NEW James J. Corbett Book

[apollack]

This from Jason Simons:

"I finished In The Ring With James J. Corbett and, once again, I am VERY impressed. This is a scholarly work worthy of any boxing library. Adam Pollack has done an amazing job with the research and does a good job showing the backgrounds behind the fights and doing as good a job as possible recreating the fights themselves, since, except for a staged bout that not much footage exists from, the fights were not filmed. He has to use eyewitness accounts and newspaper excerpts to recreate the fights and does a very good job with this. I found the descriptions of Corbett's involvement with Joe Choynski particularly fascinating. Once again, like in the Sullivan book, Corbett's personal life is barely and almost never touched upon, but that's fine here. The title indicates that the book deals with the ring life of Corbett and it most certainly achieves that. I definitely look forward to the Fitzsimmons and Jeffries volumes that are mentioned as coming out in the future."

In the Ring With James J. Corbett is available at

http://stores.lulu.com/apollack

[Chris Nagel]

I heard over at cyber boxing that this book is supposed to be good.

[apollack]

By McGrain:

In The Ring With James J. Corbett is a book that has been written by an attorney. It's hard for me to advise you to do anything that might make an attorney richer, but I have to tell you that this book is worth the cover price and more.

What is most interesting is Adam’s angle - it's about the boxing, and all the way to the hilt. This makes for a slow start, as Corbett, the most professional of amateurs, tours the country making a bit of sly cash under a pseudonym so as not to jeopardize his attachment to the Olympic sporting club, which sounds like a hell of a place. The writer treats even these earlier fights with tender loving care and it is interesting to read the boxer's words regarding his early experiences.

“Early in my experience I used to be fond of parrying blows. I found that they would sometimes get through my guard in spite of everything. Then I began to rely upon my legs and eyesight. I found it a great deal better plan...”

This ties in with the exhaustive post fight analysis of the Sullivan-Corbett duel and there is a real sense of the book "coming together" as you read. There is a complete picture of Corbett and no mistake.

Once the book lifts off, it's almost impossible to put down. The author doesn't drop any sauce into his accounts of the great Corbett battles, he understands the drama exists regardless and so we are treated to little opinion or speculation but we do get multiple sources for each round of the Corbett-Peter Jackson war of May, 1891.

The coverage is exhaustive and I can honestly say that I have a real sense of what occurred in this fight without having ever being able to see it and that's a treat.

The Sullivan fight is treated as a near Holy thing with multiple sources (including The New Orleans Daily Picayune, The New Orleans Times-Democrat, Birmingham Age Herald, The New York Times, New York Herald and New York Sun) compressed into one thrilling account so thrilling it's the closest thing to watching the fight you could ever experience.

After this fight, we run into the book’s limitations a little bit. There is nothing about how Corbett celebrated, what women he saw, what his family made of the events, how quickly he recovered (though he was at the "sparring" not long after)...pretty much none of that. To some that will be a relief, but I felt it was a shame. However, give Pollack credit - he set out to write a book purely about boxing and that's what he's done, regardless of the temptation to do otherwise here.

And the book soon goes into overdrive again. Jackson had the sore end of his draw with Corbett but it was a draw, and Jackson was very much the #1 contender - now followed a fascinating rhetorical joust between Corbett's people, Jackson's people and the society of the day as to whether and where a fight between the two should take place. This part of the book - relevant because it concerns making a fight - is my favorite, with astonishing insights into the color politics of the time through the window of contemporary accounts. Nowhere does Adam judge Corbett but nor does he duck "Gentleman Jim's" conduct in this matter.

I submit that the details concerning the attempts to make the failed Jackson fight are worth the price alone.

Although there is an inevitable sense of "those days were better" in the tone - inevitable because the writer has to describe scenes like this one, where Corbett and Sullivan spar (long before their fight):

“...the boxers wore large gloves, their dinner outfits, including their vests, pants, shirtsleeves, collars and neckties, to the surprise of the spectators. They barely ruffled each other's hair over the 3 rounds...”

But nevertheless, the author keeps a very reasonable detachment from proceedings, probably because his subject runs directly into the next one - Fitzsimmons. That book will be a treat, I suspect, though the one I’m looking forward to most is Jeffries.

So just tell yourself that Adam Pollack is most likely a human rights lawyer of some sort and order the book.