Tom Sharkey
Posted: 02 Sep 2006, 11:35
The following story was published in 1932.
Sharkey, once Ace of Ring, now Option Seller.
Tom Sharkey, worlds welter, middle and heavyweight champion of the nineties, the Irishman who, as a little boy of 9 ran away from his home at Dundalk, Ireland, working his way on sailing vessel’s out to China, India, and down to Australia,where he fed the native pearl divers cocoanut milk as they came up for air from their work, who came to Brooklyn to join the United States navy.
Who as a world renowned fighter ,rich in money and crowned with success, went home to Dundalk, Ireland as the prodigal son to buy back for the family the old farm from which they were evicted when he was a baby, to buy brass beds that thrilled the countryside, and to buy for his mother a cook stove.
Partner of Jeffries
Who, after climaxing his fisticuff history with exhibition bouts at King Edward VII's Jubilee London, England, became a figure in partnership with Jim Jeffries in the saloon history of California.
Well, he, Tom Sharkey, has been selling you options up there at the Tanforan race track all season, and bet you never guessed it. Well, neither did we until the other day. Tom Sharkey sat down inside the
option booth, that is his particular stall, to talk about Tom Sharkey the fighter, and the boy that was before that fighter.
A great, powerful figure of a man, with a chest and shoulders of a, wrestler, and, of course, cauliflower ears, Irish blue eyes, and a voice with a rollicking, musical lilt those are the thing you know right away about him. But.
Up and Down
Tom Sharkey is Rudyard Kipling's man. Kipling would like to know and write about this man of the world since 9, he's been up and he's been down. He has seen the black holes of Calcutta, the dives of Hong Kong, sailing vessels to Buenos Aires and Algiers; sleep against his another's breast as a grown man on an Irish farm; a sailor's life in the navy, where he learned to fight; love born in a hospital where he lay terribly ill until his mate's death; horses and race tracks all over the world, and saloons and all that they reveal of men's souls.
And yet, there is about him with all a naive ness born of complete sophistication that causes him to ask, "Is it all right if I smoke while we talk? " With adventure and romance of a thousand ports behind him then, at 19 he joined the United States Navy in 1891 and went with some other, sailor buddies to see Corbett fight Sullivan .in New Orleans the following year.
Pugilistic Seed Sown
At that fight, his love for the game was born, and aboard ship he commenced to train. He was transferred from the old Vermont to the Philadelphia, which went out to the Hawaiian Islands for three years, and the fighter was made. And he found himself suddenly with $12,000 from his fights.
0ne day in Honolulu, the captain of his ship called him to his cabin and asked him how long it was since he had written home. "I've never written," replied Sharkey. "Do you recognize the writing on that envelope?" asked the captain. "Sure; it's my father's writing,"Sharkey responded.
The captain gave the boy fighter the letter to read, inquiring from the captain, to whom the epistle was Addressed, if it were possible that reading about in the Dublin papers as the fighter could be his son.
Sent Fortune Home ;
After a talk with the captain. Sharkey .sent home $5000 and wrote to his mother. He had always been afraid that his father would have him taken out of the navy, because he wasn't yet of age, if he had let the family know where he was. In letters that came then to the boy Sharkey from his mother, he found that they had believed him to be dead.
From Honolulu he was transferred to Vallejo, and his first fight in California was at the Colma Athletic club in 1895, when he fought Australian Billy Smith, and with the betting 3 to 1 in favor of Smith, knocked the favorite out In seven rounds.
There followed the fight with Joe Choynski at the People's Palace two months later, and Sharkey knocked his opponent out in three or four rounds, he doesn't remember exactly.
Then came Jim Williams from Salt Lake City. Sharkey fought him at the Mechanics' Pavilion, and the fight was stopped by the police in the ninth round.
Then Came Corbett
Australia's terror, Joe Goddard, came next at Woodward's Pavilion, and Sharkey knocked him out in four rounds. Came Jim Corbett, who, looking the boy Sharkey over, said he could knock him out in four rounds. Sharkey took him up, and then Corbett, who had offered to bet Sharkey $10,000 that he could finish him in four rounds, backed out. Sharkey changed managers from Danny Needem to Tim McGrath, and Corbett
just guaranteed to knock him out.
At the fight the police stepped into the ring and slopped the battle because of brutality, they said, in the fourth round. "But Gee! I'd already knocked him down twice, and if they hadn't stopped us I would have knocked him out," ruefully remembered Sharkey. "They called it a draw."
Bob Fitzsimmons came next on Sharkey's horizon, and for a purse of $10,000 the two went into the ring and Fitzsimmons fouled Sharkey, and he got the fight.
Then came a tour over the country offering anyone whom he could not knock out in four rounds, $100.
In 1897 Peter Maher, champion of Ireland, and Sharkey fought in New York on Lexington avenue, and the fight-was stopped by police in the seventh round.
Home With Top Hat
'In 1897 I went home to Ireland. had lots of money. I got off the boat at Dundalk in a top hat and tail coat, and my mother and father and sister didn't know me. Mother was looking for the little boy that went away in corduroys when he was 9," said Sharkey.
"I stayed about six weeks and bought the family bathtubs and everything. I always had it in my mind to buy back that farm since my father told me about it just before I ran away," Sharkey smiling at the memory.
Then back to America, where he fought McCoy, Jeffries, Ruhlin, Corbett. Marriage to his nurse, Katharine Mclntosh, and then back to London in 1900 and retirement from the ring.
Paris, Berlin, and all the capitals of Europe with his bride, and a home on Long Island. Then in 1914 wife died and he came to California, where he opened Barker's Inn on Kearney street. So now he likes horses and he travels about with the races, working with the option booths.
