kid McCoy
Posted: 03 Oct 2006, 14:57
Kid McCoy 1917
McCoy" -was a stage burglar, but that didn't make any difference to Norman Selby He liked the name and he didn't –want to fight under his own.
Since that day Kid McCoy has had a life of adventure such as no other boxer can boast He has been a world champion. He has fought In Africa, England, France and America. He has traveled on brake beams and in private cars. He has sold diamonds, automobiles and horses. And to-day, in khaki, he is awaiting the chance -for the "great adventure" Beside which all others are mere petty Incidents of-life.
While McCoy -wears the khaki and Is being- hard trained for active service the others who fought him In the great old days of the ring have all gone by and dropped from sight. I have seen McCoy, tall, wide shouldered, carrying himself with a military swing, leap into the ring to call for war volunteers (he has been a recruiting sergeant for the Seventy-first regiment of New York) and some of his old opponents peering up at him from ringside seats in sheer envy of his lasting vitality of the youth that clings to him in spite of a hundred lives lived in one.
Where, by the way. are the men who fought McCoy? , Choynski is a boxing teacher m Pittsburgh. Peter Maher has been down and out for years. Jim Corbett Is financially successful, but far beyond the adventurous stage that is driving McCoy into the fighting lines. Tom Sharkey is. "tending bar" in Los Angeles, California, and is fat and stodgy and settled down. Gus Ruhlin is dead. Tommy Ryan has a "club" In Syracuse. Many others have disappeared and are forgotten entirely. The khaki hasn't called them. They are all too old. McCoy is alone in his class.
Adventure Called Him.
Adventure always did call McCoy.He ran away from home when a Small boy in knee pants and rode around the country on brake beams and "side door Pullmans." .He was of a good family, and had been well
educated, while his education lasted. Also he was of an angelic appearance, so that the hard, cruel trainmen didn't- kick him off the trains, but took him into the caboose and him ham and eggs and coffee and sympathized with him when he told them he was a homeless orphan.
Somehow McCoy learned to box.He found out that he could hit one night when a brakeman tried to beat him up for "riding- the rattler." McCoy didn't wait to learn what hospital they took the brakeman to. He moved along. In a few weeks he was a sparring partner in some boxer's camp. And very soon after that he was fighting preliminaries and then star bouts in small towns. He didn't "ride the rattler" now. He got on a regular passenger coach, carefully selected a ticket check from the hat of some sleeping passenger, and went to his various destinations unquestioned.
In the next stage of his development he paid fares. But that was after he began earning a little money. Adventure began to prod young Kid McCoy as soon as he achieved some fighting reputation. He slipped away from New York and sailed to South Africa. There he introduced himself, quite privately, to a sporting person who conducted prize-fights.
This person fancied himself as a boxer. He offered the slight, slim, smiling Kid a tryout in private, and invited In a few friends to see him hammer a wandering American. McCoy half murdered him. He did It with a Bright smile of contempt on his face. The battered victim decided that the Kid could trim any heavyweight in Africa, kept It quiet and arranged some matches with big side bets.
McCoy did knock out one victim, but then some one discovered that he was "Kid McCoy" of New York. So the Kid gathered his earnings— a few thousand dollars—and sailed home again. No one else In Africa wanted his game.
Ryan "Thought He Knew."
The Kid's first great success came when he stopped Tommy Ryan. Ryan was a great fighter—middleweight champion of the world. Kid McCoy worked for him as a sparring partner, taking all the hard beatings Ryan
handed him and saying never a word. But he harbored a grudge , and the man He had a grudge against might as well order the flowers. McCoy resigned went away and got backing and an offer of a match with Ryan.
Tommy didn't know what to make of It when offered real money to fight his former sparring partner. But Kid McCoy wrote him a letter asking him to please make the loser's end of the purse a little bigger and -to refrain from "beating up" the unfortunate Kid too much. 'You know what you can do to me," wrote the Kid, plaintively.
Ryan thought he did. He cut out training and went into the ring fat and out of shape. He got the surprise of his life. McCoy, sneering and cynical, deliberately began to chop him down. Ryan fought desperately. McCoy knew his every move and had a counter for it. He wanted revenge. Refusing to knock Ryan out when he had him helpless he cut Tommy to pieces until Ryan's seconds threw In the sponge.
After that McCoy fought the best heavyweights of his time - all but Fitzsimmons. He always said he'd wait until Fitz was about eighty years old before challenging him. As I said before McCoy had brains, He
fought and beat Maher, Ruhlin. Choynski and others equally famous. He knocked Tom Sharkey down twice, and then the Sailor broke the Kid in two with a swishing swing into the stomach.
