Boston Tabloid - The Book You Need This Summer

 "A RIVETING READ FROM COVER TO COVER"

Midwest Book Review

 

 

"an intriguing story of fatal obsession"

 Kirkus Reviews

                    

"Everything a top-notch true-crime book should be and more.”

—Linda Rosencrance, 

author of Murder at Morses Pond

 

Don Stradley's Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict, is a tantalizing look back at a 1983 murder case that rocked the city of Boston. Did a well-respected MIT scientist really murder a young woman? And was she really a sex worker from the city's infamous Combat Zone district? 

"takes true crime to the next level"

—M. William Phelps, former host of ID's DARK MINDS, New York Times bestselling author, and host of iHeartMedia's podcasts Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps and Paper Ghosts

 

Buy it from Amazon - rb.gy/awrami

 

Nate Siegel: Marked for Death

 He survived World War One, but was no match for Boston’s Underworld…

 by Don Stradley

 

 

Nate Siegel in his prime, circa 1920

 

On August 13, 1934, at approximately 2:00 AM, Nate Siegel was in the living room of his home on 64 Endicott Ave in Revere. His wife and two children were sleeping, but he was up late, tending to business. He was looking at receipts from the Clover Leaf Cafe, a tavern on North Shore Road of which he was part owner. 

 

He’d been a professional boxer a decade earlier and was a hero in his neighborhood; being a tavern owner was a natural progression for the former welterweight champ of New England. In the stillness of the early morning hours, he ruffled through the day’s receipts. At one point he drew the curtain of the front window; as he did so an assassin with a shotgun fired at him through the glass. 

 

The horrible blast woke his wife, Clara. She rushed out to find her husband on the floor, his face, neck and shoulders torn apart, his café receipts scattered around him. Siegel had died instantly. Police would find the abandoned getaway car a half-mile away in East Boston’s Orient Heights neighborhood. They described it as a “cheap sedan” fitted with orange Maine number plates. Wrapped in brown paper and jammed under the rear seat was a .12-gauge automatic shotgun. The killer, though, had vanished like one of those shadowy gunmen in an old-time radio serial.

 

Conflicting stories emerged. His wife said Siegel had no enemies. Yet his friends and the café staff said he’d had run-ins with people all the time. Some members of his inner circle claimed Siegel had talked about being marked for death. He’d spoken about a gangland plot to “get” him, yet he’d given no specific reasons and made no effort to conceal his movements or get out of Revere.

 

The café had been in the news a few times that year. A young man had tried committing suicide in the men’s room. He’d been upset after being spurned by a girlfriend. On another occasion, a night watchman foiled a burglary attempt. Later, burglars successfully broke in and robbed a peanut vending machine. Revere was going through a rash of burglaries at the time. Desperate young men at the height of the Great Depression were resorting to petty crimes. Yet despite police questioning everyone connected with the place, the Clover Leaf Café couldn’t be connected to Siegel’s murder.

 

Police speculated that Siegel had come between rival gangs of liquor distributors. There was talk of an impending gang war, and local authorities made a lot of noise about breaking up Revere’s “racket conditions.” Even the Federal Government took an interest.  The case was feared to have broader ramifications than just the death of a tavern owner, and city authorities felt the local police were ill equipped to handle the investigation. A city councilman declared, “The police here are so used to gang conditions and practices that they have become inoculated to them.”  He believed outside aid was needed, “in cleaning up the city.”

 

 

Police examine the supposed getaway car.

 

  

The automobile with the shotgun in it had been reported stolen many months earlier. The trail reached all the way to Providence, RI, though both the car and the weapon were registered to fictitious Maine persons. Both the car and the gun were clean of fingerprints, suggesting to police that the job was done by professionals, not punks.

 

The weapon, an automatic shotgun, lent further credence to Siegel’s murder being a gangland crime. It was the same type of weapon used in a pair of recent gang murders in Boston, as well as a botched attack on a store on Boston’s Washington Street. Police believed a killer, or killers, were being hired by mobsters for what they called “spot jobs.” The guns were expensive new models, but the police surmised that if a hit man was being paid a good amount to kill someone, there was no loss in buying a new gun for the job and discarding it. Like the piece used to kill Siegel, an abandoned shotgun found after the failed store shooting was registered to a fictional Mainer.

 

As more information was gathered, the police only grew frustrated. None of the pieces fit together. In time, investigators couldn’t settle on whether the murder was gang related, or merely a personal incident that had escalated into violence. Siegel was, his friends said, a bold man who didn’t back down from anyone.

 

It also seemed the area’s boxers were getting whacked on a regular basis. George Brogna, who fought as “Johnny DeLano,” was a featherweight with a record of 12-9-5. He’d also been deeply involved in gangland activity and had allegedly killed a local bootlegger, “Big Mike” Richardi (who had been suspected of killing another fighter, Johnny Vito, in a similar hit.). In 1933, Brogna’s body was found in Revere. Beaten about the head and shot three times, 26-year-old Brogna was dumped three miles from his East Boston home. 

 

George Brogna

That same year saw the murder of Joseph Wolf, a petty criminal with gang ties who fought as “Charley ‘KO’ Elkins.” His ring resume was 15-9-2, plus 72 arrests and 11 appeals. He was found dead on a South End sidewalk. It was believed that the owner of a local barroom had killed him. Wolf, a 34 year-old still living with his mother on Harrison Avenue, had tried to shake the owner down for “protection” money. Big mistake.

 

In December of 1937, David “Beano” Breen, a former boxer who became a big name in the Boston rackets, was fatally shot in the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel on Tremont Street. Breen was popular in South Boston, particularly for his donations to local charities, but he also had a lengthy criminal record, including four arrests for assaulting police officers. “Breen was big, belligerent, and used his fists,” reported the Globe. As Breen lay dying at City Hospital, orderlies rifled his pockets and made out with $15.00. It was also noted by the Globe that an unnamed boxing promoter visited police headquarters to discuss Breen’s murder, and an ex-pugilist from the North End who had recently served a term for manslaughter was brought in for questioning and released.

