BoxRec

Dongee wrote:Kiki:

To follow up on the Quinones article: The song he mentions is a beautiful composition written by Maria Grever, and like so many of her tunes, it has been translated and recorded in English. That one is entitled "Munequita linda" and in English it was given the title of :Magic is the Moonlight. It becane a part of "The Three Tenors" repertoire some years ago. Grever has never gotten due credit for other tunes, such as Cuando Vuelva a tu lado (What a Difference a day Made) and the lilting Tippi-tippi-Tin.

hap navarro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILPMrC0fR0
"Munequita Linda"

Javier solis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUl0dbPZl-Y
"Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado"

salt lake tribune dec 1938

ESCOBAR STILL Dominates
118-Poimders
Puerto Rico
Boxer
Gaining Fame
(Editor's note: This is the second of a series of articles in
which Hype Igoe rates the champions and the challengers in the
eight divisions of boxing. Today Igoe names the bantams.)
By HYPE IGOE NEW YORK, Dec. 22 (INS)—
Sixto Escobar, noted as a "money" fighter, one who seems to lift him-
self out of the commonplace rut When his title is on the line, still
rules the 118-pound roost. When Harry Jeffra took' the title
away from the little Puerto Rican on the night of the "Carnival of
Champions," it did seem that the tiny man from the island possession
was at the end of his title rope.

There had been an agreement that, in the- event of winning, Jeffra
would give Escobar another chance within 90 days, the battleground
to be in San Juan. Jeffra kept his word. This time Escobar
reversed it by giving Jeffra a bad thrashing-, sending him to the hospital
with a broken jaw.
Cold Quarters,
Sixto claimad that he had been compelled to sit in a cold dressing
room four hours when he lost the title to Jeffra at the "carnival"
and that he never got started, so chilled had he become from the
cold. In San Juan, under his own warm Puerto Rican skies, it was a
different matter. He blasted Jeffra right out of the picture, and
Into the featherweight class!
K. C. Morgan, a Detroit boy, perhaps is Escobar's most formidable
challenger, though little Lou Salica has not given up the idea that he
can win Sixto's title. -Morgan went to England and defeated Benny
Lynch at 118 pounds, Lynch again coming in over the mark.

The writer went to San Juan two years ago to judge a battle
for the title between Salica and Escobar, Jack Dempsey acting as
referee and Nat Fleischer, editor of the Ring, as my associate in the
judges' seats. I had them going in the final round all even, voting
for Escobar on his showing in the fifteenth round. That's how close
it was, and always will be between these two.
Dethrone King
Benny Lynch, the dethroned flyweight king,, who moved into this
division after his disastrous attempt to make 112 pounds for the
championship fight with Jackie Jurich, was beaten by Morgan, lingered
awhile and then passed out of the picture. Whether he ever
will come back to real fighting form only time will tell. He was
a great hitting champion at 112. His is a pitiful case of world renown
sweeping one off his feet.
Georgie Pace is another Escobar menace, along with Salica and Morgan,
and, inasmuch as the champion's six-month respite is at an
end, he must face either one of tho three in defense of the 118-
pound bauble.
And here comes a threat from the champion. Escobar has asked
Morgan, Salica and Pace to enter into a three-cornered elimination
tourney to smoke, out the challenger. If they refuse,' then Escobar
Is going to retire as the bantamweight champion and enter the
featherweight division, where he Will find remunerative competition

Kevin, did you get in touch with Rick Farris?

I have not. This is my busiest time of year. We have a local horse show here
In Aiken, and I help a few friends get ready. Not to mention my car lot and my own kids and their pony classes, with the big event being the costum class. This year we are going as Peter pan and company.

Any way thats my excuse and Im sticking to it.

KI

Hype Igoe Tells How John L. Sullivan Found His Match
By HYPE IGOE
NEW YORK, Dec. 28.— A sweltering day and John L. Sullivan, feeling
a little high, stepped through the swinging doors of Paddy Roche s
Saloon near Union Square to get a breath of fresh air.
A is his habit John was dressed to kill, a 10-karat diamond in his
tie a glistening silk topper cocked at a rakish angle on his powerful
head He was immediately surrounded by a group of pop-eyed admirers,
but there was no rush for his autograph. The boys and girls of the
period had not come around to that form of public torment.
John tossed a few coins to the kids and was enjoying their rough and
tumble scramble after the money when along came a middle-aged woman Carrying a huge wash basket of freshly ironed linen and such.
he walked to the curb and set the basket down to rest while she
mopped her brow with her apron. She was delivering the wash in person and John L. eyed her for a time and then moved toward the basket.
A Gailant Cavalier.
"Where are you going, my good woman? That's quite a load
vou're toting. Ill shoulder it myself and carry it for you.
' "I'll be thanking ve to mind your own sweet business and let mine
alone I'm the one who will carry the basket and I won't be asking the
likes of a dude like ye to help me either. Stand aside me fine dandy and ill be on about me chores
now I’ll take upon myself to carry you’re the basket to your destination. "where i don't know, but ill carry it Just the same. . . It, will
be no trouble, my good woman, and I'll consider it an honor," insisted Sullivan with that. Sullivan bent over and was starting to pick up the basket when the "good woman" hit him an open hand smack on the side of the jaw. knocking John L.'s silk tile into the gutter.
"I'll be thanking ye to get along with ye and let a hard-working
woman attend to her work. Go on with the likes of ye."
"I meant you no harm. I was only trying to ease your burden," protested the champion.
Then reaching into his pocket he pulled out a ten-dollar bill and
pressed it into her hand.
"Now will you let me carry your basket," said John l. more determined than ever to carry the basket away from the crowd which had gathered.
"Who are ye?" asked the woman, somewhat startled to find a $10 banknote in her hand.
"I'm John l. Sullivan," came the answer.
Triumphant Procession "That's a- fine name. Mine's Sullivan too, Mary Sullivan." "Then it IS a grand name," drawled the mighty king of the ring.
"Now I'm carrying your wash for you."
Sullivan lifted the basket to his shoulder and then began the march which took him clear over into Second avenue.
With every step John L. drew more and more followers. The news that the mighty John L. Sullivan was carting Mary Sullivan's laundry to its destination had spread like wildfire and by the time they had reached It there was a cheering throng following In their wake. . . . If Sullivan had been their hero before, he now had taken on golden wings In their estimation. Only a John L. Sullivan could have, would have, done so gallant a deed! Housewives and the old boys with the dudeens came clattering out of their abodes. It wasn't every day that the "Greatest.Roman of Them All" was to be seen delivering Mary Sullivan's laundry and the crowd grew. Sullivan had a keen sense of humor and he was enjoying the unusual performance. Mary Sullivan with the Great John L. Sullivan
playing the role of gallant Knight of the Linen was now taking her newly found fame In stride.
Top Billing for Mary
They came finally to the house where the wash was to be delivered and John L..set the basket down, fished out another $10 bill, doffed his stovepipe hat and was off.
Somehow, the story crept Into the public prints and Steve Brodle, the hero of the famous jump from the Brooklyn bridge, knowing the power of publicity, sought out Mary Sullivan and engaged her to appear at his place on the Bowery every night, ten dollars being her nightly fee,
•THE WOMAN WHO SOCKED THE MIGHTY JOHN L. SULLIVAN ON THE JAW," her billing. Mary showed the muscles of her good right arm and did it for 18 weeks! Thousands came to shake the hand that socked the iron chin
Of the mighty John L.

