what happened to the murderers row.?

That Charles/Bivins fight is dreadful.

 

Stonehands, hi,looking forward to your book on Jack Chase from the caifornia contingent of "murderers row"...One point that may be of help.
The hogue twins,Willis Shorty Hogue and Willard Big Boy Hogue were Irish
Americans, and by your criteria, technically not members of "murderers
row ".They were twins that were sensations but both burned out quickly.
There is a picture of the Hogue twins on the internet, and they were
real good looking guys...They fought the same time as another great
punching Westerner Fitzie Fitzpatrick...Looking forward to your book on
Jack Chase...b.b.

 

Yes, I've been there. A great site! Been trying to get any articles his dad might have written on Wade but Eddie is hard to pin down these days. Always traveling.

How does one get those SF articles?? Are the SF papers archived online anywhere?

 

Others seem to swing the gates of inclusion wide-open, but I ain't one of them. To wit, Moore would have been a member had a retired before winning that LHW title. As it is, he "graduated" from their ranks so to speak.

By the way, it's not a book, but it is a 10,000 word essay which covers the extent of Chase's life.

 

They are not online. You'll have to get to a major library and see if they carry that paper on microfilm.

 

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Having beaten 8 future champs, Bivins now battling his health

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Posted: Thursday August 13, 1998 08:54 PM

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CLEVELAND (AP) -- Although it is dark and silent inside the Loft Boxing Club, Jimmy Bivins imagines he can hear the speed bag pumping and jump-ropes swishing in the gym where he used to train.
He walks gingerly with a cane and can't really move his left arm, the one that used to flick jabs at Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore.
"I feel OK," says Bivins, the boxing great found neglected in the attic of his daughter's home in April.
He knows this is the greatest comeback of his life.
Bivins, a top contender in the light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions in the 1940s and '50s, was found amid squalid conditions four months ago. Part of the middle finger on his right hand had to be amputated. He nearly lost a leg that was wracked with infection. He is partially blind in his right eye.
But after two hospital stays and nearly three months in a nursing home, Bivins, 78, is back on his feet. He visits a stuffy old gym three times a week with friend Gary Horvath, who helped nurse him back to health.
"It's Jimmy Bivins again, back in the gym, being himself," said Horvath, trained by Bivins in the 1960s. "The inspiration that the kids get, the kids are real loving toward him. They look up to him. He gets better respect or attention around here than I do."
Bivins weighed only 110 pounds when he was found wrapped in a soiled blanket in a dank, filthy attic. Only the determination and years of conditioning that made him a 5-foot-9 fighting machine got him through the crisis.
"I just put my mind to it and came on through it," Bivins said softly, sitting ringside Wednesday in the gym where he tutors about a dozen of Cleveland's up-and-coming fighters. "I said, `I got to get up and walk again.' I had a lot of boxing friends come around, and that made me feel better."
Bivins now weighs 176 pounds, one pound over the light-heavyweight limit. Wearing a new outfit of slacks and a fashionable collared shirt, he climbs slowly into the ring, grasping the squeaky ropes frayed by heat and musty air. Once inside, he seems to move faster, gliding on the faded canvas.
"This is where I used to rest," Bivins jokes, leaning against the ropes in the corner.
The wit and old boxing bravado are sharp as ever. He recalls his fights with the likes of Louis, Moore and Ezzard Charles. His career included a 28-bout unbeaten streak from 1942-46 and eight victories over future champions.
"They were going around saying they were going to knock me out, and they didn't even knock me down," Bivins said.
Horvath, 51, was named Bivins' legal guardian on July 9, and three days later, he was released from the nursing home. His daughter, Josette, and her husband were indicted on neglect charges on June 23.
Horvath organized a boxing benefit in June that raised $6,100 for Bivins' hospital bills. Bivins, born in Dry Branch, Georgia, near Macon, now lives with two sisters.
After years away from it, he came back to the gym on his first day out of the nursing home. The boxer walked slowly to the rusted metal door, guarded by a giant padlock, and stepped into the makeshift lobby to let the memories bombard him like a punch combination.
"It was quiet, just like it is today," Horvath said. "He said, `I can hear them now.' You can hear the workouts and the noise and everything that a gym makes. If these walls could talk, I'm sure there'd be a lot of stories."
The gym, across the street from a Baptist church, has one speed bag, two scales, five cracked mirrors and gloves and headgear stacked in a metal cabinet. The floor creaks, the walls await a paint job. Its origins as a church and movie theater are obvious from the high, curved ceiling and balcony from which a choir once belted out gospel.
With its rundown, humble atmosphere and thick air, it seems a perfect place to prepare fighters for their sweaty, brutal trade. They listen as Bivins punishes the speed bag with his one good arm.
None of them has trained harder than Bivins these past few months.
"If I got something to do, I go on and do it," Bivins said. "It's just like training. If you have something to do, and they want to see if you can do it or not, I show them that I can do it."

