Читать книгу Jacobs Beach. The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing онлайн

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Jacobs was so good a salesman that, in a lifetime of aggravation and conflict, he was always confident of a result. Win or lose, his demeanor did not change much. He rose to the top of boxing's dung heap as if by divine edict, and those who looked to outsmart him could not penetrate an exterior born of adversity and forged in greed. Jacobs died a rich if unsmiling man. While it was a love of money rather than the sport that drove him, nobody questioned his right to be there. He was one of the army of foot soldiers who made boxing tick, if not always after the fashion of a tea party.

In an evocative piece written in 1950, Budd Schulberg described him as the “Machiavelli on Eighth Avenue.” Other sportswriters called him “Monopoly Mike.” Dan Parker, the most perceptive and hard-hitting of fifties fight writers, named him “Uncle Wolf.” Jimmy Cannon said Jacobs was “the stingiest man in the world.” Real enemies, of which there were a few, called him far worse than any of this. He didn't give a damn.