 

Brogna. Wolf. Siegel. Vito. Breen. Five area fighters killed in a short time span. This doesn’t even consider the number of Boston fighters killed accidentally by guns “they didn’t know were loaded,” or in drunken street fights that intensified into knife murders. The difference between Nate Siegel and the others was that he’d been a main event fighter, and a damned good one.

 

He’d grown up in Boston’s West End, where he was said to have had “a good many scraps.” Siegel began his professional boxing career in 1916, winning several bouts in Boston before joining the war effort in 1917. After serving 13 months overseas in the 82^nd Division (and suffering shrapnel wounds in the right arm) he resumed fighting in the ring. By this time his family had settled into Revere’s Beachmont neighborhood, and Siegel often stayed at their home on the corner of Shirley Avenue and Nahant Street. It made him a favorite among the locals. Boxing was soaring in popularity, and Revere had its very own fighter to admire.

 

A 21 bout undefeated streak was highlighted by a points win over a shopworn Ted “Kid” Lewis of Britain, and a decision over Tommy Corcoran (aka “Young Kloby”) in front of 15,000 at Braves Field. The Globe declared the Siegel-Corcoran bout was, “one of the best battles ever held in Boston.” It also earned Siegel the welterweight championship of New England, a minor title that no doubt filled its winner and his loved ones with pride.

 

Siegel, circa 1921

 

Siegel was a celebrity, known for speeding around Boston and Revere in his Cadillac. He was colorful, a capable trash talker. He could also tell entertaining stories about the war. His popularity was at its peak in 1922 when his bout with Dave Shade at the Boston Arena was filmed, making it the first Boston bout captured on celluloid.

 

He was especially proud of his Jewish heritage, always sticking it to promoters who had once tried to saddle him with an Irish gimmick. “Why should I change my name and put on green tights?” Siegel said. “Can’t the Irish do their own fighting?” The irony was that his tavern had an Irish motif – the cloverleaf – and most of the clientele was Irish.

 

If Siegel wasn’t willing to become Irish, he was more than happy to compete against the area’s many Irish brawlers, particularly Patrick J. “Paddy” Flynn of Everett. The Siegel - Flynn series had everything – not only was it a Jewish fighter versus an Irishman (one of boxing’s hot ethnic rivalries of the period), but their respective hometowns, Revere and Everett, had always been competitive in amateur tournaments. Moreover, the camps of Siegel and Flynn had a rather loud rivalry in the press, hurling insults back and forth. Promoters had a small goldmine in Siegel and Flynn. They fought twice at the Boston Armory in 1920, and once at the Boston Arena in 1921.

 

Siegel won the first two bouts on points, but they were close enough that another meeting was called for. The third bout, which headlined the first boxing show at the Arena after it had been damaged by a fire in 1918, turned out to be a dud. Both fighters showed up overweight, and Flynn was so listless that the referee stopped the fight in the eighth and gave it to the Revere man. “He had every round,” the Boston Post wrote of Siegel, “but gained little prestige from the fray.”

 

Siegel’s time at the top was fleeting. He lost several bouts, including a pair to future Hall of Famer Mickey Walker, the second of which saw Siegel knocked cold for several minutes. On May 27, 1924, immediately after a loss to Rocky Smith at Boston’s Grand Opera House, Siegel retired from fighting. He left the boxing business with a record of 39-16-14 with 17 wins by KO and two no-decisions.

 

Siegel settled down with Clara, became a father, and occasionally offered his services as a boxing trainer. He was a well-liked man in the Beachmont neighborhood. His café was popular. Life was nice.

 

His murder at age 38 left the police baffled. State Detective John F. Stokes wondered aloud for the Globe at Siegel’s carelessness on the night of his death. If, as his associates claimed, Siegel knew gangsters were after him, why was he so cavalier about standing in front of his window? Did he think his pursuers had been called off? Or was Siegel merely acting in what his friends described as his “courageous and defiant manner?”

 

Chances are, this fighting man who had been in the ring as well as the front lines of World War One felt there was nothing to fear.

 

Siegel’s funeral was a major event. More than 7,000 mourners gathered along the streets of Revere as a cortege of 165 cars proceeded to a nearby synagogue.

 

The Siegel case remained unsolved. There were attempts to link it to other unsolved Revere killings in the next few years, particularly for shooting victims involved in the city’s underground gambling racket. Whether Siegel had been involved in gambling was never established.

 

Siegel’s old rival Paddy Flynn also came to a grisly end. Four years after Siegel’s death, an unknown assailant murdered Flynn at a Malden gaming house. Flynn died as doctors tried to remove a .22 slug from his brain.

 

What are the chances that Siegel and Flynn, who had battled each other three times, would both be shot and killed, and both of their murders would go unsolved? Those who saw them fight at the old Boston Armory thought it was just another local rivalry. They couldn’t have known they were watching two doomed men.  

 

***

My book, Slaughter in the Streets,  explores a period of time where many Boston area boxers were killed in what appeared to be mob-related ambushes. Most went unsolved. For reasons of length, the section on Nate Siegel was cut. I've always wanted to share it.  

If you'd like to read the book, look for it on Amazon.  https://rb.gy/2qfxin

 

 

 

RICHARD CRENNA IN THE COMBAT ZONE

When a Hollywood Nice Guy Played a Sicko

 by Don Stradley

 

Richard Crenna as Prof. William Douglas in The High Price of Passion

It didn't sound right. Richard Crenna, an actor known best for playing upstanding, intelligent characters, was cast in an NBC movie as a sex-addicted college professor who murdered a young woman.