Kevin . . .

I'm Chairman of the Selection Commitee for the World Boxing Hall of Fame. I would like to submit your Grandfather's name for this years Induction ballot. I would also campaign for your Grandfather, over and above adding him to this year's ballot. If he is voted in, he would be inducted into the WBHOF this October.

I will only do so with your blessing. If so, you would need to write me a brief bio, one that I can use to show cause for adding his name to the ballot. Now that I have spoken in an "official" capacity, let me say that I believe he is MORE than deserving of WBHOF Induction and if you will help me, we'll see that he is appropriatly honored among the legends, where he belongs.

I will need the bio within a week, or we will have to wait until next year. You may E-mail it to: [email protected]

-Rick Farris

Dongee wrote:Kiki:

To follow up on the Quinones article: The song he mentions is a beautiful composition written by Maria Grever, and like so many of her tunes, it has been translated and recorded in English. That one is entitled "Munequita linda" and in English it was given the title of :Magic is the Moonlight. It becane a part of "The Three Tenors" repertoire some years ago. Grever has never gotten due credit for other tunes, such as Cuando Vuelva a tu lado (What a Difference a day Made) and the lilting Tippi-tippi-Tin.

hap navarro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N_9a88bzEY
"Asi"

Maria Grever (1894 - 1951), a pioneer in the field of twentieth-century popular music, was the first Mexican woman to become a successful composer. Her romantic songs and ballads, like "Jurame" and "What a Difference a Day Makes," achieved wide spread popularity beginning in the 1920s among audiences in Spain, South America, Mexico, and the United States.

Although a few of her songs remain international favorites today, Grever has eluded significant coverage in the pages of music history - she is not even mentioned in most listings and encyclopedias of composers. Yet many of her songs, estimated to number in the hundreds, live on, kept alive by recording stars like Placido Domingo and Aretha Franklin.

Grever was born to a Spanish father and Mexican mother on September 14, 1894, in Mexico City, Mexico. Her maiden name was Maria de la Portilla. She spent much of her childhood in Spain and traveled widely in Europe with her family. At the age of 12, she returned to Mexico. According to a New York Times article, Grever composed her first piece of music - a Christmas carol - when she was four years old. Grever settled in New York after marrying Leo A. Grever, an American oil company executive, who was best man in her sister's wedding. She was wed to Grever four days after her sister's nuptials.

Grever studied piano, violin, and voice, although one account of her life suggests that she learned to read music only in her later years. In fact, most of her songs were written in one key. Grever was said to have the gift of perfect pitch. A 1919 review of one of her first New York City concerts in the New York Times mentions that Grever, a soprano, performed opera in Madrid early in her career.

Grever was an extraordinarily versatile musician. She frequently wrote both the melodies and lyrics of her pieces and then performed the pieces in live concerts. During her career, which peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, she wrote film scores and lyrics for Broadway shows and organized concerts combining theatre, music, dance, and song. She was also a voice teacher. But Grever's strongest legacy is her songs. Often based on the folk rhythms and styles of Latin American music, particularly Mexican or Spanish tangos, the lyrics are lushly romantic, full of feeling, and easy to recall. Her message is always direct. For example, her song "Yo No Se" ("I Know Not") begins with the stanza: "When at night my thoughts are winging / To you, my dear, / Then your voice, an old song singing, / I seem to hear; / You are kneeling by me, blending, / Though far away, / Your voice with mine ascending, / In a song of love's first day."

Grever often worked with American lyricists, who translated the songs from Spanish to English to make them accessible to audiences in the United States. In fact, Grever collaborated with three of the leading songwriters of her day - Stanley Adams, Irving Caesar, and Raymond Leveen.

