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Joe Gans: A Biography of the First African American World Boxing Champion | 
 enlarge | Authors: Colleen Aycock, Mark Scott
Publisher: McFarland
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $35.95
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 464642
Media: Paperback
Pages: 294
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0786439947
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.83092
EAN: 9780786439942
ASIN: 0786439947
Publication Date: October 17, 2008
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Product Description
Joe Gans captured the world lightweight title in 1902, becoming the first black American world title holder in any sport. Gans was a master strategist and tactician, and one the earliest practitioners of "scientific" boxing. As a black champion reigning during the Jim Crow era, he endured physical assaults, a stolen title, bankruptcy, and numerous attempts to destroy his reputation. Four short years after successfully defending his title in the 42-round "Greatest Fight of the Century," Joe Gans was dead of tuberculosis.
This biography features original round-by-round ringside telegraph reports of his most famous and controversial fights, a complete fight history, photographs, and early newspaper drawings and cartoons.
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Joe Gans re-discovered and vindicated!! December 20, 2008
M. Glenn (Atlanta)
As we celebrate a new era in American and world history with the inauguration of America's first Black president, Barak Obama, it is fitting that we reflect and rediscover forgotten, neglected, overlooked, and inappropriately discarded African Americans whose lives and contributions have helped to shape our country and our destiny. As a collector, historian, and former professional athlete, I have great respect and appreciation for Ms. Colleen Aycock's work.
Meticulously researched to illustrate how this major Black world champion was undeservedly shortchanged in his lightweight and welterweight title reigns. The book also shows how sportswriters of the day called the shots, making an interesting connection between two influential early sportswriters, Nat Fleischer and his mentor, Charles Dana, who at the time feared the rise to supremacy of the Black boxers.
From author, Mike Glenn, "Lives and Battles of Famous Black Pugilists."
[...]
Not the best boxing bio, but damn good December 2, 2008
feedthecat (Toronto, Canada)
Colleen Aycock and Mark Scott have produced a wonderful account of the life & times of Joe Gans (born November 25, 1874) - very probably the greatest lightweight (135 lbs & under) boxer of all-time and certainly one of the ten best fighters pound-for-pound in history - a book that is all the greater given the fact that it is the first in-depth bio of the fighter known as the "Old Master". And, unlike the recent (and absolutely superb) bio of Gans' peer, "Sam Langford: Boxing's Greatest Uncrowned Champion" (by Clay Moyle), which is tightly focused on its subject, this book also examines many non-boxing-related events, etc of late 19th and early 20th century life. Some of these topics are covered quickly (e.g. the Boxer Rebellion, the 1893 Columbian [as in Christopher Columbus] Exposition held in Chicago, Evelyn Nesbit and sex symbols of the period, etc), while others are elucidated at length (such as the scourge that was tuberculosis [which claimed Gans' life in 1910 when Joe was just 35 years old] and a fascinating examination of the influence of turn-of-the-century boxing on L. Frank Baum's "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" book and its illustrations by William Wallace Denslow). Furthermore, the authors reveal that Gans' historical importance isn't just due to what he accomplished in the ring (for example, in hiring a certain musician for his new hotel, Gans wound up making a big contribution to the musical genre known as "ragtime" and, consequently, to jazz).
In regard to Gans the boxer, the authors do a great job of exploding many of the myths about this peerless fighter, myths that grew into fact over the years precisely because there weren't any in-depth accounts of his life. For example, Aycock and Scott reveal that far from being 'yellow' for quitting during the 12th round of his first bout with Frank Erne, Gans was just being sensible because his left eye had been dislodged from its socket by a headbutt; that, contrary to many boxing recordbooks and websites, Gans didn't relinquish his lightweight title in 1904 (he reigned as lightweight king from 1902 to 1908); and that his bout with "Terrible" Terry McGovern was, indeed, a fixed fight. The authors also provide "eyewitness" newspaper accounts of many of his battles and the round-by-round ringside wire reports of a few of Gans' biggest bouts. They even give a frame-by-frame analysis of the film of the final round of Gans' rematch with Oscar "Battling" Nelson.