 

Anyone who had followed the infamous William Douglas case in 1983 thought it was an odd casting choice. Douglas was a well-known professor from Tufts University who became embroiled with a 21-year-old sex worker named Robin Benedict. When she tried to end their ongoing "affair," he bashed her head in with a hammer and disposed of the body. 

 

Those who had seen pictures of Douglas knew he was a grossly overweight clod  who frequented Boston's red light district. He was a stalker, an embezzler, and an all-around creep. Crenna seemed too  charismatic for such a role. Of course, if you weren't familiar with the case,  you could just accept it as another cheesy, made-for-TV crime movie of the week. The networks were grinding them out in those days.

 

But even Crenna knew it was unusual to see him as a villain. He generally played good guys.

 

"This latest role gave me the opportunity to go 180 degrees in the other direction," he told the New York Daily News. "It was a pathetic sexual relationship."

 

"There were so many facets to this character. When he was teaching at college, he had tremendous command, lots of charm, and was in control of the people he taught. But in his relationship with the prostitute, she controlled him. She totally dominated him. He became childlike, a boy. That's how I played him."

 

The High Price of Passion (1986) was aired on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 1986. It was given a high profile slot, with ads blaring in advance. The case was already a few years old, but it had received nationwide attention and was still hot. To his credit, Crenna promoted the hell out of the movie. 

 

"These kinds of roles are terrific to play," he said. "It gives me a chance to find out what I can do."

 

###

 

The real William Douglas

When I was writing my book, Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict, I had a chance to watch the movie again. My memories of it were vague, only that it came out in the heyday of made-for-television true crime movies. Frankly, I had more vivid memories of Mark Harmon playing Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger, and Tommy Lee Jones as Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song. When I rewatched The High Price of Passion,  I saw a standard TV drama that was filmed in Toronto, not Boston, and Crenna doing his best to look like a rumpled professor. The movie wasn't terrible, but from my research of the case I knew it  was missing the target.

 

The main issue was Crenna. He was a 60-year-old man, while Douglas had been 41 at the time of the murder. Douglas weighed 300 pounds, while Crenna was probably less than 200. And Douglas was known for his his high-pitched voice, while Crenna had a strong, actor's voice.  

 

For that matter, no one in the movie looked like the characters they were playing. The Benedict family was portrayed by mostly Irish, or Anglo actors, when the father was actually from South America, and dark-haired Robin Benedict looked much like her Latino dad. Fair-skinned and fair-haired Karen Young portrayed Benedict, and played her as a callow, not too bright young woman.  

 

Benedict's Black pimp was written out of the story completely. Instead, she had a white boyfriend. There was even a scene where Robin showed up at her parent's house to announce that she was done with the street life, and ready to live happily ever after. None of this happened, but that's a TV movie for you. Facts were not important. It was just a way to spend a Sunday evening in front of the tube. 

 

Furthermore, the TV-movie stripped away the edges of the story. Where was the cocaine? Much of the money Douglas embezzled was to help feed Benedict's drug habit. There's not a single line of the stuff to be seen in the movie. And while many Boston area prostitutes claimed Douglas as a client, the movie makes it seem as if Benedict was the first sex worker he ever met, and that he simply mewled around her like a puppy. Strangest of all, Douglas' wife and children go unseen in the movie. He doesn't even admit to having a family until the movie's end.

At the time of the movie's release, the Benedict's declared it was good to see their daughter portrayed in a nice way (the media of the time tended to depict her as hardhearted and greedy, while the movie made her more of a sweet girl who had made some bad choices). The family, however, thought Crenna was too nice as Douglas, and that the violent murder of their daughter was glossed over. They were correct about that - we see Douglas and Benedict scuffling in silhouette, but we don't see the bloodbath that must've taken place.

 

Sate trooper Paul Landry, who was one of the key investigators, thought the movie was laughable. He told me, "When they raided Douglas' house, they knocked on the door and said, 'Boston City Police.' There's no such thing." 

 

It was also odd that Crenna sat by while the investigators went through his house. In real life, Douglas was a nervous wreck, acting strange the whole time the troopers were there.

 

Moreover, since it was a TV movie, the sordid milieu of Boston's red light district - the notorious "Combat Zone" - was downplayed. Then again, it was unlikely anyone could've recreated the boiling cauldron of sleaze that Boston was in that period. The High Price of Passion was an R-rated story squashed into a PG-rated script. "That movie was crap," said Landry. "Not even close." 

Ultimately, the movie was a very basic version of the story. It seemed to be simplified for people with limited attention spans. 

 

Yet The High Price of Passion was a success. It drew an 18.9 in the Nielson ratings, finishing an impressive 15th for the week, well ahead of such popular programs as Moonlighting, ALF, and a repeat of Miami Vice. In its own time slot, it whipped the other competing programs, including a showing of Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz on ABC. NBC had to be pleased. The network had gambled that the Douglas-Benedict story would pull in viewers, and that Crenna could play the professor.

 

Along with solid ratings, The High Price of Passion did well with  critics. The Boston Globe called it "not a bad movie," and despite his not being right for the role, praised Crenna. He "manages to capture the nuances of the professor who could not control his obsession," reported the Globe's TV critic. 

 
Most of the reviews around the country were positive. Some reviewers noted the many holes in the plot, but that's how the case was: full of holes and unanswered questions. 

 

Generally, Crenna was applauded. But by that time in his career, Crenna was a reliable journeyman actor.  Even if he wasn't the perfect Douglas, Crenna was always a solid, watchable performer. People liked the guy. Douglas, a selfish nutjob, was too well-served. 

 

###

 

You can read more about this case in my book, Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict.