First Hit Became Million-Seller

Grever's first published song, "A una Ola" ("To a Wave"), appeared when she was 18 years old and sold some three million copies, according to a biography on a 1956 retrospective album of Grever's work. Grever published "Besame" ("Kiss Me") in 1921, and in 1926, Grever's Spanish tango "Jurame" ("Promise, Love") found a large audience. Grever's first major hit was "What a Difference a Day Makes," or "Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado," written in 1934. That song is one of Grever's longest-lasting hits; it is included on many currently available recordings by artists as diverse as Chet Baker, Ray Conniff, Dinah Washington, and Bobby Darin.

The same year Ella Fitzgerald sang "A-Tisket A-Tasket" and Cole Porter won over the nation with "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," Grever scored one of her biggest sensations, a nonsensical tune entitled "Ti-Pi-Tin." One account of Grever's music claims that "Ti-Pi-Tin," written in 1938, broke with her usual style, and her publisher rejected it. But bandleader Horace Heidt and his orchestra, performing on NBC radio, took the song to the air and contributed to its eventual hit status.

Grever's songs, broadcast frequently on the radio during her time, include "Lamento Gitano," "Lero, Lero from Brazil," "Magic Is the Moonlight," "Make Love with a Guitar," "My First, My Last, My Only," "Rosebud," "Thanks for the Kiss," "My Margarita," "Andalucia," "Cancionera," and many more. Estimates of her musical output range from 200 to 500 songs, depending on the source.

One of the reasons Grever's songs became well known was that leading performers of her era adopted them in their repertoires. Singers like Enrich Caruso, Lawrence Tibbett, Tito Schipa, Nino Martina, and Jessica Dragonette helped popularize Grever's work. Along with other albums which included Grever's tunes, the 1956 album "The Bobby Hackett Horn," a Columbia label, adapted "What a Difference a Day Makes," and the 1959 Columbia Classic album "Happy Session," performed by Benny Goodman and his orchestra, featured "Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado."

Grever also wrote film scores, including the music for the 1944 movie "Bathing Beauty," featuring her song "Magic Is the Moonlight," or "Te Quiero Dijiste." In 1941, Viva O'Brien, a musical with music by Grever and lyrics by Leveen, had 20 performances on a New York stage. Some of the show's songs were entitled "El Matador Terrifico," "Mood of the Moment," "Broken Hearted Romeo," and "Wrap Me in Your Serape."

Enjoyed International Acclaim

Grever apparently enjoyed performing before live audiences and organizing concerts of her work by other musicians. In 1919, one of her earliest New York recitals of Spanish, Italian, and French music, at the Princess Theatre, received positive reviews from critics. During the height of her fame, she made concert tours in Latin America and Europe. In New York, Grever's music was heard live in many of the city's concert halls. In 1927, she organized a concert at the Little Theatre, which featured an Argentine cabaret, song dramas complete with costumes, scenery, dialogue, and dancing, and a short play, The Gypsy. The evening opened with performances by a jazz orchestra. One of her first successful New York concerts took place in 1928 at the Pythian Temple before an audience that included the ambassadors of Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina.

The New York Times reviewed a 1939 concert at the Guild Theatre, in which Grever presented popular songs and a miniature opera, entitled "El Cantarito." She performed a few songs, but was assisted by dozens of other singers and musicians, including a large chorus, dance troupe, and orchestra. The Times critic praised her "innate gift of spontaneous melody," and commented that, while some of Grever's music is not to be taken too seriously, "her more earnest endeavors were sincere and effective."

In the late 1930s, she was threatened with blindness as a result of an eye infection. In 1942, Grever hosted a benefit for the Spanish-American Association for the Blind, with headquarters in New York City. She served as mistress of ceremonies for a program that included musical performances by students at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. The funds raised were to benefit the blind in Spanish-speaking countries.

At the time of her death at the age of 57, on December 15, 1951, following a lengthy illness, she was living in the Wellington Hotel on Manhattan's Seventh Avenue. She was survived by her husband and two children, son Charles Grever, a New York music publisher, and daughter, Carmen Livingston. Following her death, she was honored by a musicale at the Biltmore Hotel by the Union of Women of the Americas. She was named "Woman of the Americas," 1952, by the UWA before her death. Grever was a member of the prestigious American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

In 1956, RCA released a retrospective album, "Songs of Maria Grever," with 12 songs performed by Argentine singer Libertad Lamarque, accompanied by the orchestras of Chucho Zarzosa and Mario Ruiz Armengol. Along with her more famous songs, the album featured "Volvere" ("I Will Return"), "Eso Es Mentira" ("That Is a Lie"), and "Asi" ("Thus"). The album jacket, written by Bill Zeitung, argues that Grever never enjoyed widespread name recognition, despite the fact that her songs achieved "an immensely deserved run of popularity." Her music "is on every hand," wrote Zeitung. "Yet the name is familiar to only a few."

Rick Farris wrote:

kikibalt wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwCLZq7ztI
Susi Kentikian vs Shanee Martin

WOW! I just watched Susi Kentikian for the first time. I like her better than Pac Man.
Damn, that woman can fight! She can box, punch.

I'm impressed!


-Rick Farris

Susie Kentikian came through with her biggest victory today as she won every round in a dominating fashion against Elena Baby Doll Reid. Reid gave Regina Hamlich her toughest bout and was expected to give the little Armenian mighty mite a tough time, but it proved no contest. Congrats to Susie who is one big star in Germany.

kikibalt wrote:In Tijuana, opera offers a refuge from violence

On the streets, drug gangs are fighting a war. But inside a modest cafe, the drama is make-believe and accompanied by sweet music.

By Sam Quinones
March 20, 2009

Reporting from Tijuana -- When Zully Martinez began to sing, it sounded like a love song and felt like an exorcism.

