Jack Sharkey and Lawrence

Jack Sharkey never lived in Lawrence but thanks to his friendship with Buckley stablemate Andy Callahan, he spent time drinking in the Queen City. I don't have any documentation (yet) but have heard it from enough sources to believe it to be true.

In 1932, a crowd of Lithuanians stood outside a Lawrence shop listening to the Sharkey vs. Schmeling fight on a radio. There was whooping and hollering in the streets when Lithuanian-American Sharkey (aka Joseph Paul Zukauskas) won, becoming the World Heavyweight Champ.

I came to see another side of Sharkey via his friendship with Callahan. In the second post on this blog I spoke of Sharkey's letter to Callahan's mother after his death in WWII. Before seeing that letter, the Sharkey I'd heard about was a man who alienated everyone with his verbal buckshot. Fans and the media had a hard time celebrating Sharkey's success. In 1927, Sharkey beat fellow Boston heavyweight Jim Maloney, thereby earning a match with Jack Dempsey. The victorious Sharkey was greeted at his Chestnut Hill home by 50 friends and fans.  At the same time back in Boston, 5,000 cheering fans welcomed loser Jim Maloney at South Station.

After Andy Callahan lost to Vince Dundee in a ridiculously mismatched World Middleweight title fight (Callahan gave up about 24 pounds and many felt he won) a Lowell Sun reporter observed Sharkey gently place the worn-out, cramping Callahan onto the rubbing slab when he couldn't hoist himself up.

Jack Sharkey fascinates many boxing-history types. Writer Mike Casey explains why this is with his article on Sharkey and I often find myself coming back to these two sentences:

(read full article here)

It is a cruel and somewhat unfair fact of life that flawed fighters of an erratic nature and unfulfilled talent frequently fire the imagination of writers and broadcasters far more than the dedicated professionals who do everything right. Ask a character actor whether he would rather play a perfect hero or a tortured soul and he won’t need too long to give you an answer.

Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz visits Lawrence Boxing Club

L to R: LBC trainer Giovanni Monroy, Bernardo Ruiz, head trainer Mel Peabody

Not necessarily history but filmmaker Ruiz was recently in Lawrence and stopped by Lawrence Boxing Club to check out the scene. Visit LawrenceBoxing.com for more pictures.

Jack Sharkey and Andy Callahan

Boxing Buddies Jack Sharkey and Lawrence's Toy Bulldog Andy Callahan

The first piece of writing I did on this was a brief bio on Andy Callahan for IBRO. You can read it here. Since my research started with Andy Callahan, so to does this blog.

Andy Callahan

Throughout his ring career (1927-1938), Andy Callahan was a charismatic, flawed hero who  embodied the city of Lawrence.  His recuperative powers and stamina in the ring were as legendary as his hard-partying ways. At his best, he dazzled audiences with skill and strength that allowed him to punch well above his weight class. His warmth and wit made him a favorite of   reporters, boxing businessmen and the most stubborn of anti-socials,  Heavyweight Jack Sharkey.  At his worst, he would show up for fights still drunk or hungover. Managers, trainers and audiences never knew which Andy Callahan they were getting. Locally, Andy was infamous for bar fights, pulling fire alarms, big cigars and loving lots of women. Think a hybrid of Colin Farrell and Jimmy Cagney, who, by the way, was a great friend and admirer of Callahan's.

The professional boxing scene in Lawrence was on the wane throughout the 1920s. Ironically, some of the best home grown fighters - Arthur Flynn,  Henry"Bud"Janco, Mike (Saccuzzo) Sarko and Callahan came into their own during this decade. Callahan put Lawrence on the map, much in the same way Micky Ward has done for Lowell. His ring career burned brightest from 1928 through his failed 1933 World Middleweight Championship bid with the much bigger Vince Dundee. Most believed Callahan, grossly outweighed by the true middleweight Dundee, legitimately won the fight. His trajectory changed after that fight and while there were bursts of brilliance and lots of wonderful scraps with Sammy Fuller, he never regained his upward momentum.

Judging by the small bits in local papers that reported on his misdeeds, Callahan spent the years between 1938 and December, 1941 in dissipation.  Soon after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Callahan enlisted and repeatedly refused any concessions be made because of his age (he was in his early 30s) or celebrity. Andy fought alongside younger men in the front lines of Northern Africa and Italy. On November 19, 1943 he was killed in a vicious firefight in Monte Cassino, Italy. 

In the Lawrence History Center's Andy Callahan file there is a photocopy of a letter sent to Andy's mother by Heavyweight Champ Jack Sharkey, detailing a detour he took while on a spring, 1944 USO tour to find Andy's grave. In strikingly beautiful penmanship (who knew?), the Boston Gob wrote that,  upon seeing his grave, he "felt as if Andy was OK" and "kidding, such as he always did." Sharkey assured Mrs. Callahan that Andy was "loved by all his comrades and was very much liked by his superiors." Sharkey ended with "Truly, I loved him myself like a brother." 

Why boxing? And, why Lawrence boxing?

Andy Callahan

The Andrew Andy Callahan Waterway

A few years ago, I became hypnotized by a lovable badass boxer named Andy Callahan.  I found his photograph while volunteering at the Lawrence History Center.  From Callahan's file I learned he held three New England titles at once, fought for a world title, had national name recognition and died a hero in WWII. At the Lawrence Dam, there is a plaque naming an important stretch of the Merrimack River, “The Andrew 'Andy' Callahan Waterway. Other than hard-core boxing buffs and a few hearty yet long-in-the-tooth souls, Andy Callahan has been largely forgotten.

It's sad to see this local sports celebrity culture disappearing. Boxing history outside of big city markets is difficult to track down. Many local papers aren't archived online and old photos of B-listers rarely make it onto memorabilia websites. In a city that has seen dramatic turnover, Lawrence city barber shops and bars are no longer papered with pictures of legendary locals.  The good stuff – the stories, scrapbooks and pictures, are found in descendants' attics and basements.

Boxing movies are still made in spite of the sport's fade from our everyday consciousness.  Successful boxing movies combine undiluted elements of human drama with hip, gritty backdrops.  Lowell, Philadelphia or the 1950s NYC waterfront are the best supporting co-stars.  I had an epiphany - why wait for Hollywood to tell me the story? I can mine the local research and have a never-ending movie in my head. Best yet, I can share what I've found.

The drive to know more about boxers like Andy Callahan led me into an undiscovered country. I have hours of fun looking at history through the prism of boxing. I've made new friends and thanks to the internet I can share my passion with the equally obsessed and much more knowledgeable members of the International Boxing Researchers Organization.