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Rating: 
Summary: Right on the chin (and a left as well)
Review: An anthology needs to get the mixture right so it has something for everyone. This volume has been around since 1961 with only one new edition - in 1999. This is surprising because it is one of the better sports anthologies. One reason is the comeback of Leonard Gardner, who went to ground after his 1969 classic of a small-town boxing stable in the unforgettable "Fat City". Gardner's insights about the first Duran-Leonard bout in 1980 (page 115) are not all about Duran and Leonard: "'Mickey Walker was a drunk,' said (trainer Ray) Arcel. 'Jack Kearns made a drunk out of him. Tunney was a terrible drunk, too, after he retired. Disgusting. Liquor is a terrible thing.'". Gardner probably did not really stop writing but the only thing of his I had - until now - read since "Fat City" was a short story called "Christ has Returned to Earth" which had little to do with boxing: "The girl behind the glass, who passed the hamburgers through an opening as small as the ticket hole in a box office, refused to speak to them, as it was generally known that certain advertisements pencilled on local walls, involving her name and phone number and a very low sum of money, were the work of Harry Ames. Advertising ran in Ames family; his father was proprietor of Neon Signs." This "Book of Boxing" reaches back to to Homer and Virgil. It includes more modern classic names: from the pen of John Masefield come some rhyming couplets. This excerpt is about frenetic cornerwork as the seconds try and revive their man (page 227): "They drove (a dodge that never fails)/ A pin beneath my finger nails./ They poured what seemed a running beck/ Of cold spring water down my neck;/ Jim with a lancet quick as flies/ Lowered the swellings round my eyes..." Boxing has never lacked depths and this book plumbs plenty of them. Pathos as well. British writer Hugh McIlvanney recalls the sight of a much mocked heavyweight, Jack Bodell, turning up in the dressing room of the man who had just beaten him, Henry Cooper, in a 1970 British title bout (page 236): "He (Bodell) had two bottles of beer and was obviously in a mood to be sociable... in that strange moment, the mindless mocking of him seemed to amount to real cruelty. All of us hesitated, sensing he should have company, but Cooper had a party to host and with a last mumble of inadequate pleasantries we filed out, leaving the loser sitting alone in the winner's dressing room." From depths to heights: Oscar is the son of a seamstress from the barrio of East Los Angeles, Cecilia De La Hoya. Oscar (page 179) has made it up the ladder and has taken on and beaten the best at light- and welterweight. But he has problems. He fits into the the country club golf scene a little too easily for his Latino constituency. He hasn't exactly forgotten the barrio but he refuses to accept the Mexican notion that a smashed nose, ridges of scar tissue and slurred speech are essential for sainthood. He even sacked one trainer, Carlos Ortiz, because the old champion's flattened snout reminded Oscar of the place he does not want to go to: Palookaville. Mark Kriegel writes that when De La Hoya visited his old high school, pupils threw eggs at him. That hurt. Kriegel's story, "The Great Almost White Hope", ends at the golf course: "Then he (Oscar) gets in the tinted cockpit of his six-figure ride, the black BMW, to indulge his secret solitary extravagance: speed. Pedal hits the metal as he heads down Sunset, past all those brown-faced kids selling maps to the stars, putting all the distance he can between himself and Palookaville." And Palookaville is exactly where Al Laney found Langford. The Boston Tar Baby, aged 57 (probably), was alone and forgotten in a dingy bedroom on 139th Street in Harlem one winter's day in January 1944 (page 186). He told Laney: "You tell my friends... I got a geetar and a bottle of gin and money in my pocket to buy Christmas dinner... Tell all my friends all about it and tell 'em I said God bless 'em." Trouble is, Sam's friends couldn't see him because they did not visit him. And if they had, Sam would not have been able to see them. He was blind. Less than two years later he was dead. An anthology cannot get everything right. Jimmy Cannon's piece on Joe Louis is hyped as "as fine a tribute that has ever been paid to any fighter by any writer". It might have been if it had not spilled over into a sort of adolescent hero-worship. W.C. Heinz, one of the book's two editors, takes the reader through "The Day Of The Fight". "'Graziano said: 'If I win the title, I'm gonna get drunk. You know what I mean by that?' 'Yeah,' Whitey (Bimstein, trainer) said. 'I know what you mean. You remind me of another fighter I had. He said if he won the title he'd get drunk. He won the title and he had one beer and was drunk.'" Rocky Graziano weighed in for this 1946 middleweight title bout against Tony Zale at "the New York State building". Is that the New York State Office Building in Baxter Street? Non New Yorkers do not know. To someone who saw "Somebody up There Likes Me", the 1956 film which glorified Rocky and put Paul Newman on the cinema map, this might be important because that building is near where Rocky grew up. Heinz ends his story with surgical precision, just like the bout itself ended.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Old Friend Returns
Review: It's great to see this collection out again; I remember reading it with my father and brother when I was a kid. Now Heinz and Ward have made it better than ever, with the best pieces of newspaper writing, fiction, and even poetry ever composed about the sweet science. It covers everything, from Homer in the Iliad right up through the Holyfield/Tyson "bite fight." (ouch!) Plus‹a portfolio of good boxing shots in the middle. This is just the sort of terrific compilation that we need to raise kids on today, and give them some sense of what's best, and what lasts about sports.
Rating:
Summary: Updating a classic
Review: This appears to be an updated version of the classic anthology, The Fireside Book of Boxing, edited by Heinz. I guess people don't read around the fireside anymore, but they buy Sports Illustrated, so the title is itself more contempo, as are some of the entries. The original has been on my shelf for years, and has been pawed through with great pleasure since those golden days of yesteryear. Anyone interested in boxing or prose style (with a little verse here and there) will treasure the collection.
Rating:
Summary: Best Boxing Book In Print
Review: This is absolutely the best book on boxing currently in print. If you're a boxing fan, it's a must-have; to collect the original books where all these great essays and stories originally appeared would require an entire library. If you're not knowledgable on boxing but have often found yourself curious about its lore and legend, this is the place to start.
Rating:
Summary: The complete collection....
Review: Thoroughly enjoyable. The book presents some of the cleanest yet literary sports writing ever on a sport that is woefully under covered. Mr. Ward chose perfectly, marrying a historical overview of the sport with the beauty of it. I just hope this book will not be buried on the bottom shelf where too many great sports books are left to die.
Rating:
Summary: "Must" reading for all boxing fans!
Review: W.C. Heinz and Nathan Ward's Book Of Boxing is also a winner, though less visually packed: text with selected illustrations peppered throughout covers the finest writers of the sport, revealing their observations, the events which marked boxing history, and its dark side. An intriguing survey will fascinate any boxing fan.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: you will be in heaven. the best writing on boxing. I'm delighted. You should buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: you will be in heaven. the best writing on boxing. I'm delighted. You should buy this book.
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