Bathed in dim candlelight, 50 opera lovers waited silently before her in a cafe in Colonia Libertad, a banged-up neighborhood famous for boxers, smugglers and gangs that slouches into the steel wall separating Mexico from the United States.

She opened her palms and began "Pur Dicesti, O Bocca Bella" ("Beautiful Mouth, at Last You Have Spoken").

Outside, a motorcycle growled by; a car alarm babbled in reply.

Never has opera seemed more welcome and more appropriate for Tijuana than these days, when city streets have run with blood and vengeance.

One of Tijuana's leading sopranos, Martinez was here to offer her antidote, a caress to the sweeter part of her city that the world rarely notices.

Like resisters to some totalitarian regime, her audience huddled in the small space. They were teachers, office workers and merchants from Tijuana's middle class -- one of the largest of any city in Mexico -- who have wanted more for their children than the strip clubs and velvet painting the city is known for.

They sat attentively, some hunched as if in prayer for a little more than an hour, listening to Neapolitan love songs, to Verdi, to Puccini and to the plaintive bolero "Besame Mucho": "Kiss me, kiss me a lot, as if tonight were the last night . . . because I fear to lose you, to lose you again."

A medieval violence has overwhelmed this ragged but normally optimistic border town. Two factions of a drug cartel fight daily for street primacy, leaving a trail of shootouts, decapitations and kidnappings. In January, police arrested a man known as "El Pozolero" ("The Soup Maker"), who allegedly admitted to dissolving about 300 bodies in lye over the years, paid by a drug kingpin, "El Teo," who has stalked people's nightmares for months.

From their streets of madness, Tijuanans have sought refuge indoors.

"The only good thing is that these kinds of cultural events have grown like never before, perhaps because people are looking for some kind of harmony," said Suzy Fuentes, whose brother, Enrique, opened the Cafe de la Opera, where Martinez performed.

Tijuana's love affair with opera and classical music began in 1991. An 18-member professional Russian chamber orchestra left the remains of the Soviet Union and moved to Tijuana at the behest of a local music promoter.

In a town that had mostly valued music by how well it backed the gyrations of strippers or matadors, the Russians implanted classical music instruction and bel canto technique, and opened Tijuana's first music conservatory.

They spoke little Spanish and the children spoke no Russian. They used signs and kept to the language they had in common: music. Most of the Russians have left for San Diego, Los Angeles or elsewhere. But they stayed long enough to foster a generation of young musicians and singers.

Many of their students, like Martinez, honed their talents in the Cafe de la Opera.

In 2002, Enrique Fuentes, an opera fanatic and San Diego teacher's aide, opened the cafe with thrift store furniture and his own savings, modeling it after the salons in Vienna and Milan, Italy, where fans gather for coffee, pastries and the serenades of opera singers.

"This place, in the middle of the Libertad, you wouldn't expect it," said Laura Fernandez, a homemaker and a resident of the neighborhood for many years, as she sat waiting for Martinez to begin.

In 2005, Fuentes organized the first Opera in the Street Festival in front of his cafe on 5th Street, a couple of hundred yards from the steel wall. It attracts thousands of people every July and has become one of the city's most important cultural events, put on largely without government help.

Fuentes closed the cafe in 2007, but still holds occasional events there. He and the landlord, a construction worker named Eugenio Romero, keep it appointed, ready for the moment when Tijuana might support their strange idea a little more. Until that happens, a dancer teaches salsa there each Friday night.

"It's what people need: a refuge, a little place to hide, a little corner in the Libertad," Fuentes said.

Today the legacy of the Russians and Fuentes' cafe is hundreds of youths studying classical music, and dozens learning Puccini and Verdi, hoping for an opera career like that of Martinez.

Martinez, 31, is a Tijuana native with the city's innate entrepreneurial gift. She sang boleros and Mexican rancheras as a girl. Then she dropped it for a while. But at 19, she heard of the Russians' conservatory and enrolled.

She took lessons from Elena Vostriakova, a Moscow native who was one of the conservatory's premier voice coaches and who died in an auto accident in 2000.

Martinez first sang in Fuentes' cafe at 25. Now, she produces her own concerts around town to supplement her income and, twice a year, a recital for her 33 voice students. The one this particular evening she put on herself, charging $3.50.

The audience "was once just our families. Then it expanded to our aunts and uncles," she said. "Now, it's people you don't know but they know you."

It was 9:30 p.m., late and time to leave.

Before the crowd dispersed into a brisk Tijuana sea breeze, Martinez sang a final song.

"Te Quiero, Dijiste" ("I Love You, You Said") is the lament of a mother whose child died in her arms:

Sometimes I hear a divine echo

That borne on the breeze

Seems to say

I love you so

So, so, so much.

[email protected]

A SIP OF CULTURE


The way I write about TJ I've probably given it a lot of bad publicity. Yeh,it's a sin hole and lately a very dangerous place to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think there's an intrigue in a lot of my stories. A temptation. Maybe a curiosity.For some of you guys out there,and most of the gals,probably disgust. How many times have I been asked,"Hey Rog,can I go with you to Tijuana?" It's been fun. When thinking back,I'm lucky I'm here to write this.

But here's some of the other side of that town. I've written about some of the tragedy,but I'm not going there now. There's a side of Tijuana that's very artsy. Bohemian in a way. Reminds me of the Latin Europe. You've seen my art on the thread. I paint a variety of subjects. But it's faces that I'm into. I paint nudes also so I guess I go below the neckline on occasion.

