My View from the Corner Read online

  But most of those around the rings would spend more time schmoozing than watching—and if they were watching anything it was their coat, which had a habit of walking despite the sign reading, "Watch your coat." The noise and ruckus made by them in pursuit of deals and jokes often muted the sounds made by the fighters.

  The number of paying customers normally rose and fell depending upon who was training that day. When a heavily promoted fighter appeared and the word spread, the joint would be jammed. Perhaps the biggest day in the life of Stillman's came with the first New York appearance of the most ballyhooed fighter in the history of boxing ballyhoo: Primo Carnera. According to Stillman, more than two thousand of Carnera's Italian fans and fellow countrymen, along with the usual curiosity seekers, crowded Eighth Avenue, all the better to witness the man billed as "the Ambling Alp," and forcing the cops to come and clear the area.

  Toward the rear stood a bank of pay phones—beneath a sign warning against the use of slugs. Not just ordinary pay phones, mind you, but six or seven phones that served as the offices of many of the managers congregated at Stillman's who had listed their phone numbers in The Ring's "Manager's Directory" as COlumbus 5-8700, which just happened to be the number of Stillman's. Most of the time all the phones would be ringing off their hooks, nobody answering—not even the managers' assistants whose job it was to wait for calls. (And no manager would ever admit to waiting for calls that cost less than a dollar.) But in my job as boxing's "gofer," which included being the "phone picker-upper," I tried to answer as many of the calls as possible, calling out the name of the person asked for. And woe to those who were either tardy answering their call or weren't there to answer. For that was when some wisenheimer would take the call intended for someone else and make the deal offered on the phone. Maybe that's why several of the managers had small cubbyholes that served as offices along the back walls of Stillman's—so they could be assured of getting their calls. And why Chris rarely took calls at Stillman's, preferring instead to take them at his office across the street.

  Toward the rear wall was what could charitably be called a lunch counter that served, as Charlie Goldman would say, "a cuppa cawfee" and sometimes doughnuts. But, in the words of Rocky Graziano, it was "the only hot dog stand that don't serve hot dogs." And nearby, in the little nooks and crannies that surrounded the lunch counter, could be seen several managers talking through clenched teeth and half-chewed cigars, conspiratorially making deals or haggling with other managers over the terms for this or that fight for this or that fighter—or just retelling the latest boxing gossip.

  And farther back were the stairs leading to the second floor, where the fighters would go to loosen up or hit the bags or jump rope. And nobody, but nobody, got in the back if Lou didn't let them. He'd chase them away, hollering, "Get outta here, you two-dollar bum, you!" and then, just for emphasis, he'd spit on the floor—the spittle no doubt improving the appearance of the place.

  No, Stillman wouldn't be caught dead calling his gym a "sporting club." It was a gym, pure and simple. But the gym and its sights, sounds, and smells was to serve as my introduction to the world of boxing. It was to be a world I fell in love with on the spot, a world I yearned to become a part of.

  That seventy-five dollars a week Chris was giving me? Well, after three weeks it sort of dried up. One week I didn't get a check. So I thought maybe he'd take care of it the next and the next and the next. But it never came. Finally, he got around to telling me I would have to fend for myself.

  That meant, in essence, I had to hustle as much as possible to earn a living, any living. I would be at an arena where the fight guys gathered and volunteer to go get the beers. Big sport, right? Nope, short of bread but still hustling. I would also bring coffee to trainers, anyone, trying to scare up work, even taking coffee to the matchmaker at Madison Square Garden, Al Weill, hoping to get an assignment of a four-rounder at the Garden knowing that even if the bout didn't get on I'd still get paid.

  Once, carting coffee over from the Garden Cafeteria to Weill, I chanced to walk into his office over on Broadway and found him berating his son, Marty, hollering at the poor kid, "Dumb sucker, how could you put that four-round kid in without asking me?" and so on ... and on.... But most of the time the coffee was welcome as I continued to edge my way in, getting to know the important players and letting them get to know me.