 

"an intriguing story of fatal obsession" - Kirkus Reviews

 

Pick it up from Amazon  https://rb.gy/ofvem6

 

You can also purchase it from Hamilcar Publications. https://hamilcarpubs.com/books/boston-tabloid-the-killing-of-robin-benedict/

 

 

 

Another Tainted Star in the IBHOF

 

He stood five feet, ten inches tall, which was enormous for a featherweight. Compare him to, say, Sandy Saddler, who was considered freakish at five feet eight, and you understand the size of Diego Corrales. Even as a lightweight, he was taller than most. This, possibly, was why opponents came at him so hard. He once said to me, “I can box a lot of different ways, but I always end up in a brawl.” He was a physical anomaly. At full height in the center of the ring, he looked like a King Cobra rising to strike.

Yet he was hardly snakelike. The fact is that Corrales, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame next June, was more like a junkyard dog, willing to fight with his ears and tail torn off. Alas, it wasn’t until the later days of his career that we truly appreciated Corrales’ fighting spirit. He’d always been a fighter we wanted to see, but near the end, he was a fighter we had to see.

He was always smiling. Smiling at how he had lived his boyhood dream to become a professional fighter; smiling at how he became a titleholder at 23; and absolutely beaming after any of the 40 wins on his record. He reacted to each of his victories like a kid who had been surprised by an unexpected birthday gift.

That’s why it was always hard to reconcile this likable, oversized boy with the fact that he had a history of violence against women and once served 14 months in a state prison for felony spouse abuse. What went on in his mind? We’ll never know.

He was 29 when it all ended. He’d lost three fights in a row, which is hard to come back from. He was on his third marriage, and it, too, was falling apart. He had problems with the IRS and was running out of money. Friends said he was optimistic about his career and his troubled marriage, but Corrales seemed like a man with an uncertain future.  Just weeks after his most recent loss, he was riding his Suzuki motorcycle northbound on Fort Apache Road in the Las Vegas Valley. He was drunk. Along with hitting women, he had a history of drunk driving arrests. On this night he rammed into the back of a car. The impact left the Suzuki looking like a crushed Coke can, and sent Corrales hurtling 100 feet. When Corrales landed, he was struck by another car. He died hard.

He had become a legend of sorts by then, all because of one fight – and it is largely because of that one fight that he has been selected for enshrinement in Canastota – a stunning, 10th round come-from-behind knockout of Jose Luis Castillo in 2005. It was contested in a half-empty Mandalay Bay Center for alphabet belts that no one remembers, but a generation of boxing fans considered it the best fight in history. Who could argue? Corrales and Castillo had battered each other. Their faces and torsos were beaten into colors we’d never seen on human flesh. The bruises weren’t black and blue; they were grey, or muddy brown. It was as if the contusions were in pain, screaming for mercy.

Castillo was about to win, having sent Corrales to the canvas twice in the 10^th, but somehow Corrales landed a right on Castillo’s cast-iron jaw. Jose Luis sagged into the ropes unable to defend himself. Corrales threw a few more punches until referee Tony Weeks stepped in. It was instantly an all-time classic.

“We were going to box,” Corrales said later, “but I kind of shredded that game plan once the fight started. I was just in the mood to fight.”

That gritty side had existed in Corrales all along. There was a bout with Joel Casamayor where Corrales was bleeding so badly from a cut in his mouth that the ringside doctor called for the fight to be stopped. Corrales argued, wanting to continue even as gore spurted from his lips.

The same was true of his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Corrales had been dropped five times and was so far behind on points that his step-father/trainer stopped the fight. Again, Corrales was outraged. There were still two rounds left. When a man can punch like Corrales, he always believes his fortunes can change.

His time at the top was brief. He met Castillo for a rematch five months later and was stopped in four. Two more losses followed. The first war with Castillo made Corrales the toast of boxing, but it also ruined him. He was never the same.

It is possible that Corrales could’ve achieved more in boxing. He always had that urge to show the world what he could do. After his second bout with Casamayor, in which he had boxed with finesse and won by split decision, Corrales turned to the cameras and smiled. He said, “See? I told you I could fight like that.” As much as he loved a good rumble, he wanted us to know he was more than a brawler.

Corrales wasn’t a great fighter, but he was a good one. He was gutsy and he could punch. There was his bout with Acelino Freitas, a strange one that saw Freitas simply stop fighting in the middle of a round and walk to his corner. It was a mystery as to why Freitas surrendered, though his manager later told me the reason. “He said Corrales hit him so hard that he was seeing triple; there were three Corraleses in front of him and he didn’t know what to do.” Such was Corrales’ power.

There were stories of Corrales’ gentler side. He was a gourmet cook who loved TV soap operas and designer clothing. When reporters made fun of him early in his career for having too many piercings, he felt embarrassed and removed them all. He seemed eager to please. He could charm you. I recall his mild voice, excitable but friendly, like a teen. Our few conversations had been nice. He was personable, happy to talk about his career and upcoming fights. But as LA writer Bill Dwyer said of Corrales many years ago, he was “a con artist with a twinkle in his eye.”

Corrales was pleasant to me, but was I just another person taken in by the Corrales con?

“Face to face, he was a wonderful kid,” said publicist Bill Caplan at the time of Corrales’ death.

But when no one was looking, Corrales became something less than wonderful.

Corrales put his second wife in the hospital with a broken collarbone, bruised ribs, and other injuries. She was pregnant at the time. On another occasion she was seen with Corrales’ handprints on her neck. Choke marks. The powerful hands that had made him a champion were used to strangle a woman who was nearly a foot shorter than him, and weighed less than 100 pounds. You don’t put your hands on a woman’s throat unless you mean to kill her. How close did he come to snuffing her out? He’d beaten up his first wife, too, so you can’t say it was just bad chemistry between Corrales and wife number two. The man was a serial abuser.

Corrales hadn’t been a shoe-in for the IBHOF. It took 16 years for him to be inducted. The IBHOF didn’t return calls for this story, but one can imagine the response would be typical of his defenders, something about his personal life not having an effect on his being selected. But one wonders if 16 years were needed because it took that much time for people to forget the worst things about Corrales, and to just remember the fights.