I've had exhibits in Tijuana. Some big,but mostly little ones. Around town, in various colonias, there are cafes. They're like coffee houses back in the beatnik days. Local artists and musicians gather to express their creativeness. It's not necessarily all Mexican representation. Classical music. Jazz. Some blues. These little bistros are cozy. An intimate atmosphere where everyone is more or less on the same page for expression. There's the Foreign Club,El Nopal,La Casa De Los Artistas. There are a few that receive some government funding,but most are small privately run establishments. Coffee,pastries,and whatever anyone wants to donate at the door keeps the lights on.

If you don't know where these little gems are located ,you'll never find them on your own. They're tucked away in the colonias. Not a lot of foot traffic outside. But I remember many nights bringing a few paintings,some oils on canvas or on tiles,to hang on the walls in those low lit venues. Listen to a singer. A guitarist.Sipping Coffee. Eating a pastry. We shared what we were capable of. The value and worth was not important. We were able to express amongst friends without hesitating.

kikibalt wrote:

Rick Farris wrote:

kikibalt wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwCLZq7ztI
Susi Kentikian vs Shanee Martin

WOW! I just watched Susi Kentikian for the first time. I like her better than Pac Man.
Damn, that woman can fight! She can box, punch.

I'm impressed!


-Rick Farris

Susie Kentikian came through with her biggest victory today as she won every round in a dominating fashion against Elena Baby Doll Reid. Reid gave Regina Hamlich her toughest bout and was expected to give the little Armenian mighty mite a tough time, but it proved no contest. Congrats to Susie who is one big star in Germany.

Susie Kentikian . . .

Frank, I like this boxer. She is a real fighter, as was Lucia Rijker, and the late Giselle Salandy. They are fighters, boxers who can end the show with a single shot. What more can we ask from a boxer? I'm her newest fan, and I want her present, if possible, at the 2nd Annual WBHOF's "Women in Boxing" luncheon.

Things take time to get off the ground, but seeing boxer's such as the great Lucia Rijker and today's Susie Kentikian validate that women have arrived. I know that some don't enjoy watching women fighting. Well, to each there own, but I love seeing two skilled fighters with true boxing talent doing what they want to do, and doing it as good as anybody active in boxing today.


-Rick Farris

Rick,

Of course you have my blessing. I will try to put a bio together, but I am not
a skilled writer. Hopefully my passion will over come my weakness. Hype is an
odd case he had many talents but devoted his life to boxing. I have done much study
on boxing writers, and I must say Hype was probably the most quoted and written about boxing writer
of his time. Sometimes a person outside the ropes can have a large impact on the sport, as Jack Cuddy
wrote on my grandfathers passing. Hype may have done more to popularise the sport of boxing then
many of the ring heros he wrote about.

Thanks in advance for your interest
Kevin Igoe

iskigoe wrote:Rick,

Of course you have my blessing. I will try to put a bio together, but I am not
a skilled writer. Hopefully my passion will over come my weakness. Hype is an
odd case he had many talents but devoted his life to boxing. I have done much study
on boxing writers, and I must say Hype was probably the most quoted and written about boxing writer
of his time. Sometimes a person outside the ropes can have a large impact on the sport, as Jack Cuddy
wrote on my grandfathers passing. Hype may have done more to popularise the sport of boxing then
many of the ring heros he wrote about.

Thanks in advance for your interest
Kevin Igoe

Kevin
Jack Cuddy made a very point about your grandfather's position as a writer of the sport. The focus was on the fighter and the event. In turn your grandfather positioned himself,unintentionally,alongside the fighters that were the topics of his stories.

Like Ernie Pyle,the great war correspondent,Hype Igoe was the fighters' pal like Ernie was the soldiers' pal. The fighters and the soldiers feel a comfort zone and trust with writers like them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-13ww045Fo

Joe Louis Was A Fighting Man

I have tinnitus, Frankie (ringing in the ears). I've had it for years and learned to live with it because I had good days and bad, and lived for the good.
However, just after the New Year a new sound emerged, almost an audible sound, like someone whispering over and over in my ears. The good days are gone. Tinnitus is like lack of sleep: it does not kill anyone but it makes you feel like shit. It delibitates.

thanks Roger,

That is a great observation. When I read about Hype it fails to amaze me how trusted he was.
He was friends with the trainers, promoters, boxers and probably the clean up guy at the gym.
But as runyon was quick to say "he was no mamby-pampy writer. He could tell a fighter what
time it was, but some how they never took offense. I think being so close to the sport gave Hype
his unique writing style. His articles make you feel he is talking to you as a friend, giving
you the inside scoup on another friend.


Once Over
Lightly

by Jimmy Cannon

most prize-fighters have contempt for the newspapermen, who are their
historians. Managers believe there is always a conspiracy to steal their pugs
and seldom let the fighters get friendly with anyone but their seconds and relatives. Larcenous handlers bill their gladiators for bribes given to the press, whether the boxing writer takes them or not. If a sports writer criticizes a pug, it is the custom of managers to denounce him to the tighter as. a burglar, who takes but fails to stand up. But Hype Igoe, who died last week
after many years of writing about boxing for the old New York World and the
New York Journal-American, was an exception. Hype, who knew many
boxers well, was liked by all of them. They considered him a friend because
he reported every bout as a great struggle between boxers of great power
and guile. Although he had covered boxing longer than any man in the
country, I don't think Hype ever saw a dull round. *
'TiME did not molest Igoe. and he lived in the mansion of the past until the
day he died. All young fighters were duplicates of an old-timer. If they
punched hard they were usually a second Stanley Ketchell, in the oddly lurid pieces Hype wrote. If they were clever they were second Jim Corbetts. Corbett was his hero, and many a night I bare squandered the hours listening to Hype tell of the grace and the courage of the heavyweight champion from San Francisco. Never, Hype would mourn,
will we see his like again.