  Thankfully, something worked as one trainer, Chickie Ferrara, sort of adopted me. I don't know whether it was because I was "Chris's kid brother" or a fellow paisano or just because I looked like a little stray dog waiting for someone to adopt me. But whatever it was, Chickie liked something about me, one time saying, "Hey, Angie, I've been watching you. You've got a nice way with the kids. They like and respect you. Stay in the game; you've got a feeling for it. If you need help, all you gotta do is ask."

  And ask I did, and Chickie took me through chapter and verse, teaching me everything there was to know about boxing, every little trick, every little angle, what to do, what not to do, everything. I was his student, he my teacher.

  First Chickie allowed me into his fighters' corner as a bucket carrier. To tell the truth, I was more concerned with the bucket than with the fighter, worried that, like Jack and Jill, I would fall down and not so much break my crown as spill the water. A lot of guys get buckets, but they tip them over. They wet newspaper guys; they flood corners; they don't know what the hell they're doing in there. There's much more to it than meets the eye. You've got to know how to handle a bucket—the bottle here, the ice there, and not too much ice, just enough to make sure it's wet enough to get the sponge into it. Little things like that. If you don't do those little things properly, you're in trouble.

  After a few of these "keep-your-eye-on-the-bucket" jobs with Chickie, as well as some with Charlie Goldman and Jimmy Wilde over in Jersey, my apprenticeship took on another dimension when Chris told me to go up to the Hamilton Arena up in the Bronx where "you're gonna work with Chickie." That "work" was helping Chickie with his six-round fighter and began in the dressing room when Chickie threw me a couple of bandages and a roll of tape and said, "Wrap this kid's hands." Great, Mr. All Thumbs was going to wrap some poor schnook's hands. But Chickie stayed with me all the time, directing me in what to do—how to lay the gauze long, how to lay the tape on top, how to strap the wrist, the whole megillah. The good news was that the kid won the fight and didn't break his hands. The better news was that Chickie wanted me to work the corner with him some more.

  I continued to get work on a regular basis and was now earning the heady amount of twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a week. And afterward, instead of just leaving the arena after the fights were over, I was invited by the rest of the guys to go out to their favorite watering holes where the talk would be boxing, boxing, and more boxing. But, like that old brokerage house commercial that went, "When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen," I kept my mouth shut and listened, my education in the fine art of training still continuing. As I always said, "You watch, you learn." And listen, too.

  I don't remember what it was I was delivering for Chris that afternoon, but it was something that took me to the Forrest Hotel over on West Forty-ninth Street. Errand over, I took the elevator down and found myself in the company of a debonair man of small stature wearing a well-fitted gray silk suit, an oyster gray fedora, and a sinister smile. Having read all the out-of-town papers that crossed Chris's desk, I remembered having seen a picture of this man, I didn't know in what context but thought it had something to do with L.A. gangster Mickey Cohen. Anyhow, after a few seconds of trying to recollect where it was that I had seen his picture, I turned to meet his gaze and said to him, "I know you...." In a quiet voice that commanded attention and obedience, he politely responded, "No you don't ..." in no uncertain terms telling me to look the other way—which was what everyone else in boxing had been doing.

  For this was Frankie Carbo, aka "Mr. Gray," a man who had his well-manicured fingernails in every pocket in boxing—and
his fingerprints on file at FBI headquarters.

  Carbo was no man to be trifled with. A member of the old Murder, Inc., mob, he had been implicated in no fewer than five murders, scuttlebutt having it that he was the "button man" in the offing of mobster Bugsy Siegel. Called "the Underworld Commissioner of Boxing," Carbo ruled the sport, making its fights, controlling its fighters, and enforcing his will, whether by manipulation, shakedown, threat, or strong-arm tactics. In short, you couldn't make a move in big-time boxing without his blessing. And that usually came with a price to be paid. In the words of matchmaker Teddy Brenner, "If you knew better, you didn't mess with him."

