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

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That made it fourteen champions in forty-three years, almost a royal succession. What was to follow would do much to eat away at the credibility of professional boxing. After Braddock and all the way up to late 2006, just seventy-one years, the title changed hands a bewildering ninety-three times. What started as the biggest prize in sports became a very grubby enterprise, which then somehow managed to slide even further.

At least Lucky Jim's recognition meant something. He was all over the papers. People shook his hand in the street, bought him a drink in the clubs. He fit the picture. He'd risen from bum to hero in a twinkling. If he could do it, anyone could. America needed Jim Braddock badly in 1935, as the Depression gnawed away at the fiber of its being. To the guys growing weaker by the day at the soup kitchen, or riding the rails, Jim was one of them. Just like Dempsey had been. It didn't matter that he wasn't a great fighter. He fought great on one night. He sustained hope.

But Braddock too would be dispensed with soon enough. Asked how long the new champ might remain in office, Max Baer told reporters, “Until he fights somebody else.”