McCoy made a few fortunes In the ring. He lost them, as a rule, at the race tracks. McCoy was a fool for one thing - horses. He always thought he could beat the game that can't be beaten. Incidentally, the Kid has been married six times. A life of adventure surely did appeal to him. When he began to slip a little as a fighter he traveled around playing poker with chance acquaintances. This paid very well. It's said the Kid has no superior as a card player. Then he sold automobiles, had a diamond shop and became a stock broker.
Tiring of trade, he went to England, where Jack O'Brien was cleaning up all the English heavies. O'Brien fled from England when McCoy appeared. O'Brien always did think the Kid's poaching on his preserves rather unkind. McCoy knocked out three English champions In one night and after that there was nothing For him to do in England. He went to France And challenged the champion savate artist. It was Always been an open question whether or not the Skillful kicker could have have landed his Battling toe or heel on McCoy.
The Kid using the nimble brain that had often Served him well before. He won before the Frenchman could start As they squared off the Kid assuming a look of Pleased surprise looked past the crouching Frenchman and asked “Is that pretty woman your wife”. The Frenchman glanced over his shoulder, it was enough. McCoys blow caught him just under the ear. They brought him to an hour later.
Come Backs frequent for McCoy
McCoy went back to the ring at long interval after His retirement. Every time he showed some trace of His old skill. His courage always was away above the average. He outgamed and beat Young Jim Stuart, stopped big Jim Savage, and knocked out a big English champion at Nice. This was McCoy's last fight. It was a desperate battle. The Kid found the going hard. He was knocked down several times, and felt that his strength was going. But he saw a long scotch and soda brought to the timekeeper at the ringside. The official set the glass on the edge of the ring. McCoy edged around and took his next knockdown right in front of the official, reached out suddenly, seized the glass and tossed the contents into his sizzling interior. Within ten seconds he was on his feet and fighting again, refreshed and with new energy. He turned the tables and knocked his man out.
When America went to war McCoy was a moving picture hero, pulling several hundred Dollars a week. He cut that out, enlisted in the 71st and went to the Mexican border for several months. Since returning he has kept in khaki. He longs to round out his eventful Life by tinkering with a few Germans – with a bayonet. He has become as Skilful with that weapon as he was with that famous “McCoy corkscrew punch” of his.
McCoy" -was a stage burglar, but that didn't make any difference to Norman Selby He liked the name and he didn't –want to fight under his own.
Since that day Kid McCoy has had a life of adventure such as no other boxer can boast He has been a world champion. He has fought In Africa, England, France and America. He has traveled on brake beams and in private cars. He has sold diamonds, automobiles and horses. And to-day, in khaki, he is awaiting the chance -for the "great adventure" Beside which all others are mere petty Incidents of-life.
While McCoy -wears the khaki and Is being- hard trained for active service the others who fought him In the great old days of the ring have all gone by and dropped from sight. I have seen McCoy, tall, wide shouldered, carrying himself with a military swing, leap into the ring to call for war volunteers (he has been a recruiting sergeant for the Seventy-first regiment of New York) and some of his old opponents peering up at him from ringside seats in sheer envy of his lasting vitality of the youth that clings to him in spite of a hundred lives lived in one.
Where, by the way. are the men who fought McCoy? , Choynski is a boxing teacher m Pittsburgh. Peter Maher has been down and out for years. Jim Corbett Is financially successful, but far beyond the adventurous stage that is driving McCoy into the fighting lines. Tom Sharkey is. "tending bar" in Los Angeles, California, and is fat and stodgy and settled down. Gus Ruhlin is dead. Tommy Ryan has a "club" In Syracuse. Many others have disappeared and are forgotten entirely. The khaki hasn't called them. They are all too old. McCoy is alone in his class.
Adventure Called Him.
Adventure always did call McCoy.He ran away from home when a Small boy in knee pants and rode around the country on brake beams and "side door Pullmans." .He was of a good family, and had been well
educated, while his education lasted. Also he was of an angelic appearance, so that the hard, cruel trainmen didn't- kick him off the trains, but took him into the caboose and him ham and eggs and coffee and sympathized with him when he told them he was a homeless orphan.
Somehow McCoy learned to box.He found out that he could hit one night when a brakeman tried to beat him up for "riding- the rattler." McCoy didn't wait to learn what hospital they took the brakeman to. He moved along. In a few weeks he was a sparring partner in some boxer's camp. And very soon after that he was fighting preliminaries and then star bouts in small towns. He didn't "ride the rattler" now. He got on a regular passenger coach, carefully selected a ticket check from the hat of some sleeping passenger, and went to his various destinations unquestioned.
