Now that you have finished this book, i look forward to reading the following books in the near future:
Live Fast, Die Old - The Life and Times of Max Schmelling
Live Very Fast, Die Very Young - The life and times of Les Darcy
Live Slow, Die Never - The life and times of Muhammed Ali
Live Fast, Die Forgotton - The life and times of Too many Boxers
Live Fast, Die overated - The life and times of Georges Carpentier
Live Fast, Die trying to hide that i was Kod By Les Darcy - The life and times of Fred Fulton
Live Fast, Die Quickly - The life and times of Alan Sugar and anyone else who squares off against Klompton on a message board on anything around the greb era
Any way well done, i hope you are happy enough to take on another project of similar stature some time soon.
The Documentary version of this book showing first hand film of Grebs opponents, where possible, would actually be a really awesome project