hYPE. who was a puny little man with small feet and a banker's facade in
his winter years, was called Hype for hypodermic needle. It was a name he
was proud of and used as a byline. An elevator boy in Frisco gave it to him in
his youth, saying he was so thin he looked like a man who used the needle.
Hype thought he was a murderous puncher with his right hand. One night
long ago he boasted he could knock anyone out with a cross he had been
taught by Ketchell. Tom Thorp, the racing official, stuck his chin out and
insisted that Hype throw a free punch. Igoe hit Thorp 'and broke his hand.
| HOPE they threw him a big funeral and a lot of champions ca.me, because
Hype never missed one and wrote about dead fighters with a stately awe.
I grew up reading Hype in the old World and my old man read him before
me. I'll miss his ditty, which is what he called his stories and so will the
fighters, who were all great when Hype told about them

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1939.
INDIANA EVENING GAZETTE, INDIANA, PENNA.

-:- The Brighter Side -:-By DAMON RUNYON

Intei national News service
Miss Hainet Glen chides us gently for occasionally speaking in this
column of the manly art of scrambling ears, otherwise boxing She
says there are so many other much more interestting things that we
might discuss that it is a pitty, to waste space on the gladiators She
is! probably right, but look at the distinguished company were are in

Take Homer. now Homer was always writing about boxing He was
almost the Hype Igoe of his day We think Hype is just about the
greatest boxing writer around in these times He writes for the New
York Journal and American. His "Leather Socking Tales' are little
classics of the manly art and he thinks no other fighter that ever
lived was fit to tie Stanley Ketchel's shoe laces.

Homer could sling more fancy language than Hype when it came
to covering a fight, but he did not tell the story any better One of
Homers best efforts was his report of the great battle between Epeios
and Euryalos, in which the latter got a good shellacking, as you may
vaguely recall from your Iliad he also wrote stirringly in the Odyssey
of the slugging of Iius by Odysses

You gather that when Od got through with Iius the latter was in
a state similar to that of the redoubtable Tony Galento after Joe
Louis had pelted him awhile. Iius was what Hype Igoe would call
busted up. Plato was another writer who frequently touched on boxing
so what was good enough for Homer and Plato ought to be good
enough foi a smalle like us.

Plato, by the way, used boxing as an argument for preparedness —
"surely, if we were boxers,we would have been learning to fignt
many many days x x x and shall the warriors of our city who are
destined when occasion calls to enter the greatest of all contests and
fight for their lives and their country and their property and the
whole city, be worse prepared than boxers "

Of course Plato would have been pretty much discouraged with boxer s
as an object lesson in preparedness if he had seen Mickey Walker
or Harry Greb or Smacksie Maxie Rosenbloom in their championship
days prepare for battle Those boys seemed to feel that standing under
an electnc fan a while agitated their muscles sufficiently for all
purposes.

We do not suppose Lucilius ever saw Smacksie Maxie. but for some
reason his observations to Olympicus, a professional boxer, somehow
brings Smacksie Maxie to mind —' having such a mug, Olympicus
go not to a fountain nor look into any transparent water, for you like
Narciccus, seeing your face clearly will die, hating yourself."

Lucilius was downright pesimistic about the way boxing scuffed up
the faces of the boys He told Stratophon. a boxer. that he had become
after boxing four hours, not only unrecognizable to dogs but to the
city. He remarked to Apollophanes that he could go on boxing without
fear because even if he got smacked around the head he could not cause
any more scars than he already possessed

Virgil, Maitial. Statius and Pausanius got plenty of boxing into the
stuff So did Aristotle Theocritus wrote of the pier 6 affair between
Polydeuces and Amycus ' Quick gushed the black blood from the
gaping temple while Polydeuces smote the giant's mouth with his
left and his close-set teeth rattled And still he punished his face with
quick-repeated blows? till the cheeks were fairly pounded '

Now You know what that sounds like That sounds like the
time Jack Dempsey hewed the hulk of Jess Willard, the old Pottawatomie
pounder, to the canvass at Toledo. We guarantee that Jess
cheeks were fairly pounded that day. Incidentally, Polydeuces slipped
a terrific right hander aimed at his head and nailed Amycus with a
smash to the head, to start his man going, which is just what Dempsey
did to Willard
Victor Hugo. George Borrow, Samuel Johnson, William Makepeace
Thackeray, Arnold Bennett, J B. Priestly, Sir Conan Doyle,
Thomas Moore, Lord Byron, Donn Byrne. William Hazhtt, O. Henry,
Richard Steele and Hundreds of other celebrated writers have written
at length of the manly art Thackeray tore off a long poem on
the fight between John C. Heenan, the American, and Tom Sayers, of
England. Samuel Johnson was practically an expert and liked to sit
around with the lads and fan about boxing.

It is just a personal opinion, but we think the best fiction story on
boxing in the English language is Conan Doyle's "Rodney Stone " It is
a story of. the old English prizering when the fighting was done with
bare knuckles The best fiction story of the modem game is perhaps Ernest
Hemingway s 'Fifty Grand," although Jack London wrote some
corkers

We hope we have established our case with Miss Hainet Glen, and in
closing we want to return briefly to Lucilius and quote a line that could
be applied to some exponents of the manly art that we have seen but
ecently:

' His competitors set up here the status of Apis, the boxer, for he
never hurt anyone."

