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was wondering if there are any Boxers (or trainers)who had written their autobiography
but for some reason not widely known and quickly forgotten about,
perhaps due to it being published by a small and or obscure publishing company with only a limited amount of copies made.
or the co-writer just wasn't up to the job and it received little or perhaps no publicity at time of publication.

Caractacus wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 19:35 was wondering if there are any Boxers (or trainers)who had written their autobiography
but for some reason not widely known and quickly forgotten about,
perhaps due to it being published by a small and or obscure publishing company with only a limited amount of copies made.
or the co-writer just wasn't up to the job and it received little or perhaps no publicity at time of publication.

I stumbled onto Henry Armstrong's autobiography titled "Gloves,Glory,and God" with his autograph in a dusty corner of a used bookstore. Picked it up for 5 bucks. However it isn't much of a read.Been out of print for a long time.

dagosd2000 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 20:13

Caractacus wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 19:35 was wondering if there are any Boxers (or trainers)who had written their autobiography
but for some reason not widely known and quickly forgotten about,
perhaps due to it being published by a small and or obscure publishing company with only a limited amount of copies made.
or the co-writer just wasn't up to the job and it received little or perhaps no publicity at time of publication.

I stumbled onto Henry Armstrong's autobiography titled "Gloves,Glory,and God" with his autograph in a dusty corner of a used bookstore. Picked it up for 5 bucks. However it isn't much of a read.Been out of print for a long time.

What a great find.

I love stuff like that.

Just looked up Armstrong's record, first time in quite a while. First fight on July 27 (KO loss) then fought again 4 days later (points win). Imagine that happening today

Gloves, Glory, and God was a great book. Weird saying it wasnt much of a read.

klompton wrote: ↑17 Mar 2021, 23:16 Gloves, Glory, and God was a great book. Weird saying it wasnt much of a read.

The book didn't go into any depth about his fights,nor his trainers,or promoters.It also didn't give you a feeling for what that time period was like. Very superficial.Weird that you would think it's a great book.

That is weird because the Gloves Glory and God I read had a great deal of information about his career, particularly his early career struggles, tramping around the country, his yo yo weight making, lots of detail about his time in California, and a lot about his trainers and managers, etc. Im usually hard boxing biographies but this is one of the better ones Ive read.

maybe he got a boot-leg "non -authorised" edition.

klompton wrote: ↑18 Mar 2021, 16:21 That is weird because the Gloves Glory and God I read had a great deal of information about his career, particularly his early career struggles, tramping around the country, his yo yo weight making, lots of detail about his time in California, and a lot about his trainers and managers, etc. Im usually hard boxing biographies but this is one of the better ones Ive read.

I'll give it another read when I'm done reading Famous Gunfights Of The Wild West. It's been about 15 years ago when I read the book.Maybe I missed something.I'll get back with this.

I liked the Armstrong book too.

Not many people know but Carlos Zarate wrote his a few years ago, but it's only in Spanish, but I have it translated fully into English. It's a great read and the reader will gain a whole new appreciation to what he overcame on a human level.

chrisjs1985 wrote: ↑18 Mar 2021, 18:42 I liked the Armstrong book too.

Not many people know but Carlos Zarate wrote his a few years ago, but it's only in Spanish, but I have it translated fully into English. It's a great read and the reader will gain a whole new appreciation to what he overcame on a human level.

Chris
Also when I was in that used bookstore I found a signed copy of Julio Cesar Chavez's autobiography. The problem I have with it is 1:it's written in Spanish and 2:It was written while he was still fighting. An autobiography should be penned when a person is in his twilight years and has ripened with age,but not to the point that he's got dementia

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dagosd2000 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 20:13

Caractacus wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 19:35 was wondering if there are any Boxers (or trainers)who had written their autobiography
but for some reason not widely known and quickly forgotten about,
perhaps due to it being published by a small and or obscure publishing company with only a limited amount of copies made.
or the co-writer just wasn't up to the job and it received little or perhaps no publicity at time of publication.

I stumbled onto Henry Armstrong's autobiography titled "Gloves,Glory,and God" with his autograph in a dusty corner of a used bookstore. Picked it up for 5 bucks. However it isn't much of a read.Been out of print for a long time.

Myself I bought Termite Watkins autobio for two dollars at Ebay and when it arrived, it turns out it was signed by him! It didnt say anywhere on Ebay that it was a signed copy. As an autograph collector I treasured the surprise!

BUT BRO, YOU FOUND A HENRY ARMSTRONG AUTOGRAPH BOOK FOR 5 DOLLARS! That beats my Termite autograph book by a continent!!!