Corrales has always had supporters. Contemporaries who knew him from California gyms will smile and say, “My man, Chico!” Loved ones will cry at his memory. Journalists will try to put a romantic spin on him, saying that he lived recklessly and died recklessly, that he was a thrill seeker. They’ve always done that for Corrales, idealizing him as a “Raging Bull” type of character, a man of extreme emotions, a man with a dark side. They will say his misdeeds are unfortunate because they taint his legacy. I think they’re unfortunate because a couple of women are probably still having nightmares about him.

There’s a history of fighters being given a pass for abusing women. There seems to be an unspoken deal, in that the fighter entertains us, so we forgive his wrongdoings. In that way, boxing fans aren’t much different than the folks in Ozone Park who revered John Gotti, a Mob killer, because on Independence Day he supplied them with fireworks and sausages.

Corrales will be honored this spring. Hardcore fans who make the yearly trek to upstate New York for the inductions will cheer his name. Why not? His fight with Castillo made us all love boxing again, and that may be reason enough to place him among the great ones. And he’s certainly not the only wife beater in the hall. He’s just the latest.

Inducting Corrales gives people a chance to recall his best moments in the ring, but it will also give us a chance to think about the way we continue to glorify these men who hurt women. To say Corrales served his time is far too simplistic, as is the tendency to glamorize him as a man tortured by demons. The tough guy who thrives in a violent profession but beats his wife is an archetype that has been around too long, and one we no longer need.

 

- Don Stradley

Nick Charles, Hall of Famer

 

He was ill. Everybody knew it. But some kind people at HBO invited Nick Charles of Showtime onto one of their Boxing After Dark broadcasts and let him commandeer a mic. It was for an undercard bout, not the main event,  but he handled it with the grace and professionalism that had been his trademark. In no more than 12 or 15 minutes, he put on a clinic of how to lead a boxing broadcast. 

Did I imagine it, or did I hear a kind of joy in Nick Charles' voice that night in 2011? He'd let it be known that he wanted to call one more fight before his time on Earth ended. Some people did the right thing and let him work. As I listened to him, I felt I was hearing a man doing what he loved one last time, and he was relishing every second of it.

In the annals of people on their last legs putting in a command performance, I think of Nick Charles' last call  and I rate it up there with some of the all time greats: John Wayne suffering through The Shootist; Warren Zevon pulling himself together to record one last album; David Bowie doing the same. Yes, I put a boxing commentator in the same breath as actors and singers because for Nick Charles, broadcasting was his art.  Some were more famous, but few were better.

A dozen years later it is still incredibly moving to think about that final call. It wasn't just the smoothness of his delivery - he'd turn it over to analyst Max Kellerman like Bob Cousy doing one of those behind the back passes - but we could almost sense him taking in the fight atmosphere, absorbing it, breathing it all in, trying to take it with him, wherever he was going. He had lived a rich life full of children and grandchildren and awards. Yet boxing had a special place for him. Nick Charles really loved boxing. He loved the fighters, and he loved the milieu. Maybe that's what I was hearing.

My first encounter with Nick came after I'd written a story about women's boxing and all of its problems. He contacted me to say he agreed that the women were struggling. At that time, a lot of the women in the business didn't know  the fundamentals. Many of those early women's bouts looked like two ladies flailing away in a parking lot. It wasn't fun to watch. He thought women's boxing was going to fail, simply because there weren't enough women at the top level to sell it. The women eventually improved, but it took a long time.

In that conversation, I could sense how much he loved boxing, how he admired the best practitioners, and how it actually hurt him to think of these fledgling women being thrown into the ring just for the sake of novelty. I thought at the time, this guy really loves boxing. He cared about it. I've met other broadcasters, and not all of them cared as much as Nick Charles did.

To look at him, you'd think he was just a garden variety TV personality. He would've fit in on any morning show, or  news program, any place you could stick him before a camera. In fact, he was CNN's anchorman on their 1980s show, Sports Tonight. He was once voted "America's Sexiest Sportscaster" by the U.S. Television Fan Association, a distinction he accepted with grace and humor. 

True, he had a great look and was always immaculate. He was a bit like that other "Nick Charles," the famous fictional detective of The Thin Man movie series played by William Powell. I guess if you're named Nick Charles, there is a chance you'll be a suave and sophisticated chap. And while I can't vouch for William Powell, I can say with confidence that Nick Charles looked that way all the time. I saw him a few times during off hours, with no cameras around, and he was still immaculate. He was one of those guys who could walk through a rainstorm and not get wet.

But the handsome clotheshorse was drawn to boxing. It was his juice. Even when he was ill, he used boxing jargon to talk about it. "I'm in the late rounds," he wrote to me in an e-mail. "And I'm behind on points. But I plan to score a come from behind knockout."

Once, at an HBO event in Madison Square Garden, I noticed him and his Showtime broadcasting partner, Steve Farhood. They were sitting together a few seats away from me. Why were they there? They weren't working. Farhood may have been writing a story for a magazine. But Nick? He was just there to enjoy the action. He could've taken the night off and watched from home. But there he was, looking as clean and pressed as if he were  ready to go on camera. And with each fight on a rather bland undercard, his eyes were riveted on the ring. He wasn't there to schmooze with people or be seen with other celebrities. He was just a fan watching the fights.

Showtime's Saturday afternoon show, ShoBox: The New Generation, was a pet project of his. He purportedly helped create it, and his presence gave the show some class. He thought it was important to introduce new fighters, and he was right. He'd had a long career, and as it was winding down, he was telling us about the young boxers who were hoping to make an impression. 

Nick Charles will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame next June. If inductees were elected based on how much they cared about the business, he would've been in a long time ago. I wish he was still around because I would love to hear his acceptance speech. I know it would be elegant and professional. And I know he'd talk about his love of boxing, and how proud he was of ShoBox.