  But being new to the world of boxing, I didn't know any better. Maybe it was that I was too naive or too green. Or just that brother Chris, running a close second to a clam for the closed-mouth division title, never mentioned a word to me about Carbo or any of his group of associates—all of whom seemed to have wonderful Runyonesque nicknames like "Blinky," "Honest," "Gaspipe," and my favorite, "the Honest Brakeman," 'cause he never stole a train—except to let drop once that he had sold gum and candy on trains with "Blinky," as in Frank Palermo. And all of whom had rap sheets longer than Joe Louis's left.

  Carbo and gang were boxing's hidden secret, although it probably was the worst-kept secret in the history of the sport, their very presence at every big fight giving further evidence that they had attached themselves to boxing's soft underbelly. And while everyone could see Carbo & Co. at ringside, few made mention of it or even cast their eyes in their direction for fear they might be turned into blocks of salt. Or worse.

  One of those who did look in their direction was artist LeRoy Neiman, who was seated at ringside one night and spotted mobster Frank Costello nearby. Neiman had just begun to put pen to paper to sketch the mob boss when the publicist for the Garden, John F. X. Condon, rushed over and anxiously told Neiman to stop lest he "upset him." But Neiman paid Condon no heed, continuing on with his sketching until Costello noticed his efforts and sent one of his gangland gunzels over to ask for the drawing. Unfazed, Neiman turned to Costello's messenger and said, "Tell him he can buy one ..." and went back to his work in progress. As Neiman tells it, Costello later invited him to lunch and bought the sketch. But Neiman was one of the few, the very few, who dared to look in the direction of those called "the mob," especially Frankie Carbo.

  Any such talk about Carbo and his nefarious doings came in the form of rumors, and there were never more rumors than those that swirled around the outcome of the Billy Fox–Jake LaMotta fight in November of '47. Having just come to New York in the summer of that year, I was in attendance the night LaMotta "lost" to Fox, a fourth-round stoppage that left such a rancid odor that even the press smelled it. Dan Parker of the New York Mirror wrote, "There has always been larceny in boxing, but it's worse now than ever before." And every time the word larceny was employed, the name Frankie Carbo came bobbing to the surface, creating more rumors about his behind-the-scenes maneuverings.

  Rumor became the currency of the day. Especially when those in the training fraternity took to analyzing the Fox-LaMotta fight and every other fight that smelled even slightly fishy, studying each and every rumor as scientists would a specimen. And then, when finished discussing the many rumors of the day, they recycled those that had a faint odor from the past.

  Thus the trainers' grapevine was constantly revisiting fights such as the Rocky Graziano–Ruben Shank fight. Or, more correctly, the Rocky Graziano–Ruben Shank nonfight, which Graziano had pulled out of because of what he called a "bad back." But that bad back was rumored to have been a yellow streak that had run down his back after he had received a call at Stillman's offering him money to go into the tank against Shank. Rather than take the dive or rat against those he called "certain people," Rocky invented the injury. Another so-called fight revisited was the time Lee Oma had pulled what in the old days was called a "hippodrome" against British heavyweight Bruce Woodcock, flopping to the canvas like a beached fish the first time a Woodcock punch even came close in what the British press labeled, "Oma, Coma, Aroma." Then there was the time Goldie Ahearn, who controlled boxing in Washington, D.C., came running into the dressing room to tell the two featured fighters, Alex Miteff and his current sparring partner, "It's going too fast ... we've been having too many knockouts.... Carry each other!"

  There seemed to be hundreds of other stories about fights that were fishy at best; at worst, they were out-and-out flimflams, like the Fox-LaMotta fandango. And whatever the rumor, it always seemed as if Carbo and his henchmen, most notably Frank "Blinky" Palermo, had their fingerprints all over it, making the fights, fixing them, and collecting the money—both from the manager's end and from the betting end as well. There were times their overtures of "offers" were turned down, but those times were rare. Rumor had it that Sugar Ray Robinson turned down two of their offers, one to lose to Jake LaMotta, the other to Rocky Graziano, even though there was talk that, as one writer said, Robinson was "the greatest carrier since Mother Dionne," carrying several of his opponents the full distance for benefit of the boys, as he did against an outclassed Charlie Fusari. Another who turned the mob down was welterweight Billy Graham who, before his title bout with Kid Gavilan, was told by Carbo that he couldn't win unless he gave up 20 percent of his contract to Carbo. Graham didn't and didn't.