Gloves,Glory,and God(The Second Time Around)

So I led with my chin the other day saying that Henry Armstrong's autobiography,Gloves Glory,and God,"Wasn't much of a read."That was a pretty smug statement.So I got countered a couple of times by opinions that took offense.

I'll start by saying if I like a book I'll read it more than once. Maybe a lot more than once. I read Armstrong's book probably 15 years go. i never thought of going back to reading it.So to be fair to myself and the fellas who disagree with my smug remark,I said I'd go for a re read."Maybe I missed something."

There's not a human being who's ever walked on the face of the earth that you can't write a book about. If you're a good enough scribbler you can pull it off. But if you want to pen a story about someone famous you've got a head start. Henry Armstrong certainly fits that bill. But remember now, Armstrong's book was written in his own hand.Maybe.

Last night I finished reading a book about famous gunfights of the wild west and then pulled Gloves,Glory,And God off the shelf.I finished reading it this morning.Right off the bat I got a little puzzled reading Henry's "Foreward." He explained why he wrote his autobiography in the 3rd person instead of the usual 1st.I'll quote Henry.

"I've found that when I sit down and try to bring back to mind what happened to me at a certain time in my life,and what happened after that,and so on...I am really looking at my former self,or selves,as if they were outside of the person I am now...I find it easier to write of myself as another person."

"Then there's another point.Going all the way back to my early childhood,I honestly find it hard to know WHAT I remember...It's become all mixed up with the real memories."

Armstrong's book is roughly 250 pages. I'd ballpark it and say 240 pages are dialogue. For a guy who claims to have a foggy memory he's one rootin tootin quotin' dude. So he says he substituted the 1st person "I's"(that reminded him of telephone poles for 3rd person "He's"). To get back to the dialogue.I'd say every other sentence ends with an exclamation mark(!).It's so amateurish. If he wanted to convey excitement in his prose he doesn't need to use all those exclamation marks ,that by the way remind me of looking like telephone poles.

Reading his book made me think I was sitting in Mr. Rogers neighborhood listening to Mr. Rogers reading aloud to the little kiddies sitting on their resting rugs about this man who became a fighter. The word along the lines of Dr. Seuss.Here's an examlpe. Armstrong relates how he would trot home from school.

"Running was good for the legs,making them fit to bear a fighter;and it was good for the wind too.Fighters need long,strong wind."Brother.

He also touched upon being pin boy at the local bowling alley.

"Henry was stimulated by the competitive possibilities to developing his bowling technique...He became the best single performer among the other pin boys...His team would cheer him on and he would bowl better.the louder the better.Later in the ring he found the same heartening lift...cheering made him fight better just as it made him bowl better."Gee golly.

Then out of the blue he introduces us to his girl. He was in the dumps at the time.

"One comfort was Yvonne,his girl at the time.She tried tenderly to pull him out of the dumps.'You ought to go out and not sit around and mope like this' "
"Look Yvonne ,"Henry said quietly.Thanks for everything.(Gee,I wish he had let us know what she had done)This is something I have to see myself through."

That was it for Yvonne. In and out like a flash. No backround.no physical description.Goodby,good luck,I'm gone.(He didn't describe physically anyone of the people he was with in the book)

Shortly after turning pro in Los Angeles,Henry found love again.And again he introduced her like dropping a bombshell.

"He had been going with a girl who appealed to him.She was Willa Mae Shandly;her father wqs a reverend....Henry proposed and won a 'yes.' "
That was it for Willa Mae lock,stock ,and barrel until a few pages till the end and he lets us in on that she divorced him after a few years and now ,when he'd finally had enough of fighting, found a new wife named Barbara.Another ghost. In the last chapter we find out that Henry was a drunk and a carouser and dead broke. Surprise.Surprise.All this time he hadn't mentioned a word of it. But he found God(He'd been talking about HIM a lot and besides his sister in law told him he'd one day be a reverend) and turned his life over to HIm and everything was wrapped up nicely.

Of course no one cared about the stuff I just talked about.They wanted to know about his fistic career.He flew through it faster than he could throw leather in his prime. He did mention that he was approached to take it easy on a few fighters,but most of it was rote memory stuff.He included his boyhood pal Harry Armstrong who would became his trainer and his two managers Wirt Ross and Eddie Mead but never giving us a hint about what was underneath their skin or what their skin looked like. The glitch is not the subject, Henry Armsrtong.The problem is the way he's presented.And I seriously doubt if Armstrong did the presenting. The clue is in the last sentence of his ambiguous "Foreward."

