Frederick V. Romano - The golden age of boxing on radio and television: a blow-by-blow history from 1921-1964

Copyright 2017 by Frederick V. Romano

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo courtesy of AP Images

ISBN: 978-1-63144-074-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63144-075-5

Printed in the United States of America

To my mother and father, Rosemarie and Fred Romano,
for their unwavering support and for always taking seriously
my love for the sweet-sickness that is boxing.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with sincere gratitude that I would like to thank the following: The New York Public Library and its staff at both the Science, Industry, and Business Library in Manhattan and the Bronx Library Center; professional boxing referee Vic de Wysocki, who provided numerous vintage television shows from his vast boxing video collection; Radio Yesteryear, whose radio catalog proved an indispensable resource; the many boxing writers who have come before me who have written boxing articles and books that I have relied upon; those who have contributed to the warehouse of information on the Internet, particularly those who have exponentially expanded the availability of boxing video; the people at ProQuest who have made the arduous task of researching significantly more palatable; and special thanks to my sister, Lisa Romano Licht, who served as my presubmission editor for this volume.

INTRODUCTION

While much has been written about boxing from the 1920s through the early-1960s, there has not been a comprehensive treatment of the era specifically and exclusively from the prisms of radio and television. Those media were as important to both the development and portrayal of the sport as they were to the reshaping of our culture.

The Golden Age of Boxing on Radio and Television explores the many roles that each medium played in both the development and depiction of the sport. Principal topics covered are the ever-changing role in technology during the period of more than four decades; how the media impacted the manner in which the sport was presented to its public audience; the exponential growth of those audiences; and the impact radio and television had on the financial aspects of the sport. The selective use of radio and television and the financial boom that they created are also examined.

Additionally, the book assays radio and boxing during the Second World War; the role of organized crime and the monopolistic practices during the television era; a comprehensive look at the announcers who brought the action to the listeners and viewers; the many appearances that boxers made on radio and television when not in the ring; and the medias portrayal of the sport in an array of dramatic, comedic, and other programming.

PART I

RADIO

RADIO PROLOGUE

A. The Newspaper Industry and Boxing

To place the story of radio and the sport of boxing in proper context, it is helpful to understand the relationship between boxing and the newspaper industry as well as radios displacement of that industry.

Prior to the commercialization and proliferation of radio in the 1920s, the undisputed communicator of contemporaneous events and information was the newspaper industry. To appreciate the power of the printed press during the preradio era, one need only to consider the telling fact that both 1920 US Presidential nominees, Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox, were newspaper publishers.

During this era, major cities offered multiple publications, and many printed more than one edition daily. Other than attending a boxing match in person, a newspaper was the only means to obtain information about the fight game in a timely way. Magazines filled an important niche but were limited in number and reached the newsstands as much as a month after events occurred. The daily newspaper, however, could give almost immediate fight results. For example, a fight on a Friday evening in New York City could be reported in a late edition hitting the newsstands that very same evening. If the fight didnt make the late edition, it could be reported in the early morning paper, to be consumed with breakfast.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, boxing was not a legalized sport in the state of New York. Gotham had yet to ascend to the prominent role it would maintain for fifty years as the epicenter of the boxing world. Therefore, many major bouts of the era were fought in California, and the sport was West Coast-centric.

New York State took its first step to establish its dominance of the fight game in 1911, when the passage of the Frawley Law legalized boxing. New York was not the only state to adopt no-decision rules during this era. Other significant fight locations such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois passed similar laws.

The no-decision clause was inserted into the Frawley Bill and other eastern states laws primarily for two reasons. First, it served to placate a portion of the public that objected to boxings brutality and preferred that the sport be made illegal. It was believed by some that no-decisions would remove a fighters incentive to fight viciously, and consequently, the barbaric element of the sport would be curbed. In practice, this notion was ludicrous; the rule had just the opposite effect. The no-decision rule actually made the knockout the only definitive means of distinction between the two fighters and, consequently, a highly coveted commodity.

Second, it was believed that the no-decision clause would serve to hold in check a voracious betting public under the theory that a definitive decision was a prerequisite to wagering. This reasoning was also flawed. Bets could still be waged on a knockout result. As for bouts that went the distance, it was the newspapers that filled the void. Once the no-decision rule was put in place, gamblers agreed to rely on a given newspapers writer, letting his unofficial, written opinion stand as the final arbitrator of the bet. More sophisticated bettors would create a pool of judges by polling a number of different newspapers, letting the majority decision rule.

The no-decision rule spawned a system that was ripe for abuse. The newspaper industryin theory an objective news sourcebecame complicit in delivering a distorted version of the sport. It was common knowledge that bribes were given to and accepted by some As the nearly exclusive reporter of boxing, newspapers had been charged with the great responsibility of accurately reporting the fight game, but too often they failed. Between the corrupt decisions and an occasional legitimate difference of opinion, newspaper decisions varied greatly.

The 1921 bantamweight championship between Johnny Buff and Jabez White, held in Jersey City, New Jersey, illustrates how newspaper reporters sometimes created boxings own version of Kurosowas Rashamon . The New York Globe reported: When the smoke cleared away at the bouts close, Buff had another victory to his ever increasing collection. Buff outfought and outgeneraled his heavier opponent all the way. Such a disparity of opinion was not uncommon. When the no-decision rule ebbed and was finally erased from the sport in the latter part of the 1920s, the peculiar era of newspapermen serendipitously acting as judges came to a merciful end. The newspaper industrys entanglement in the no-decision debacle was a black mark on its record, obscured only by the publics reliance upon it for fight news.