Posthumous inductions are always bittersweet.  It's nice that Nick Charles will be honored, but sad that he won't be there. Of course, it gives us one more chance to remember him, which is also nice. I'll remember his style. I'll remember his kindness. And I'll always remember his gallant last stand on HBO, the way he sounded as he made what he must've known was his final call. 

And I'll think of that mysterious quality in his voice that night, and what I imagine he was telling us. 

Do what you love. Love it a lot. Love it like you'll never see it again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Days of the Wolf

 

Wolf Larsen was not yet 30-years-old when he made the long walk down Woodhull Street in Brooklyn on his way to the Bethesda Mission. With his busted up features and cauliflower ears - unfortunate reminders of his career as a prizefighter - made worse by the bloating effects of liquor, Larsen didn't look like a young man. Most thought he was well into his 40s. Maybe a few people recognized him. Maybe they'd seen him brawling with cops, or singing in the street in a loud, drunken voice. Maybe he just looked like another local mug going to the mission for help. The kind people there took him in. They let him rest on a cot.

He would be dead inside of 18 months, worn down by a decade of heavy drinking and reckless living. But as he did in many of his fights, he managed a rally. There was almost always a moment in Larsen's fights, usually when he was well behind, when he'd start throwing haymakers, gambling on his heavy right hand. Those desperate moments were exciting, but ultimately, he'd just tire himself out and barely make it to the final gong. That is, if he didn't get knocked cold. The way he rallied at the mission was by making himself useful as a cook, handyman, and night watchman, fixing things and sweeping up and being respectful. But as usually happened when Larsen tried one of his late round bursts, it wasn't enough. Still, the people at the mission spoke well of him when he died. They said he was a good guy. He’d been helpful in his final months. 

It was as if Wolf Larsen knew his days were numbered and he wanted to change the way people saw him. 

He was born Magnes Andreas Larsen Ros on May 14, 1901 in Ostre Moland, Norway. According to legend, or the imaginings of a slick press agent, he was the grandson of the sea captain Wolf Larsen, a character fictionalized by Jack London for his novel  The Sea Wolf. Like most of the men in his family, he became a seaman at a young age. For amusement he would often box his fellow seafarers. At age 18 he found himself face to face with none other than Battling Siki, the great Senegalese fighter who would soon be the light heavyweight champion. 

Like any folk tale, the Siki story was told in many ways. Sometimes it happened on a ship, or at a circus. The most fantastic was that Siki was scheduled to fight but his opponent didn't show, and Larsen came out of the crowd to fill in. However it was told, it always ended with Larsen and Siki in an impromptu 10-rounder, with Larsen getting the best of it.

When Siki went on to win the light heavyweight title from Georges Carpentier of France, it was Larsen himself who told a version of the tale to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, explaining that he and Siki had been sparring partners at the Amsterdam Club gymnasium in Holland. 

"He was striving to pick up the fine points of the game," Larsen said, "and was anxious to have me box with him. He knew little about boxing, but possessed some hitting ability. I was very much his master at that time, and still think I am, granting that he has improved much since then."

But even this version of the story is suspect. From what we know of Larsen  - a New York writer once described his style being as "wide open as a Havana cafe" -  we can't imagine him at 18 being remotely familiar with the "fine points of the game." Also, by 1919, Siki had been a professional for years, and had earned medals for bravery during the war.  It's doubtful he would be schooled by Larsen, a novice. 

Regardless, after the alleged encounter with Siki, Larsen left Holland for Australia, did a bit of boxing down there, and then shipped off for the states. Once in New York, some buddies coaxed him into entering an amateur tournament. Larsen was a thrill seeker, and brawling for an audience seemed more exciting than being an anonymous figure on a schooner. At the time, Jack Dempsey was the biggest thing in the country, and boxing was enjoying unprecedented coverage. It's no wonder Larsen wanted in.

By dominating the local amateurs in New York, and winning the AAU title at 175 pounds, Larsen became a hero to the Norwegian Turn Society, a collection of immigrants that had started their own athletic organization. Though boxing wasn't as popular among Norwegians as gymnastics and wrestling, Larsen won his countrymen over with his free-swinging style.

Larsen entered the professional ranks on the winds of blowhard manager Tom O'Rourke. We can probably thank O'Rourke for the hype that accompanied Larsen during the early months of his career. This included everything from Harry Greb wanting to fight him, to Dempsey wanting to hire him as a sparring partner. This was probably all nonsense, but it was good stuff. It could almost distract you from the fact that Larsen lost his first two professional bouts.

The downhill skid was on.

With only five fights on his resume, Larsen found himself matched against Gene Tunney.  O'Rourke should've been strung up by his ears for putting a rookie in with a sharpshooter like Tunney, who at the time was undefeated in 42 professional bouts. On October 25, 1921, at New York's Pioneer Sporting Club, Tunney stopped Larsen in seven rounds. The New York Tribune called it "a slaughter, pure and simple," and reported that Larsen  "absorbed enough punishment to put the average boxer in the hospital for several months." Other reports describe Larsen as "clearly outclassed," and "cut to ribbons." Tunney would recall Larsen a few years later as a "powerful and rushing slugger," but "an easy one, a 'wolf' in name only."

Larsen's next handful of opponents were unknowns - soldiers returning from the war, a local fireman who had taken up boxing to cash in on the Dempsey craze, young Irish and Jewish men trying to make a buck with their fists - perhaps fed to him to rebuild his confidence; he knocked most of them kicking. 

There was more talk, obviously planted by O'Rourke, that Larsen was being groomed to meet Dempsey. In reality, Larsen had all he could handle from such characters as Tarzan Larkin, the "Minnesota Cave Man," who decked Larsen six times before finding himself on the wrong end of Larsen's right hand. 

More often than not, Larsen simply got his head beat in. He became known as an entertaining opponent, a lovable loser. His October 1922 loss to California's Billy Shade earned raves from The New York World, particularly in the late rounds when, "to the astonishment of the spectators," Larsen "suddenly braced and stuck his stout jaw out inviting Shade to hit (him) at will." 