"May I thank,at the outset,two who have helped me much:my good friends Eric Heath and Frank S. Mead."

These two guys wrote the book or why would he mention their names?.It's no autobiography from Henry Armstrong's hand nor mind. The 3rd person is not only a ruse but it separates us from who the real Henry Armstrong was. It's a horrible book about a great fighter.


Henry Armstrong.He deserves better in print.

"The Impossible Dream", the 1976 autobiography of Canadian two-time World Colored Heavyweight champion and British Empire titleholder Larry Gains is a good read, if you can find it. The foreword was written by Max Schmeling, who was KO'd by Gains in 1925. Gains also had a points win over Primo Carnera in 1932.

70's Chicago Journeyman heavyweight George Mostardini wrote an autobiography that was very detailed about some of his clubfights and the backroom politics and went into some very scary details of how bad of a beating he took in Oklahoma against Jimmy Cross and how his management seemingly set him up to fail at times. Pretty good read overall.

Best boxing book I have ever read was the Biography/Semi posthumous autobiography of the late James Salerno, 70's light heavyweight contender. It's based on lengthy entries from his personal journal and it's fascinating to read his completely open and vulnerable inner thoughts and recounting of his career as it happened. It does not have anything close to a happy ending however. Very tragic and poignant.

Back in 2000. James "Quick" Tillis published his autobiography
THINKIN' BIG. The Fightin' Cowboy
I have a copy it's about 8x6 and softbound (178 pp)
according to the forward,
Quick Tillis had been looking for a co-writer ,found one and he met him once a week at the local KFC on North Lewis street
Quick Tillis is from Oklahoma but the book was published in Toronto Canada.
I don't think it went into a second printing.
It's an interesting read but goes all over the place.

David Jaco's "Spontaneous Palooka and Mr. Mom: The Story of a Man’s Love for his Children and Prizefighting" was an interesting view into the world of the journeymen.

Gjennom Ringen (In the Ring) by Pete Sanstol, 1931 bantam champ.

See its history here: https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Gjennom_Ringen

Don Dunphy at Ringside (1988) by Don Dunphy

J-C wrote: ↑17 Mar 2021, 04:31

dagosd2000 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 20:13

Caractacus wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 19:35 was wondering if there are any Boxers (or trainers)who had written their autobiography
but for some reason not widely known and quickly forgotten about,
perhaps due to it being published by a small and or obscure publishing company with only a limited amount of copies made.
or the co-writer just wasn't up to the job and it received little or perhaps no publicity at time of publication.

I stumbled onto Henry Armstrong's autobiography titled "Gloves,Glory,and God" with his autograph in a dusty corner of a used bookstore. Picked it up for 5 bucks. However it isn't much of a read.Been out of print for a long time.

What a great find.

I love stuff like that.

What year did you find it ?
Because nowadays it seems the on-line sellers go and lookover the book carefully before they sell it on Amazon or
E-Bay.
But you made (at least) a 645 dollar investment with that five dollars.

Caractacus wrote: ↑22 Mar 2021, 20:03

J-C wrote: ↑17 Mar 2021, 04:31

dagosd2000 wrote: ↑16 Mar 2021, 20:13

I stumbled onto Henry Armstrong's autobiography titled "Gloves,Glory,and God" with his autograph in a dusty corner of a used bookstore. Picked it up for 5 bucks. However it isn't much of a read.Been out of print for a long time.

What a great find.

I love stuff like that.

What year did you find it ?
Because nowadays it seems the on-line sellers go and lookover the book carefully before they sell it on Amazon or
E-Bay.
But you made (at least) a 645 dollar investment with that five dollars.

I believe I ran into it in the late 1990's,maybe 2000 or 2001.Interesting that you mentioned the sellers of sports memorabilia,here we're talking boxing.They usually don't sell most of what they have because the bottom fell out of that market with the housing crash in 2008 and the exposure of counterfeit autographs.(San Diego had the biggest operation of manufacturing phony sport signatures in the world.The FBI moved in and shut it down and its participants went to jail)Baseball memorabilia is still the strongest market,but even America's National Pastime is on shaky legs. Boxing memorabilia is not in much demand.I know I stumbled onto something rare when I found that book with Armstrong's signature,but honstly I doubt that I could sell it for 645 dollars.People just don't have the "mad money" like they used to.Very few people ever bid on sports memorabilia unless it's something like a Mickey Mantle rookie card.But then it's "Buyer Beware."

Boxing Booth by Tony Booth (well known UK journeyman) and Becoming Taz by Jeff Bumpus (Mid West lightweight) are good reads for those interested in the sport from the perspective of those on the undercards trying to get by.