Like a Punch in the Face

The Pugilist Recoils; Mockery, Booze and Violence; A Chill on Broad Street; A Rhinestone Buckle; Shooters Run Amok; Foul Blows; A Tough New Year's Day

This bonus chapter is set in the world of Man Full of Trouble, and is a small gift to the paying subscribers funding my research. This is the most “Philadelphia” story I know—a pulp tale of boxers, banjos, booze and bullets on a wild New Year’s Day exactly 101 years ago.

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WHUD

A crazy-strong right hook slammed into the chin of 26-year-old lightweight contender Lew Tendler.

The southpaw wasn’t expecting the blow to pack that much power. He also wasn’t expecting to drop to the canvas a second later. Yet there Tendler was, looking up at his wire-haired opponent, wondering how he’d lost his footing so quickly.

The referee began the shouted count: One!… Two!… Three!…

Tendler blinked, tried to get his bearings. This wasn’t the way this New Year’s Day exhibition in Philadelphia was supposed to go. Hell, Tendler was just supposed to be building momentum on his comeback trail.

His opponent? This scrappy kid from Kensington, three years his junior, taking his shot at the big time. Easy meat. Nothing to be worried about. And the match had started easy enough. Tendler, who weighed in at 139-pounds, shook his manager’s hand then ducked under the ropes to face 23-year-old Nate Goldman, a working class kid. Fans from the challenger’s neighborhood, Kensington, had crowded the freezing Frankford Elevated to journey all the way to the Arena at 46th and Market and packed the stands on New Year’s Day.

Not that Goldman’s fans were expecting much. Tendler was the odds-on favorite, and this was slowly shaping up to be the southpaw’s championship year. Tendler was only been 26, but he was a battle-hardened veteran of the ring, clocking in his first pro fight at 15. Early on, people loved to watch the skinny bastard spar just to see if one of the more seasoned punchers might bust his slender frame in half. Tendler, however, always hung in there.

Leftie Lew started out pushing papers on the street corners after his pop died. Being a successful newsboy back then meant using your fists to hold your corner. Not long after an older newsboy named Phil Glassman recognized Lew’s tenacity and invited him to join his crew. The deal was simple. Phil would manage; Lew would punch. They made a handshake deal. And from then on, before every fight, Lew would shake Phil’s hand before climbing into the ring.

The first round, Goldman didn’t embarrass himself. Tendler sent a flurry of blows to the kid’s body, yet the kid held his ground. His Kensington fans watched in cautious silence. This wasn’t what they expected. They thought it would be an early massacre.

Round two, Tendler sailed in, preparing to deliver one of his trademark blows to teach the youngster a lesson. The kid caught him by surprise, though. Tendler “was as wide open as Broad Street,” one reporter wrote. “Tendler must have caught the breeze of that right, for a startled look swept over his face just before it landed.”

WHUD

Four!… Five!…

A groggy Tendler climbed up onto his haunches.

Six!... Seven!

Tendler fell forward to his knees to steady himself. C’mon. Get up. Get up. This isn’t the way this fight is supposed to go.

Eight!... Nine!

Tendler climbed to his feet at the last possible moment. This fight was not over. The fans from Kensington roared with both anguish and delight. Their boy had done that! Knocked a would-be champ down to the mat! Others murmured: sure, but that Goldman kid was in for a hard bit of schooling. You don’t knock down someone like Tendler and expect the rest of the match to go all polite.

Third round, Tendler was back at it, attacking the kid’s torso with rapid-fire stiff punches yet keeping his distance. The kid from Kensington barely seemed to notice.

And in the fourth, Goldman let loose a series of brutal right hooks that further blackened Tendler’s already blackening eye…

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The City of Philadelphia was welcoming New Year’s Day 1924 with the usual: mockery, booze and violence.

The Mummers strutted five miles up Broad Street towards City Hall as an icy wind blasted in from the Delaware River and cut through the thousands of spectators lining the sides of the parade route, chilling them to the bone.

The performers were hurting, too. A 24-year-old member of the Klein Shooters Club, wearing a flimsy dress and blackface, had to be taken to nearby St. Agnes’ Hospital for exposure. (The Mummer had been impersonating a “negress” in a “gown that emphasized the brevity of feminine apparel,” according to one newspaper account.) Frosty gusts whipped at the capes and costumes so fiercely that “every division was a broken rainbow of streaming fabric,” wrote Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Richard J. Beamish. “[The wind] blew one of the king jockeys down four times between Porter and Wharton streets, and men and boys in plain clothes were commandeered to steady the wearers of large, stiff costumes offering resistance to the gale.”