By 1923, New Yorkers had seen enough of Larsen. Under the guidance of new manager Jim Buckley, Larsen began a two-year stint in the Boston area with a few stops in Maine and Canada. He lost most of those fights, too. He was often matched against bigger men, on a schedule that saw him fighting (and losing) sometimes three times per month. In one of his Boston bouts, Larsen grew angry when he thought the referee had tried to trip him; he let his frustration out by knocking the ref down with a single crack on the chin. Not waiting to hear that he'd been disqualified, Larsen fled the ring and went home. 

Still, Larsen kept fighting. Boston newspapers called him the "Swinging Swede.” After a TKO loss to Hambone Kelly at Mechanics Hall in Boston, Larsen collapsed and had to be taken to a local hospital. It turned out he was fighting too soon after an appendix operation and shouldn't have been in the ring, anyway. 

Larsen never got near Dempsey, but he did fight and lose to some pretty good men, including Kid Norfolk, Ad Stone, and Lou Bogash. A valiant losing effort against heavyweight prospect Jim Maloney earned him praise from The Portsmouth Herald's Norman Brown. Larsen, Brown wrote, "gave Maloney one of his toughest battles," and nearly "knocked him cuckoo."  

Boston dried up, and then it was back to New York where the losses continued. By the summer of 1926, after a 'no contest' in Brooklyn with a character named Johnny Urban, Larsen disappeared from the scene. According to one columnist, an altercation with the police had left him with such injuries that he had to stop boxing for a while.

Why didn't Larsen live up to the promise he'd shown as an amateur? True, he didn't exactly look after himself. He preferred drinking to training, and his management treated him like a piece of meat. But the real reason may go back to the Tunney fight. When Larsen saw how a seasoned professional handled him with ease, he may have realized that he was simply an awkward second rater. So, in the words of one journalist, he decided to  "live a life of enjoyment." By the time Larsen heard the news that his old sparring partner Siki had died in the gutter, he was well aware that being a top fighter didn't guarantee a good life.

When he couldn't get fights, Larsen worked as a seaman on the Great Lakes, or bounced around Red Hook. Though he tried to present himself as a sort of roguish playboy, he was just a local lunatic, a rock-bottom alcoholic known for crazy street brawls that sound like the stuff of silent movies. He once knocked a man through a wooden wall at the Columbia Street subway station. "He won plenty of decisions," Buckley said. "But more of them were against cops than prizefighters."

Larsen became a kind of walking urban legend. Among the slew of farfetched tales he inspired was one that involved his attempt to steal a pony from a neighborhood fish peddler. As legend has it, Larsen simply picked the animal up and started walking in the direction of the nearest pawnshop. When the police asked him where he was going with the pony, Larsen said, "Pony? I thought it was a calf."

But not all the stories were fun. On one of his aimless strolls along the waterfront, Larsen saw a couple of men breaking into a speakeasy. Thinking this might be a nice way to score some liquor, he tried to assist the robbers. They responded by cutting Larsen's face and leaving him for dead. He survived, though. In January 1929 he was stabbed again in a restaurant brawl in Red Hook. 

Larsen's final ring appearance took place in April 1929 against journeyman Joe Lill at the New Broadway AC in Philadelphia. John Webster of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that Larsen, "gamely stood up under a hail of leather until the referee halted the bout in the third." Fittingly, Larsen went out with an "L." His record was approximately 28-40-2, but anyone who says they know Larsen's exact record is a liar.

By 1930, Larsen was homeless, sleeping in a stable, and seen regularly in New York breadlines and Salvation Army kitchens. 

"Broadway is a funny place," Larsen said. "Everybody'll give you a drink, and nobody'll  give you anything to eat."

Ironically, a successful film version of Jack London's The Sea Wolf began playing in New York around that same time. There was a "Wolf Larsen" on the big screen, played by Milton Sills. There would also be, in the ensuing years, a number of "Wolf Larsens" in football, baseball, and wrestling. But the Wolf Larsen of boxing was now on the streets of New York, drinking as if he had a personal vendetta against the Volstead Act.

At the Bethesda Mission, Larsen behaved himself. He never mentioned having a home or a family; it was as if he'd been born simply to drink and fight. For several months, he was a model citizen. Then, during the first week of July, 1931, he wandered out into the evening and returned drunker than he'd been in a long time. He died a few days later at King's County Hospital of pneumonia.

But, if one may use this soggy old cliche, he was a fighter to the end, literally, as a mission volunteer named John Olsen recounted. Upon hearing Larsen had died, Olsen told the press, "I saw a fellow he hit the night before he went to the hospital, and the fellow was still bent over, a cripple."

 Why write about Wolf Larsen? Well, fighters like him provide the grease and fuel on which the boxing machine runs. Sometimes they're named Wolf Larsen. Sometimes they're named Augustus Burton, or Garing Lane. Without them, how would the young, well-connected contenders fatten their records? Dismiss Larsen as cannon fodder if you like, and maybe you wouldn't want to be around him when he was drunk, but he deserves a tip of the cap. Besides, he spent the last months of his life cooking for other lost souls at the Bethesda Mission. That deserves a tip of the cap, too.

- Don Stradley

Adieu, Boo Boo

 

 

 

He looked tired and confused. He looked the way fighters do when suddenly they have no answers. 

"Stop it," he said. 

The television microphones picked up his plea to surrender.

He looked old, too, as any 35 year-old fighter does when he's been punched hard for a few rounds. His corner men hovered around like doting aunts over a sick child.

The self-assurance that was his trademark had been smacked out of him. Had there been a reason for him to be so cocksure in the first place? Sure, he had speed and skill and all the tools. For a short time it had seemed like Demetrius "Boo Boo" Andrade had the world at his feet. Now, the viewers at home were watching his Waterloo: "Stop it."