  Carbo and his gallery of rogues not only had alliances with several managers—it was even rumored that Carbo had cut himself in for a piece of Rocky Marciano's manager Al Weill's piece—but they also operated with heavy hands behind the scenes as the undercover managers of several fighters, the legally licensed managers fronting for those the New York State Athletic Commission deemed "unsavory" and "undesirable."

  And if that weren't enough, they also created an auxiliary, the Managers' Guild, to ensure that their will would be served. The guild was a closed shop where so-called uncooperative managers and fighters found themselves shut out of the big fights.

  An example of how the guild worked could be seen in the case of lightweight champion Ike Williams. For even though Williams was the National Boxing Association (NBA) champ, he was a free agent, independent of his manager whom he had fired for continually being drunk. But his manager had been a member of the guild. And the firing didn't sit well with the head of the Managers' Guild, Jimmy White, who would not tolerate anyone challenging the guild. "We're going to show everyone just how powerful we are," White trumpeted. "We're going to stop Ike Williams from fighting. And if anybody fights him, we're going to blackball them, too." Suddenly Ike Williams was an untouchable. That is, by all except Blinky Palermo, who approached Williams and told him, "Listen, Ike, you sign with me and I'll straighten you out with the guild." Suddenly doors opened for Williams, courtesy of the Managers' Guild and Palermo. But, in testimony a decade later before the Kefauver Committee—a congressional committee investigating organized crime—Williams testified just what he had found behind those doors: countless offers to throw fights and no payment for title defenses; in two of those defenses, Williams was short-sheeted his entire purse. Williams's plight so infuriated sportswriter Barney Nagler that he asked in print, "Why won't sharks eat managers?" and then answered his own question by writing, "Professional courtesy."

  Others sought to defy Carbo and his gang with even more dire consequences than those that befell Williams. Trainer Ray Arcel and promoter Sam Silverman tried to go it alone, staging Saturday night fights in Boston without Carbo & Co.'s sanction, and all they got for their efforts was being whacked over the head in the normal mob manner, with iron pipes wrapped in newspapers. The threat of the same for anyone else even thinking about not cooperating with Carbo & Co. was enough to bring the entire sport into line.

  Everyone, or so it seemed, was cooperating with Carbo and gang, even the sportswriters who were rewarded for looking the other way or for favorable coverage of their fighters; they would find fat envelopes stuffed with pictures of dead presidents on their press-row seats before big fights to than
k them for past favors. Bill Gallo of the New York Daily News, who has been on the boxing beat for years, remembers the time when he was approached by a manager of one of the top fighters who stuffed a fifty-dollar bill into his jacket pocket. "What's this for?" a startled Gallo asked, pulling the bill out. "Go buy your wife a hat," replied the manager, "She deserves it." To which Gallo said, "My wife doesn't wear hats," and shoved the bill back into the manager's hand. But many a sportswriter's wife was wearing a hat that season. Irving Rudd, the famed publicist called "Unswerving Irving" by Red Smith, said that even Nat Fleischer, the sainted publisher of The Ring magazine, "could be gotten to."

  But Carbo couldn't have happened without others looking the other way as well, in this case Madison Square Garden's president James D. Norris. Norris, one of the wealthiest men in sports, had amalgamated his holdings, which included ownership of the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks, together with those boxing interests held by his predecessor, Mike Jacobs, the 20th Century Sporting Club, and formed the International Boxing Club, or the IBC—better known in boxing circles as "Octopus, Inc." The IBC had a stranglehold over not only Madison Square Garden but also the Detroit Olympia, the Chicago Stadium, and other sports arenas in St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Omaha, and Washington, D.C. The IBC also had a million-and-a-half-dollar TV contract to package Wednesday night fights for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Friday night fights for the "Gillette Cavalcade of Sports." To fill those fight nights, he needed fights and fighters. And for that, he turned to Carbo to supply them.