Thread: The Dark Side of Boxing: Palookaville

Palookaville

By Holmcall

What do I get? A one-way ticket toPalookaville. You was my brother, Charlie ... You should have taken care of mebetter ...
--MarlonBrando as Terry Malloy in On theWaterfront.

Thereis something so bitterly cruel and ironic about a fighting man not being ableto remember the one glorious and exceptional quality that set him apart fromthe rest.
—Mike Casey

Some call Palookaville a place where dullness and stupidityreign supreme and in particular, where mediocre prizefighters reside. But Palookaville is a fictitious place, and in that regard it isdifferent from another far more frightening locale where a one-way ticket isalso the means of transportation.

Now this other place is not an unpleasant one. It might be aretirement home, sanitarium or nursing home. The sound of birds singing may beheard by those who can still hear. There might even be a garden outside withbenches upon which the sun shines warmly. Visitors sit quietly with thepatients while helpful attendants with bright white uniforms move about, butmeaningful conversations are rare. There is an unmistakable sense oftemporariness here.

Most of the patients are locked in a clouded emotionalprison punctuated with glazed over eyes that see very little as they while awaywaiting to die. They sometimes hear voices no one else hears, and they sometimesscream at night for seemingly no reason. Some are semi-paralyzed; others lie inbed unable to see, having to be fed and otherwise cared for like an infant.Some shuffle around without knowing their destination. Occasionally, a flash,but just a flash, of glory is recalled. Soon the flashes cruelly evanesce,leaving the inhabitants to resume their blank stares with eyes that see verylittle. These men are often confused, childlike, and uttering unintelligiblesounds delivered by thick tongues.The morefortunate have friends or relatives to offer assistance. Eventually, all willneed to be cared for 24/7, for this terrible thing they have is degenerativeand unforgiving, and its symptoms often emerge once the victim is in his lateryears, long after retiring from the career that gave rise to the condition.

Some who have not yet arrived are huddled in lonely doorwaysor in subway stations on a frigid Chicago night where “The Hawk” blows cruelly;some are searching for aluminum cans in alleyways in some Los Angeles junkyardto turn in for some extra change. Still others shuffle from one flea-bitten NewYork City hotel to another. They all seem to talk alike, slurring their wordswith a nasal monotone, and sometimes engage in self-directed temper tantrums.

The symptoms are not dissimilar to those of alcoholintoxication, but this problem is worse. There are no 12 steps for these men. Thesevictims have speech difficulty, dizziness, and involuntary muscularmovements—their hands tremor. Their balance is unsteady, and their short-termmemory as well as their cognitive ability is rapidly deteriorating. They have difficultyengaging in the most simple of daily activities or in working menial jobs; andthey too have a tendency to wander. Once these conditions exist, there is noother choice but to deal with them and make the most out of what limitedtreatments are available. Soon, they may become eligible for admittance, butuntil then, these unfortunate few must exist from day to day as best they can.

The men described above are victims of the legalizedviolence of boxing, where the risk-reward equation was never in their favor.The legacies of those who are known will be kept alive by their fans long afterthey have left this world. The memories of warriors like Denny and Phil Moyer,Jerry and Mike Quarry, Jimmy Young, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, Sugar Ray Robinson,Floyd Patterson, Johnny Saxon, and all the others who gave us so much joy whenthey fought will never be forgotten. But most victims are unknown and will beforgotten.

Dementia Pugilistica

People with this kind of mental damage are sometimesdescribed as being punch-drunk or punchy. Those words are both demeaning andterribly misleading. A better way to describe it is to use diagnostic termssuch as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)--the condition which occurs inpeople who have suffered multiple concussions and commonly manifests itself asdementia or declining mental ability. It also can result in Parkinson’s tremorsand lack of coordination. But plainly stated, it is dementia pugilistica (akaboxer syndrome), nothing more and nothing less. It’s a condition caused bybeing on the receiving end of too many blows to the head and it is horrific.

Boxers with dementia pugilistica can also exhibit symptomsresembling other degenerative disorders, including: Parkinsonism (whichMuhammad Ali showed signs of at age 38 and was diagnosed with in 1984), Dementia,Alzheimer’s disease, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, and Kluver-Bucy syndrome.

While other injuries such as cuts and fractures can berepaired, brain tissue, once damaged, remains damaged. The boxer can recoverfrom a broken nose, but severe brain damage is permanent. More often than not, itis the accumulation of punches, endured over a period of time, both in actualfights and especially during the many rounds of gym training.

Sometimes people refer to this place as "Palookaville,"but it’s far worse than that. This place is not fictional; it is at the end ofa one-way, irreversible descent (yes, a one-way ticket), ending where cerebralatrophy occurs and where the brain rapidly shrinks with dead cells dissolvinginto liquid. Finally and mercifully, the all-but-dead brain eventually beginsto shut down, and a decision must be made to remove life support, which in turnwill result in cardiac arrest—and that’s what they mean when they say someonehad died from complications of dementia pugilistica. And that’s where it allfinally ends.

No bell tolls with the final ten count for these fallenwarriors. Here, the thousands of rounds in the gym during which the blowslanded upon their skull offset any possible lingering feeling of invincibility.Here, there is neither denial nor hope. No more triumphs. No romanticizing. Themachines are turned off. The bulb flickers, dims, and goes out. Then allbecomes dark.

This is not Palookaville; this is the end.

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As Budd Schulberg once said (paraphrase) any boxing fan who doesn't sometimes wonder whether the sport has value that makes the human sacrifices acceptable has no moral code.