Skip to main content

You May Fight With a Limp, but Fight You Should

John L. Sullivan had tried various careers to make a living, but he found all the vocations he encountered unfavorable. His mother wanted him to be a priest, but his personal choice for making a living was to do so with his fists. As a young man, he was arrested a number of times for boxing in places where it was outlawed; as a teenager, he would fight in Boston barrooms, claiming boldly that he could “lick any man in the house;” and he actually went on tour offering money to people who would fight him. He was known as The Boston Strongboy, and during one tour across the U.S. between 1883 and 1884 was able to knock out eleven men. He lost only once his entire career.

Perhaps his most famous match came on July 8, 1889, where he fought a man named Jake Kilrain. Before this time, he had been out of practice, choosing not to box for over a year. He not only stopped training and boxing, but became so sick that he was bedridden for months in 1888. Partly because of this, he was completely out of shape and overweight. Many people thought he was washed up, that he was no longer the fighter he had once been. One New York newspaper said his legs would fail him after only 20 minutes, even though he was a slight favorite to win. The actual fight was scheduled for 80 rounds and lasted 75 (well over two hours) under a sweltering Mississippi sun (it was reported to be 104 degrees in the shade, and both fighters were burned red by the sun). Both men were beaten. Kilrain had a split lip, he had welts all along one side of his body, he had a broken nose, and his eye was swollen shut. After every round, despite the beating he had taken (he had a black eye and he was bleeding), Sullivan refused to sit. Instead, he stood in his corner while his rival rested in his. After 75 rounds, a doctor told Sullivan’s opponents that their man would die if he continued fighting, so Kilrain’s coach threw in the towel, and Sullivan again won, despite the heat, the injuries, and the criticism. This was, in addition, the last boxing match fought without boxing gloves. Thereafter, all matches would be played under the more humane Queensbury rules, which required gloves.

To me, Sullivan is an example of someone whose signal story is one in which an imperfect person defies the odds and proves to himself and others that he's capable of more than what others thought. I can't speak for Sullivan's valor or character outside the ring, but inside it, his story shines as an example of an underdog; and frankly, underdogs are just cool.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to ...
2 comments
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Comparative Medical Care

One thing I'd like to understand is why there is such a difference between medical costs here and those in Haiti. At the time the book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written, in 2003, it often cost $15,000 to $20,000 annually to treat a patient with tuberculosis, while it cost one one-hundredth of that-- $150 to $200-- to treat a patient for the disease in Haiti. Even if the figures aren't completely accurate, the sheer difference would still be there. Indeed, the United States pays more per capita for medical care than any other country on Earth. My first guess for why the disparity exists is that there is a market willing and able to pay more for medical treatment, so suppliers see the demand and respond with higher prices. According to at least one doctor (go to http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_the_cause_of_excess_co.php), part of the reason is administrative prices here. People here have a higher standard of living, and so the cost of care is shifted to ...
2 comments
Read more