In the next stage of his development he paid fares. But that was after he began earning a little money. Adventure began to prod young Kid McCoy as soon as he achieved some fighting reputation. He slipped away from New York and sailed to South Africa. There he introduced himself, quite privately, to a sporting person who conducted prize-fights.
This person fancied himself as a boxer. He offered the slight, slim, smiling Kid a tryout in private, and invited In a few friends to see him hammer a wandering American. McCoy half murdered him. He did It with a Bright smile of contempt on his face. The battered victim decided that the Kid could trim any heavyweight in Africa, kept It quiet and arranged some matches with big side bets.
McCoy did knock out one victim, but then some one discovered that he was "Kid McCoy" of New York. So the Kid gathered his earnings— a few thousand dollars—and sailed home again. No one else In Africa wanted his game.
Ryan "Thought He Knew."
The Kid's first great success came when he stopped Tommy Ryan. Ryan was a great fighter—middleweight champion of the world. Kid McCoy worked for him as a sparring partner, taking all the hard beatings Ryan
handed him and saying never a word. But he harbored a grudge , and the man He had a grudge against might as well order the flowers. McCoy resigned went away and got backing and an offer of a match with Ryan.
Tommy didn't know what to make of It when offered real money to fight his former sparring partner. But Kid McCoy wrote him a letter asking him to please make the loser's end of the purse a little bigger and -to refrain from "beating up" the unfortunate Kid too much. 'You know what you can do to me," wrote the Kid, plaintively.
Ryan thought he did. He cut out training and went into the ring fat and out of shape. He got the surprise of his life. McCoy, sneering and cynical, deliberately began to chop him down. Ryan fought desperately. McCoy knew his every move and had a counter for it. He wanted revenge. Refusing to knock Ryan out when he had him helpless he cut Tommy to pieces until Ryan's seconds threw In the sponge.
After that McCoy fought the best heavyweights of his time - all but Fitzsimmons. He always said he'd wait until Fitz was about eighty years old before challenging him. As I said before McCoy had brains, He
fought and beat Maher, Ruhlin. Choynski and others equally famous. He knocked Tom Sharkey down twice, and then the Sailor broke the Kid in two with a swishing swing into the stomach.
McCoy made a few fortunes In the ring. He lost them, as a rule, at the race tracks. McCoy was a fool for one thing - horses. He always thought he could beat the game that can't be beaten. Incidentally, the Kid has been married six times. A life of adventure surely did appeal to him. When he began to slip a little as a fighter he traveled around playing poker with chance acquaintances. This paid very well. It's said the Kid has no superior as a card player. Then he sold automobiles, had a diamond shop and became a stock broker.
Tiring of trade, he went to England, where Jack O'Brien was cleaning up all the English heavies. O'Brien fled from England when McCoy appeared. O'Brien always did think the Kid's poaching on his preserves rather unkind. McCoy knocked out three English champions In one night and after that there was nothing For him to do in England. He went to France And challenged the champion savate artist. It was Always been an open question whether or not the Skillful kicker could have have landed his Battling toe or heel on McCoy.
The Kid using the nimble brain that had often Served him well before. He won before the Frenchman could start As they squared off the Kid assuming a look of Pleased surprise looked past the crouching Frenchman and asked “Is that pretty woman your wife”. The Frenchman glanced over his shoulder, it was enough. McCoys blow caught him just under the ear. They brought him to an hour later.
Come Backs frequent for McCoy
McCoy went back to the ring at long interval after His retirement. Every time he showed some trace of His old skill. His courage always was away above the average. He outgamed and beat Young Jim Stuart, stopped big Jim Savage, and knocked out a big English champion at Nice. This was McCoy's last fight. It was a desperate battle. The Kid found the going hard. He was knocked down several times, and felt that his strength was going. But he saw a long scotch and soda brought to the timekeeper at the ringside. The official set the glass on the edge of the ring. McCoy edged around and took his next knockdown right in front of the official, reached out suddenly, seized the glass and tossed the contents into his sizzling interior. Within ten seconds he was on his feet and fighting again, refreshed and with new energy. He turned the tables and knocked his man out.
When America went to war McCoy was a moving picture hero, pulling several hundred Dollars a week. He cut that out, enlisted in the 71st and went to the Mexican border for several months. Since returning he has kept in khaki. He longs to round out his eventful Life by tinkering with a few Germans – with a bayonet. He has become as Skilful with that weapon as he was with that famous “McCoy corkscrew punch” of his.