Hype IGOE

The Lowell Sun Thursday February 15 1945

Damon Runyon

Hype Igoe, the sports writer who died the other day, retained
the quality of youth more than any man of matu r e years I
have ever known. He was a little boy all his
life. He just simply refused to get old in spirit, t h o u g h
physically time b e l t e d him around pretty severely in his
later years. ,

A few years ago he was in ahospital when he got to reflecting
that his old pal Runyon was a great lover of coffee but had probably been deprived of all these years of a brew that came from a most special percolator of hisknowledge

So Hype put on his clothes and left his sick ward and
hunted up one of those perks and came to my house and established it in the living room. The damn thing blew up right
away and scared me stiff. Hype was rather amused on the
whole and he promised to return
another day and fix me up properly in the Java department.
I never saw him again.

In the period just prior to World War I, Hype, a dapper little man with blue-black hair and as jaunty as a cock robin, was one of the best known men-abouttables
on Broadway. With Benny Bennett, Ike Dorgan and a chap
who was stage manager of the Follies, he had bachelor quarters in West 45th off Sixth avenue
called "The Flea Bag," the first
time I ever heard that title incidentally
He hung: out in Jack's restaurant
which Hype called
"Jack's Atletic Club" or "Jack's A. C." for short, because
of the way the waiters dusted belligerent customers
around. Hype played the ukelele and he liked to gather
some of the waiters around him and perhaps a few of the
customers, too, to sing: as he played, a practice which
caused, Jack Dunstan, the proprietor, great anguish as it
would slow down the trade. So they took to frisking Hype when he entered and confiscating the uke and putting it in the ice box which caused the strings toshrink and rum the tone. The only time Jack would stand for
the uke was when he himself was in mellow mood. Then he would demand that Hype accompany
him to a secluded table in the back room and play Irish lullabies
for him. Hype had a mild reedy little voice, and would sometimes sing for Jack who would shed
tears and press money on the troubadour. But the next night he would glom the uke.

One of Hype's pals was the celebrated Wilson Mizner.
When the great middleweight Stanley Ketchel, always Hype's
fighting ideal, first came to New York, Hype had some
kind of managerial claim on ' him. He took Ketch to Philadelphia
for a fight and returning was sitting in a Pullman drawing
room with a table before him when in came Ketchel and
threw the two six-pistols he loved to carry in front of
Hype.
"I want to talk a little business to you Hype," he said. "I think I
prefer having Wilson Mizner manage me from now on."
"That's fine," said Hype, eyeing the guns, and that was the way it was until Ketchell got shot and killed by a jealous husband down in Missouri.

Hype was generally as meek as a lamb but one time he got sore at Jack Dustan for something and
pegged a glass sugar bowl at the bomface, barely missing old Jack's sconce. The dent on the wall where the sugar bowl landed was exhibited for years afterwards. On
another occasion, Jack in turn got peeved at Hype and grabbing Hype by the lapels butted him between
the eyes, a good old trick from the New York docks.
The butt broke Hype's note and he sued Jack for damages,
though nothing: ever came of the matter, as I re member.
Jack was sorry afterwards and so was Hype. He
was not one to carry a grudge and besides I think Hype
rather admired Jack's technique.

Those were the days in Jack's of Frank Ward O'Malley,
Benjamin Decasseres, Spanish Jack O'Brien, Jack
Francis, "Tad," Bud Fisher, Vernie Barton, Corse Peyton
and a host of other sporting, theatrical and journalistic
celebrities and Hype was not infrequently the life of not
one but all parties.

The legends of him would fill a book At about that period he
and "Tad" were nearly always together and Hype was still more
of a cartoonist than the boxing writer He finally came to write
the most interesting and colorful tales of boxing"-since Pierce Egan, the Irishman who was the historian of the London prize ring over 200 years ago but whose furbishment
of fistic fact has never been surpassed.

Hype was ghosting" for Jack Kearns for a newspaper
syndicate before the Dempsey- Tunney fight m Philadelphia,
uhich nas not long after the great bust-up between the
once pugilistic Damon and Pythias, and bitter feeling still
prevailed between Dempsey and Kearns. On the night before
the fight when Kearns was supposed to pick the winner
for the morning papers, Ghost Igoe could not locate
him. But feeling certain Kearns' hatred of Dempsey
would permit nothing else, Hype cheerfully picked Tunney
under Kearns' name. The following morning Kearns
sent for me and I found him walking the floor of his apartment at the Ritz-Carlton in Philly white with rage, the morning Wats spread out on the floor, his prophecy in
heavy type and very prominent. 'Tm going to kill Igoe,"
Kearns frothed. "I will kill him with my two hand*. He
has made me the laughing stock of the country with this
ridiculous (election." I pointed out there was nothing
he could do then and Kearns suddenly turned on me and demanded :
"Can this Tunney fight a lick on earth?"
"Why, yes," I said, "He can fight some."
"Then Igoe is right," Kearns shouted. "Tunney will win."

When I went downstairs I picked up a paper that had Hype's own by-line over his personal prediction and noticed he said Dempsey would
win?

SPORTS
By Cpl. TOM SHEHAN
HYPE JGOE, LINK BETWEEN OLD AND NEW IN BOXING

To his readers, Hype Igoe, the famous NewYork Journal-American sportswriter who died last month, was a sentimentalist living in the past. He was forever discovering another Stanley Ketchel, another Jim Corbett or another Jack Dempsey, but his latter-day Ketchels, Corbetts and Dempseys always developed g lass jaws. Fortunately for his own peace of mind, Hype never took their failures to heart. He went right on predicting future
greatness for other looking-glass fighters who were sensational only in the gym. But to people in the boxing and sportswriting business who knew him during his off-duty hours, Hype was a pleasant link with the pre-World War I era—-a never-go-home character who would sit up all night telling old stories and singing old songs. Everybody loved him, and the stories that were told about him received far wider circulation than those he wrote.

