Anyone Read The Biography Of Sailor Tom Sharkey?

I was thinking of buying a year ago but had not read overly-positive reviews. Pollack should do a side series on great contenders from the early days. His books are gems.

 

Hiya guys

Thanks for discussing our biography of Tom Sharkey. I'm one of the authors.

I just wanted to respond to Seamus' post that he has not read "overly positive" reviews.
We haven't seen one bad review so had to come back at that one!!

For instance here is Marty Mulcahey's review on Max Boxing:

http://www.maxboxing.com/news/free-articles/book-review-i-fought-them-all

He says:
"It emits quality from the first opening crack of the hard cover until its final satisfying closing."

Other reviews:

"Hugely entertaining and exquisitely researched... It's a great contribution to ring history." --Pete Ehrmann, boxing writer, contributor to The Ring

"I Fought Them All is an excellent read. It's well-researched and is good news for boxing fans everywhere." --Tracy Callis, International Boxing Research Organisation

"Gun-slingers, shipwrecks, tragic love stories, gambling, acts of heroism and, of course, gruelling fights. I thoroughly recommend this book."
--Glenn Wilson, Cyber Boxing Zone
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/cbzforum/showthread.php?16642-I-Fought-Them-All-Book-Review

The book won the Wishing Shelf Award for independently published non-fiction.

There are also plenty of comments on the Cyber Boxing Zone forum. Please search. I haven't found a negative one.

In case you were wondering why we produced it independently, Irish publishers could not see the market for the book (having totally forgotten Sharkey) and a well-known American publisher who wanted to put it out wanted, we felt, to charge the reader too much for it.

Writing a book like that took a lot of time and a lot of research. It would be a foolhardy person to claim anything they did was perfect, but I'd only ask that people read the book before commenting.

As it is, the book is actually sold out - there was a huge demand which we, as independent publishers, under-estimated and in the end could not meet.

However, for those interested we have published an e-formatted version. The reference notes are not in this version but we are trying to publish them when we can for free on our blog.

http://tomsharkey.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks for your time, fellas
Greg

 

By the way, you can also read the reviews on Amazon
[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fought-Them-All-Battles-Prize-fighting/dp/0956272215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347958593&sr=8-1[/ame]

And this is the e-book:

[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fought-Them-All-Prizefighting-ebook/dp/B0098P9RZ2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347958667&sr=8-2[/ame]

 

bought it a few weeks ago.gonna get stuck in soon

 

Great. Glad you managed to get a copy. Did you get the hardback or the e-version?

 

only hardbacks for me

 

Good man! Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for your support.

Wish we could have produced more.

 

Out of curiosity, during your research, did you find confirmation of Sharkey's KO loss to George Washington on Feb 7, 1894, which was reported in next-day Honolulu Daily Bulletin. Next-day Hawaii Holomua Proress only mentioned his exhibition with Jack Langley taking place the previous day.

 

Good question!

No further confirmation other than that Daily Bulletin (Honolulu) report of February 8, 1894, of a fight at a “certain place last night” at which “Geo Washington, the colored pugilist, knocked out Sharkey”.

By the time Sharkey came to write down his memories of this time he had certainly [conveniently] forgotten this defeat – although he remembered a fight later that year with Washington, which took place probably on July 4, 1894.

Sharkey recalled the venue for that to be a “small hall”. The ring was on a stage and had ropes on three sides only.

According to Sharkey, Washington made him look foolish early on.

“I just couldn’t hit him,” said Sharkey. “When I rushed he slipped aside and made me bump the ropes. And when I stood in the centre of the ring and dared him to come on and fight he poked my head and hopped away.

“I was furious when I went to my corner. I had been thinking I could fight and here was a boxing instructor - not a regular fighter, just a plain every day instructor - showing me that I didn't know a thing about it.

“I wouldn't even sit down. During the minute rest, I kept digging my toes into the canvas in my anxiety for the bell to ring.

“When it finally did ring, I jumped 10 feet and landed in the centre of the ring on the dead run.”

You will probably know that Sharkey was occasionally prone to hyperbole – a quality certainly not rare in the great old-timers!

This is what he said happened next: “The Negro saw me coming and tried to side step. I struck him with my arm and shoulder and slammed him against the wall. As he bounced back, I swung and landed on his chest. He went plumb through a window in the back of the stage.”

[As you’ll know, taking Sharkey’s version of events at face of value is not always wise. Where we could we tried to find two sources of contemporaneous records of events. But that was not always possible and Sharkey’s stories themselves were certainly too good to leave out!]

 

I'm very interested in this book, but the price on amazon leads me to believe it is out of stock. The price is very, very high.
Are new copies going to be printed? I saw mention of an epectronic ersion. Where is that?

 

Oops, see the answer to my questions above. I guess it's just out f stock in the US?

 

Hiya

There are people on the Amazon.com site charging crazy prices for the book. Astonishing.

Amazon.co.uk has a small number if you search there.
[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0956272215/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new[/ame]

Can be sent to the US.

Or there's the Kindle version:
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Fought-Them-All-Prizefighting-ebook/dp/B0098P9RZ2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347975137&sr=8-2&keywords=i+fought+them+all[/ame]

 

" Tom Sharkey had learned his fighting trade, of all unlikely places, in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the Navy port paradise, he built an official record of 10-0-0 against English and American Navy brawlers. His 11th "official" bout was against a black boxing instructor named George Washington. The first round was a lesson for Sharkey: Washington was someone who could sidestep his punches, easily land jabs, easily dominate him. For the second round, Sharkey charged and grabbed. "The Sailor" held the instructor aggressively within a clinch until he threw his more-experienced foe against the wall. As Washington bounced off the wall, Sharkey held the instructor with his left arm, while illegally landing a hard punch to the chest with a knockout right. This "officially" moved his record at 11-0-0, but this was no bout. It was an older guy attempting to teach the younger Sharkey a boxing lesson while assisting the Irishman with technique. Stubborn pride and foolishness triggered the hot tempered brawler into ruthless stupidity"