Which brings me to an aspect of this book that I particularly liked: the fact that, unlike most boxing biographers, commentators, "experts", etc, Aycock and Scott actually have a good grasp of boxing techniques and use it to explain precisely what it was that made Gans such a great ring technician and tactician. The authors also, on several occasions, explain why turn-of-the-century boxers fought in a manner different from their modern counterparts and convincingly argue why the technique of the old-timers was, in many respects, superior (it would have benefited casual boxing fans if the authors had explained the differences between early 1900s boxing equipment, rules, etc and those of today in much greater detail).
Unfortunately, there were a couple of things about this book that greatly disappointed. For one thing, one would have thought that the authors would have provided the round-by-round ringside telegraph reports from Gans' bouts with the two greatest fighters that he fought, Langford and "Barbados" Joe Walcott, but this is not the case. To add insult to injury, the accounts of both of these encounters are relatively brief (it would also have been nice to have been provided with longer accounts of his bouts with Jack Blackburn, Bobby Dobbs, and Dave Holly, and to have been given at least a couple of pages of information about Gans' friend/second/sparring partner "Young" Peter Jackson, a very good but [also] forgotten fighter who tangled with many of the same top level men that Gans did and, like the Old Master, hailed from Baltimore [so the authors could have easily gathered quite a bit of info about him while culling Gans stories from the publications of the period]).
For another, while one expects biographers to be noticeably prejudiced in favour of (or against) their subjects, Aycock and Scott take their bias a little too far. For example, they grossly overrate the ability or enhance the reputation of Dal Hawkins, George "Elbows" McFadden, and Frank Erne, referring to them as "one of the greatest left-hookers of all time", "one of the dirtiest fighters in the history of the ring", and "one of the titans among the lightweights, regarded by many as the best fighter, pound-for-pound, plying his trade" in 1900, respectively, in order to mitigate Gans' losses to them. And, while the authors take pains to inform the reader as to the special circumstances that mitigate Gans' less than stellar performances (e.g. that he was fighting "to orders", that he was fighting while tubercular, etc), they fail to show the same consideration for some of his opponents and other peers. For example, Aycock and Scott fail to mention that Langford was a relatively inexperienced 17 year old when he fought Gans (they also incorrectly refer to this as a welterweight bout even though Langford weighed in at 136 lbs and Gans well under the lightweight limit), that Walcott broke or dislocated his left elbow in the third round of his bout with Gans, and that Joe Choynski entered the ring against Walcott with a broken rib, an injury that "Barbados" Joe exploited unmercifully.
The authors also ludicrously assert that "Gans legitimately deserves to be credited as a champion in three of the original six weight classes: featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight" even though Gans never fought for the world featherweight title and won only a claim to the welterweight title (by defeating Mike "Twin" Sullivan) when the title was being claimed by several different fighters with no consensus as to who the "real" champ was. Such overt demonstrations of bias are especially annoying because Gans was clearly a fabulous fighter, a fact that Aycock and Scott make crystal clear.
Nonetheless, this is a very good boxing bio. Incidentally, the book is comprised of the following chapters: 1) A Marvel of the Ring; 2) Battle Royal; 3) Boxing in 1900 Baltimore; 4) Ghosts in the House; 5) Straight Hitting; 6) Saving an Eye, Losing a Title; 7) Fixed Fight in Chicago; 8) Long Road Back; 9) Bringing Home the Bacon; 10) Defending the Chanpionship: A Gentleman and a Gladiator; 11) Stolen Title; 12) Boxing Moves West; 13) Forays at Welterweight; 14) Epic Battle in the Nevada Desert; 15) The White Plague; 16) A Dream Deferred, A Dream Realized; 17) Good Night, Sweet Prince: Fighting in the Shadow of Death; 18) The Old Master's Legacy; 19) In the Words of Peers and Scholars; & 20) Final Rounds. The authors provide Gans' measurements and ring record at the end of the book.
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