It seemed a lifetime ago when he was fighting in New England casinos. Back then he was a heralded amateur making careful inroads into the professional ranks. His management was feeding him journeymen and unknowns and he was chopping them up. 

They always fell before Boo Boo in those days. He was quick, like a martial arts master in the movies, the hands a blur. He used to beat those early opponents so badly that they needed help out of the ring, like they were being pulled from the wreckage of a car crash. That's what happened when you fought Boo Boo Andrade of Rhode Island.

When I met him in those days, a few things struck me. He was being managed not by experienced boxing people, but by a mom and pop outfit that seemed like managers of a local ice cream store. They were friendly, but protective of him. They were wary of anyone who might have deep roots in Las Vegas or the dark world of boxing. They'd be happy if they could keep him fighting in small New England venues forever.

The other thing that struck me  was that no matter how humble and well-meaning the people around him were, they were convinced that Boo Boo would be greater than Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali combined. He couldn't fail. It was a strange, mixed message - the kid had to be protected, but he was the next icon. They never explained how he might attain this greatness if he never left the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence.

He won some title belts - usually vacated ones for the WBO - but there always seemed to be something amiss. He was inactive for large chunks of time, always on the verge of signing for a big fight, then disappearing again. He fought infrequently, usually in some faraway boxing outpost: Boston, Miami, Manchester, New Hampshire. Keeping him out of Las Vegas was one thing, but his career became ridiculous. When, we wondered, would they ever take the training wheels off?

He never developed a following. He had fans in Rhode Island, but otherwise he was a footnote on the fringes of the sport, a guy with a funny name and a tinpot title belt. But you always had a sense that those people who had looked out for Boo Boo were still telling him he was greatness personified, and that his career was moving along perfectly. "We don't want people to take advantage of him," they'd said. 

I remember the way he carried himself at the beginning. He was a cocky, smirking kid. There was a bout at a Connecticut casino when he sauntered in late for a meeting with the commission. They fined him for being late; he shrugged and smirked. He had a little posse of gym rats and buddies around him. They smirked, too. Here was boxing's next big star, and he was doing a cheap imitation of the clowns he'd seen in gangsta rap videos. His managers would make you jump through hoops to ask a few questions. Once you were alone with him he'd just shrug and smirk and give you nothing.

By 2018 he was busted for illegal possession of a handgun. He said he needed it for his "wealth and fame." Boo Boo had just beaten a Namibian fellow named Walter Kautondokwa for another of those vacant WBO straps. It meant very little, but maybe in Boo Boo's mind he was Mike Tyson.

Now and then there would be a shakeup at the Andrade camp. People were fired and hired, which isn't unusual in boxing. People in his circle said Boo Boo was still the same likable kid, but "the wrong people got in his ear." 

Victor Conte came onboard recently. He's the training guru who served four months in prison for money laundering and selling illegal drugs to athletes.  Conte has supposedly turned his life around, but he has that thing in his personality that we also see in  defense attorneys and used car salesmen. Nothing he says sounds true. 

Conte brought Boo Boo into his California science lab before his latest fight. He measured and probed him like a lab rat. Conte's big on oxygen now. He fits his fighters with special masks and puts them in tents so they can breathe like superman. He told ESPN that Boo Boo was like the son he'd never had. "I'm looking out for him," Conte said. This sounded familiar. People are always looking out for Boo Boo.

In a way, Conte and Boo Boo were a good match. You looked at each guy and thought, "Is he still around?" Conte talked about this fight as a sort of big comeback for both himself and Boo Boo. What a story that would've been, the forgotten fighter and the disgraced steroid salesman, bringing it all back home. 

It was a Las Vegas bout, a pay-per-view main event pitting Boo Boo against David Benavidez, the super middleweight titleholder known as "The Mexican Monster." It was the biggest fight of Boo Boo’s career, his first time in such a lavish program. His first, honest to goodness Las Vegas spectacle. He was also trying out a new weight class. 

He looked good for the first few rounds. He was moving in and out, using all of the old southpaw tricks. He looked fast.

The footwork was fine. His timing was perfect. He wasn't bothered by Benavidez' size or reputation.  When they tussled along the ropes, Boo Boo held his own. The question was whether he could maintain this for 12 rounds. 

It all fell apart at the end of the fourth when Benavidez smashed him to the canvas. A caveman with a war club couldn't have done any better. Boo Boo was hurt.

He got up and survived into the next round, but the tide of the bout had turned. Every time Benavidez hit him, Boo Boo would wobble and wince. The Monster was connecting now.

The sixth was bad for Boo Boo. Benavidez stalked him, rattled him with punches to the head and body. Boo Boo took the shots, but he looked like a man trying to survive an avalanche. He didn't come out for the seventh. Later, with heartbreak in his voice, he said something about not being used to the weight class. He said he'd fight again.

Of course he will. He's still youngish. But it'll be different this time. He'll be repackaged for less money. He'll be back in the New England casinos, only the crowds will be smaller. His fights will be part of weekend package deals. There will be a prime rib dinner, an Eagles cover band in the theater, and Boo Boo fighting some guy you never heard of. That'll get him through a few years, and then he'll complain that he can't get the big fights. We can hear him already. It will always be someone else's fault.

They tore him apart on social media. There's little patience for fallen fighters nowadays. And where Boo Boo was concerned, there was never going to much sympathy after his first loss.

But how you felt about Boo Boo may reflect where you are in life. There was something poignant about the scene in his corner. You may have recalled the early days, when Boo Boo acted like he was destined for greatness. Blink an eye, and he's asking his team to stop the fight. That's how it goes. One minute you're young and full of yourself. A moment later you're done. That's life.

That's life whether or not you had good management. 

That's life whether you fought in Lincoln, R.I., or in Las Vegas. 

That's life for Boo Boo Andrade. 

That's life for you and me.