Boxing Short Takes: Seven Spring Titles on the "Manly Art"

There's a lineup of heavyweight writers across the decades who have succumbed to the allure of boxing. And it's a sport that has picked up many dedicated readers. Don't be on the ropes when they ask after the latest in the boxing genre. Here's what's on the schedule for spring 2011. And keep in mind two other titles: Randy Roberts's Joe Louis: Hard Times Man (Yale), given a starred review in LJ 9/15/10, and Sugar Ray Leonard's The Big Fight: My Life in and Out of the Ring (Viking), with Michael Arkush, publishing in June and profiled in Prepub Alert.

At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing. Library of America, dist. by Penguin. 2011. c.560p. ed. by George Kimball & John Schulian. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781598530926. $35. SPORTS
Boxing has long attracted strange bedfellows. This most visceral of sports has held special fascination for many of our foremost intellectuals, including many not on the sports beat. Coeditor Schulian (former sports columnist, Chicago Sun-Times) posits in his introduction that boxing so thoroughly reflects all facets of the human condition, from the utmost courage to the lowest degradation, that it is in fact a catalyst for the poetic, a theory born out by this collection of 48 pieces, including fiction and nonfiction. Alongside famed sportswriters such as A.J. Liebling, Bob Considine, and Red Smith as well as journalists like H.L. Mencken are literary luminaries ranging from Jack London and Sherwood Anderson to Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, and Joyce Carol Oates (all writing nonfiction). Boxing stirs, boxing disgusts, but boxing always captivates, as does this collection. For those enthralled with the history and and literature of boxing, this is a winner by a knockout.

The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800's to the 1920's. McFarland. 2011. c.302p. ed. by Colleen Aycock & Mark Scott. photogs. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780786449910. $45. SPORTS
Since the late 1900s, sports fans have become familiar with baseball's historic Negro Leagues and preintegration black baseball stars. Horse racing fans with an eye on the sport's history know of the importance of African American jockeys who, until they were excluded from the sport, won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbys. Ask all but fight historians about early black boxing champs, though, and they will likely simply come up with Jack Johnson. These 15 biographical essays by academics and boxing writers introduce us to landmark fighters from the 1800s to the 1920s such as Tom Molineaux, Joe Gans, Sam Langford, and Battling Siki. Round-by-round accounts of five of the greatest fights involving these men complete the book. The niche subject and copious footnotes may put off casual fight fans, but it's a winner by a split decision.

Kimball, George. Manly Art: They Can Run-But They Can't Hide. McBooks. Apr. 2011. c.384p. ISBN 9781590135716. $24.95. SPORTS
This pugilistic tour de force is composed of selections from the last decade of work by longtime boxing writer Kimball (former sports columnist, Boston Herald), coeditor of At the Fights, reviewed above. Where else could we expect to learn of Elvis Presley's bestowing a black eye that "looked like a travelling bag" on an obstreperous Memphis gas station attendant (references here as the most famous fight in Memphis before the Lewis-Tyson fight). Or Sen. John McCain's introduction of a resolution to grant a posthumous federal pardon to legendary African American heavyweight Jack Johnson? Or that promoter Bob Arum wrote off welterweight great Manny Pacquiao's 2007 Philippine congressional election defeat to the fact that voters feared he would quit boxing if he won? (He triumphed in a later election.) Such short pieces are topped off by a long essay on the historic heavyweight rivalry among Ali, Frazier, Foreman, and Norton. Boxing fans will give it a clear-cut decision in its favor, but an index would have come in handy.

Merz, Mischa. The Sweetest Thing: Inside the World of Women's Boxing. Seven Stories. Mar. 2011. c.304p. photogs. ISBN 9781583229286. pap. $18.95. SPORTS
Female athletes have received recognition in most major sports, but the place of women in that most masculine of sports, boxing, remains less clear and less studied. Merz, a kind of Renaissance woman, boasts achievements in journalism, art, and amateur boxing (she was the 2001 Australian Amateur Boxing League women's welterweight champion). Her first book on the sweet science, Bruising, delved into the psyche of boxing and boxers. Now this Australian relates her travels in the United States, rediscovering her love of boxing, stepping into the ring with American women, and revealing more of the world of women's boxing. In the end, this is a draw. Despite its becoming a part of the Olympics in 2012, to the general public women's boxing remains a slightly disturbing curiosity. The Sweetest Thing gets in some solid shots, but the odds are too long for it to pull off the win.

Mullan, Harry with Bob Mee. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Boxing. 6th ed. Carlton, dist. by Sterling. 2011. c.240p. photogs. index. ISBN 9781847326188. $29.95. SPORTS
This work, first authored by longtime Boxing News editor Harry Mullan in 1996, still bears his name as primary author despite his death in 1999. Coauthor Mee (boxing analyst, Eurosport TV; Bare Fists) provides the updates for this sixth edition. It is not what most of us think of as an encyclopedia (A-to-Z entries of persons and events). Rather, it is divided into relatively short sections such as "The Origins of Boxing," "The Great Boxers," "Legends of the Ring," (elaborations on a dozen of the over-125 "great boxers"), "The Great Fights," "Trainers and Managers," and more. Among boxing fans it will settle many arguments but start more (i.e., what makes a boxer "great" or "legendary"?), and that's OK, for it maintains interest in a sport for which enthusiasm has lagged over the past decade or so. A winner by majority decision.

Page, Joseph S. Primo Carnera: The Life and Career of the Heavyweight Boxing Champion. McFarland. 2010. c.257p. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780786448104. pap. $35. SPORTS
In this work, Page (Pro Football Championships Before the Super Bowl), a corporate learning and development professional, attempts to improve the image of Italian heavyweight Primo Carnera (1906-67). Carnera had much going against him, not the least of which was his size (over six and a half feet tall and more than 260 pounds). So much was expected of such a behemoth that holding the heavyweight championship for only a year in the mid 1930s could not assuage the woulda, coulda, shouldas. Also staining his reputation were conjectures of numerous fixed fights and Mussolini's use of him as a propaganda tool. What emerges here is a picture of a reasonably good, apolitical heavyweight who might or might not have been involved in fixed bouts (and was likely unaware of it if he was). It is questionable whether today's casual boxing fans will show interest in Carnera, and the scholarship might not be rigorous enough for academics. A draw.

Sugar, Bert & Teddy Atlas. The Ultimate Book of Boxing Lists. Running Pr. 2011. c.240p. ISBN 9780762440139. pap. $14.95. SPORTS
It's hard to imagine a team better equipped to compile this work than Sugar, boxing writer nonpareil, and Atlas, boxing analyst and trainer of champions. Throw in a few lists by guests like Muhammad Ali, and you have a book that will appeal greatly to boxing enthusiasts. Among the 88 lists are the expected (greatest fighters); the arcane (best body punchers); the amusing (best boxing nicknames); and the puzzling (heavyweight Ernie Terrell's favorite singers and musical groups). The book falls short of Sugar's stated intent to, through a collection of orderly miscellanea, create a kind of shorthand history of the sport, but to do so would be difficult. A winner by a majority decision, though an index sure would have been handy.

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