Sharkey, once Ace of Ring, now Option Seller.
Tom Sharkey, worlds welter, middle and heavyweight champion of the nineties, the Irishman who, as a little boy of 9 ran away from his home at Dundalk, Ireland, working his way on sailing vessel’s out to China, India, and down to Australia,where he fed the native pearl divers cocoanut milk as they came up for air from their work, who came to Brooklyn to join the United States navy.
Who as a world renowned fighter ,rich in money and crowned with success, went home to Dundalk, Ireland as the prodigal son to buy back for the family the old farm from which they were evicted when he was a baby, to buy brass beds that thrilled the countryside, and to buy for his mother a cook stove.
Partner of Jeffries
Who, after climaxing his fisticuff history with exhibition bouts at King Edward VII's Jubilee London, England, became a figure in partnership with Jim Jeffries in the saloon history of California.
Well, he, Tom Sharkey, has been selling you options up there at the Tanforan race track all season, and bet you never guessed it. Well, neither did we until the other day. Tom Sharkey sat down inside the
option booth, that is his particular stall, to talk about Tom Sharkey the fighter, and the boy that was before that fighter.
A great, powerful figure of a man, with a chest and shoulders of a, wrestler, and, of course, cauliflower ears, Irish blue eyes, and a voice with a rollicking, musical lilt those are the thing you know right away about him. But.
Up and Down
Tom Sharkey is Rudyard Kipling's man. Kipling would like to know and write about this man of the world since 9, he's been up and he's been down. He has seen the black holes of Calcutta, the dives of Hong Kong, sailing vessels to Buenos Aires and Algiers; sleep against his another's breast as a grown man on an Irish farm; a sailor's life in the navy, where he learned to fight; love born in a hospital where he lay terribly ill until his mate's death; horses and race tracks all over the world, and saloons and all that they reveal of men's souls.
And yet, there is about him with all a naive ness born of complete sophistication that causes him to ask, "Is it all right if I smoke while we talk? " With adventure and romance of a thousand ports behind him then, at 19 he joined the United States Navy in 1891 and went with some other, sailor buddies to see Corbett fight Sullivan .in New Orleans the following year.
Pugilistic Seed Sown
At that fight, his love for the game was born, and aboard ship he commenced to train. He was transferred from the old Vermont to the Philadelphia, which went out to the Hawaiian Islands for three years, and the fighter was made. And he found himself suddenly with $12,000 from his fights.
0ne day in Honolulu, the captain of his ship called him to his cabin and asked him how long it was since he had written home. "I've never written," replied Sharkey. "Do you recognize the writing on that envelope?" asked the captain. "Sure; it's my father's writing,"Sharkey responded.
The captain gave the boy fighter the letter to read, inquiring from the captain, to whom the epistle was Addressed, if it were possible that reading about in the Dublin papers as the fighter could be his son.
Sent Fortune Home ;
After a talk with the captain. Sharkey .sent home $5000 and wrote to his mother. He had always been afraid that his father would have him taken out of the navy, because he wasn't yet of age, if he had let the family know where he was. In letters that came then to the boy Sharkey from his mother, he found that they had believed him to be dead.
From Honolulu he was transferred to Vallejo, and his first fight in California was at the Colma Athletic club in 1895, when he fought Australian Billy Smith, and with the betting 3 to 1 in favor of Smith, knocked the favorite out In seven rounds.
There followed the fight with Joe Choynski at the People's Palace two months later, and Sharkey knocked his opponent out in three or four rounds, he doesn't remember exactly.
Then came Jim Williams from Salt Lake City. Sharkey fought him at the Mechanics' Pavilion, and the fight was stopped by the police in the ninth round.
Then Came Corbett
Australia's terror, Joe Goddard, came next at Woodward's Pavilion, and Sharkey knocked him out in four rounds. Came Jim Corbett, who, looking the boy Sharkey over, said he could knock him out in four rounds. Sharkey took him up, and then Corbett, who had offered to bet Sharkey $10,000 that he could finish him in four rounds, backed out. Sharkey changed managers from Danny Needem to Tim McGrath, and Corbett
just guaranteed to knock him out.
At the fight the police stepped into the ring and slopped the battle because of brutality, they said, in the fourth round. "But Gee! I'd already knocked him down twice, and if they hadn't stopped us I would have knocked him out," ruefully remembered Sharkey. "They called it a draw."
Bob Fitzsimmons came next on Sharkey's horizon, and for a purse of $10,000 the two went into the ring and Fitzsimmons fouled Sharkey, and he got the fight.
Then came a tour over the country offering anyone whom he could not knock out in four rounds, $100.
In 1897 Peter Maher, champion of Ireland, and Sharkey fought in New York on Lexington avenue, and the fight-was stopped by police in the seventh round.
Home With Top Hat
'In 1897 I went home to Ireland. had lots of money. I got off the boat at Dundalk in a top hat and tail coat, and my mother and father and sister didn't know me. Mother was looking for the little boy that went away in corduroys when he was 9," said Sharkey.
"I stayed about six weeks and bought the family bathtubs and everything. I always had it in my mind to buy back that farm since my father told me about it just before I ran away," Sharkey smiling at the memory.
Then back to America, where he fought McCoy, Jeffries, Ruhlin, Corbett. Marriage to his nurse, Katharine Mclntosh, and then back to London in 1900 and retirement from the ring.
Paris, Berlin, and all the capitals of Europe with his bride, and a home on Long Island. Then in 1914 wife died and he came to California, where he opened Barker's Inn on Kearney street. So now he likes horses and he travels about with the races, working with the option booths.