 

This thread needed your input. Thanks for joining in!

Here's a good brief on the earlier history of the "Murderer's Row" term for anybody interested. (Though applied in baseball to the 1927 Yankees forever since, I'd not realized the sporting use of it in print dated back to 1905. Wow!):

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I suspect the original source was an informal fan tribute, much like that applied to the first six batters in the 1918 Yankee line-up, which a writer happened to pick up on. Still, pinpointing the earliest published use of it as applied to Burley & Co. would be a nice scoop.

Looking forward to it. HOF ramifications, perhaps? If Ingo and McGuigan can get in, why not a guy who UDed Booker, Marshall and Moore over the championship distance, beat Wade, handed Kid Matthews his second defeat, and even reportedly decked Burley IN 1943 ALONE?

 

Interesting article, Duo. It fills in some details as to the origins of the term.

Eventually I'll get around to really digging into when it was first used in boxing, but for now it's fun to conceptualize it!

Yep, you and I agree that 1943 was his peak year. Wait til you hear the details of Chase-Marshall I -it was a total war and if filmed it would have been a superior version of Ward-Gatti in terms of caliber of fighter and level of skill. The rematch was something of a shock. Chase was an underdog both times, as he was against Booker.

Wade? Chase beat theWade on Wade's own terms -inside. And he did it just when the writers were criticizing his supposed lack of infighting skills. So much for that.
.................
Incidentally, I am (unsuccessfully) shopping around an essay that does in fact push for Eddie Booker's inclusion into the IBOF. I'm trying to get it in print but am only getting crickets for replies. I'll remember these bum editors for giving me the brush off. Someone ought to warn them. The bums.

Consider Eddie Booker. He mastered one IBHOF fighter in Lloyd Marshall. He won the series with another IBHOF fighter (and my #6 p4p) in Moore. Then he turns around and ties the series with IBHOF Holman in his last fight with his sight fading fast. And he ain't in the IBHOF??
..............

Chase. Holman mastered Chase. Moore got the better of him too in their series, though he had to be at his damn best. And Chase ends up even with Marshall and whipped Booker.

 

You ought to talk to boxing historian JJ JOhnston. He is friends with Booker's son and has been lobbying for Eddie's inclusion as well.

 

...re: the charles/bivins fight on youtube....i saw it on live tv at the time...and it was a snoozer....lots of holding, mauling...bivins was on the way down at that time, but there's no excuse for ezzard's performance..it was one of his worst and unfortunately it was on network tv.

as one of ezzard's greatest admirers I'm sorry youtube has the damn thing.atsch

 

Wow I never knew Charles-Marshall existed, looks like it maybe sped up a little

 

Do they have their fifth fight filmed also?I think i have a Charles vs Bivins fight and it is definitly not a snoozer.

 

true legends thats what they are

 

...i don't know which charles/bivins fight is the one shown here on youtube...but i do remember a good fight that went ten rounds and charles won. if the youtube fight is their fourth, then it was the fifth that was a good one....if it's the other way around then it's the fourth that was the turkey.

i am confusing myself now...i hope others can make sense of this.

 

Jeez Pater go dig it out and check if its the same one I posted on here or not - if its one of their other fights get it on youtube or here or both :happy