He had some strange habits. Broadway juice-stand attendants remember him as the little man in the pince-nez glasses and turtleneck sweater who insisted on having his orange juice served hot. And he liked to go out on the road with the fighters he wrote about. Max Baer dreaded Igoe's arrival at his training camp because Hype would rap on his bedroom doer every morning and shame him into doing road work.

Like most of the old school of fight writers, Hype fancied his own ability to throw a punch. As big as a robin and as cocky, he was particularly proud of his left hook. At the annual Journal clambake one year, his associates ribbed him up to try it out on the late Tom Thorp, the former All-American football player and noted gridiron and turf official who was over 6 feet tall and weighed more than 230 pounds. Sneaking up on the unsuspecting Thorp, Hype let fly with his hook. It landed flush on Thorp's square, granitelike jaw. Tom merely blinked and said "If that's the best you can do, Hype, throw it away. It ain't no good."

For years Igoe never bought a pair of shoes. Damon Runyon fancied expensive footgear but dreaded breaking it in. Hype took care of that detail for him and always wore the best. Runyon's favorite Igoe story concerns Hype's vague managerial connection' with Stanley Ketchel, the fighter whom he and almost everyone else considered the greatest middleweight of all time. The fabulous and unscrupulous Wilson Mizner was a friend of
Hype's, and when Hype took Ketchel to Philadelphia for a fight, Wilson went along for the trip. Ketchel won and made a very favorable impression on Mizner. On the way back home Hype was sitting in a drawing room on the train when Stanley came in, threw two guns on the table and said: "I want to talk a little business with you, Hype. I think I prefer to have Mizner manage me from now on." Looking at the guns, Hype swallowed and
said, "That's fine."

Next to boxing Hype loved to cover the sixday bike races at Madison Square Garden. On one such occasion he strolled out of the Garden with Jack Miley, then a sportswriter on the Daily News, to have a few drinks at Mickey Walker's bar across the street. Miley had been enjoying himself at the bike races, and he was complaining because he had to leave town and
go to Philadelphia to cover the Army and Navy football game. Hype said: "Jack, you're a much younger man than I am. The way to succeed is to do your assignment no matter how distasteful it seems to you. Go to Philadelphia and do the story and do a good one." After each drink Hype would scold Miley about not taking his assignments seriously.
Finally Hype missed Miley, but decided that he had gone outside to buy a paper. After a few more drinks, Hype looked up .and there was Miley beside him again, drinking a beer. "Jack," Igoe said, "it's getting late. Remember you have to cover that silly football game in Philly." "Hype," said Miley, "I've been to Philadelphia. I've covered the Army-Navy game and I've come back. Navy won 3-0. Have a beer

Nevada State Journal, February 14, 1945
"Hype Igoe, Board of Boxing, Will Have Permanent Place In Annals of Fistic World. By Jack Cuddy, U.P. Staff Correspondent
Hype Igoe-board of boxing: minstrel man of maul-has gone to join the immortals whom he glorified in his sagas of the ring: and they will welcome him because he was their crony and a great champion in their own line.

From the days of "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, little Hype and his glowing tales of gladiators probably did more to popularize prize fighting than the heroics of any ring-king about whom he wrote. For he was a genius at capturing the drama, romance and color of this strange profession.

His unfailing buoyancy was illustrated before the Louis-Braddock heavyweight title fight at Chicago in June, 1937. Mike Jacobs and the brigade of sports writers threw a party at the Morrison hotel for Hype, celebrating his 60th birthday. Hype, though suffering from the shingles, a skin inflammation, was the life of the party. Always on the alert for a gage, it was at his suggestion that the lights were turned out in the banquet room when a certain editor, who had a reputation for long windedness, rose to speak. The editor said, "Just sit still boys, and I'll talk to you until the lights come on." About five minutes later a waitor turned on the lights - and there was the editor talking to himself. His audience had sneaked out in the darkness.

Hype loved and lived boxing throughout his career on the San Francisco Examiner and the New York papers - Journal Sun, World and Journal-American. He did roadwork withthe fighters in their camps and was a buddy of virtually every champion from Corbett on down. He mingled with the managers around the taverns, and with the strange characters around the gymnasiums. They never seemed strange to him.

Many of Hype's stories were syndicated and read from coast to coast. He also did "ghost" writing for promiment fighters and managers. Writing for Doc Kearns before the first Jack Dempsey - Gene Tunney fight at Philadelphia he was unable to reach Kearns on the eve of the battle to get his prediction. Manager Kearns and Dempsey had split up. Hype figured that Kearns would pick Tunney to win, because of his dispute with the Mauler. So out went the story under Kearns name: "I Pick Tunney!" Meanwhile Hype picked Dempsey in his own piece.

When Kearns heard of his Tunney selection he was furious. He bellowed, "I'll kill that Igoe with my bare hands! He's made me the laughing stock of the country." Later he was delighted after the title changed hands that very night

iskigoe (Kevin) send me this photo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99bjInXujdo
"Jurame"
Nelson Ned

bennie wrote:I have tinnitus, Frankie (ringing in the ears). I've had it for years and learned to live with it because I had good days and bad, and lived for the good.
However, just after the New Year a new sound emerged, almost an audible sound, like someone whispering over and over in my ears. The good days are gone. Tinnitus is like lack of sleep: it does not kill anyone but it makes you feel like shit. It delibitates.

Bennie, you have my sympathy. I, too, have tinnitus, but mine is much milder than yours. Mine is a constant hissing in my ears - kind of like steam escaping from a vent. Some times it will get quite loud, but most of the time its just a background noise constantly in my head.

I'll be praying for you buddy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0FYaDt5nrk
"A Pesar De Todo"
Ana Gabriel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQNDhrokis
"Happy Birthday"
Nelson Ned