Baers portrayal in Cinderalla man??

1,000%, this.

 

Nobody has gone down that rabbit hole until I did so. They've largely accepted the later manipulation of the truth, which I also document how that evolved, repeat the same rehashed myths, or I swear used google searches as reliable sources. I get that all the time. "I can't find this in a google search so you must be lying." I'm a genealogist and historic researcher. Needles in haystacks are my happy place and I'll spend days and weeks just to confirm one claim. I bust most every generational myth believed about Baer, and I back it up with facts and even out of Baer's own mouth.

Case in point. A quote Max was supposed to have made directly after the loss to Louis, “When people want to see me executed, they're going to have to pay more than twenty-five bucks a seat for the privilege,” has had more variations of its origins than a bulldog has wrinkles. It was said a whole three years later, in an aisle at Yankee Stadium to United Press columnist Henry McLemore, before the 1938 Joe Louis–Max Schmeling rematch. It was in response to Max’s remark that top ticket prices for a rematch with Joe Louis weren’t high enough. If he was going to get beaten up again, somebody needed to pay him a lot more money. Source: Harrisburg Evening News 23 Jun 1938 p18

 

Before the movie, most people alive who knew of Baer, only knew of him because he was the father of Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies.

 

Well, assuming all of this new research on Baer's behavior outside the ring is accurate, I guess I prefer the Baer of boxing myth and lore. He will remain the canonical Max Baer for me.

This new flesh-and-blood Max Baer, who goes around beating up women and partying while Frankie Campbell is dying -- I don't know the guy. And it's only fair that the lovable Baer of myth confiscated the real one's name and identity, replacing the real Baer with somebody more appropriate for a hero of boxing lore.

 

These are not assumptions. And isn't it only fair to tell the truth about what was done to the other guy in this history: Frankie Campbell? How the Camilli family watched while he lied and embellished the truth? How Frankie's wife was pregnant and miscarried his 2nd child? How Baer said he couldn't have been prouder when he watched Frankie's 1st and only son graduate, but that son had actually died in a plane crash 6 months before he graduated? How he said he put Frankie's non-existent passel of children through school and engaged in several benefits for his widow and that was all lies? Who does that? To go further, in the ballpark the night of the Baer-Campbell fight, you had a paid off referee, a state boxing commissioner profiting off Baer's fights, and a chief second in Campbell's corner who was planted. Read the reports of the fight. The guy in the back row knew that 1st punch knocked Campbell unconscious and he was caught up on the ropes. But while the referee stood by, Baer was allowed to punch him at least 20 more times until his brain was separated from his skull. Then Baer told 20 different versions of the fight in later years and repeatedly dragged Campbell out of his grave as a public relations tactic. Who does that?

 

They may not be assumptions for you.

They are still assumptions for me, since I haven't read your work. Nor have I read reviews of your work by other historians. Nor am I independently qualified to know how accurate your description of Baer's life is.

So for now, I'm assuming your portrait is accurate. Because it would be very strange for someone to show up on a boxing forum with links to interviews, a zillion source citations, and a claim to have written a book about an issue, with nobody contradicting his account, and nevertheless be making it all up.

Of course!

Certainly not the Max Baer of myth. That guy wouldn't have done any of the terrible things you describe the real Baer of history doing.

 

It was disgraceful to the point where I have not watched the movie.

 

I will buy your book at some point, I'm very interested in the sources you mention.
There is an article from Donovan in Liberty magazine 1939 where Donovan says that Baer pleaded with the referee to stop the fight but the referee didn't want to anger a bloodthirsty crowd by creating suspicions of a fix so he let them go on.
There's also information on the Schmeling vs Baer fight in that as Donovan was the referring official for that fight.
You can find the two pages on Donovan's boxrec page here (bottom of the page): https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Arthur_Donovan

I watched the video podcast you shared, intriguing stuff, mainly I want to ask you about Baer's allegedly broken hands in the Louis fight. Basically the entire forum believes them to be true, so I'd like to know which sources disprove that rumor.

 

Thank you for watching the podcast. I read the Arthur Donovan article, and based on what I've read he was a solid referee. Baer hated him and often bellowed to the press that he would not fight if Donovan was the referee, because Arthur took points away when he fouled his opponent. But Arthur was not at the Baer-Campbell fight, so would have been told second or third-hand about it. I used first-hand accounts of people that were actually at ringside (including Jim Jeffries who was disgusted by Baer's tactics), court transcripts, and sports reporters to get the most accurate account.

While Campbell lay there with spinal fluid and blood from every orifice leaking onto the canvas, referee Toby Irwin had to wrestle with Baer to raise his hand in victory, as Baer fought him to go back and hit Campbell some more while he lay there. Irwin was a known 'pet' of Charles Traung of the CASAC. Reporters often wrote, and others testified at trials, how Irwin blatantly "directed the action" and was known to bet on or give fights to fighters owned by certain handlers or certain clubs. I also tracked down criminal charges that Irwin was in dire financial straights in the weeks leading up to Baer-Campbell and was ripe for a bribe.

Several myths revolve around the "Baer had 'broken hands'" stories. I spent more than a solid week in research on the subject. The press covered it extensively. Other than having the expected hands of a fighter who had fought for several years, and was in hard training, both before and after both the Braddock and the Louis fights, his hands were declared fit.

A dozen x-rays taken the day after Braddock at John Hopkins Hospital, and examined by Dr. William Reinhoff and a group of physicians, confirmed Max had only inflamed tendons, similar to tennis elbow. They noted x-rays revealed old dislocations but no signs of recent injury. Baer's later claims that he needed surgery and bravely entered the ring to fight despite his injuries is a lie. Dr. Reinhoff said simple hand exercises were all that was needed.

Associated Press sports writer Edward J. Neil noted the nakedly pleading look in Max’s eyes as he leaned toward his own physician in the dressing room after the Braddock bout to query, “Broken aren’t they, Doc?” The quiet reply was, “Just bruised.”

Because they didn't want Baer to be able to use the lie twice, the NYSAC had doctors repeatedly examine and x-ray Baer’s hands during training for Louis and they were ok. There are photos of his hands being x-rayed with stories, and an actual x-ray image in my book.

One contemporary article states Baer wrote a letter to his fiancé (by then she was his wife), to say, "I hope to God my hand heals before the [Louis] fight." However, Mary Ellen Baer resided in a house a block away from Max’s training camp for the Louis fight. He walked 'home' every night. The letter writing story was invented.

Post-fight after Louis, when he again proclaimed broken hands, reporters offered to pay for x-rays as proof. The offer went unclaimed. No report exists that Baer ever had x-rays post-Louis, or had surgery for his supposed 'broken hands.'

Before both the Braddock and Louis fights, their handlers approached the press and the NYSAC to request that Baer and his handlers be watched closely so that he couldn't be given illegal stimulants prior to and during the fights. Baer had boasted to 300 people at a dinner that Carnera's hands looked huge because of the strychnine give him, which was one illegal stimulant often used as a pep-me-up. When informed his title could be taken away, he then said he misspoke, he meant to say cherry wine and spirits of ammonia. Baer's former trainer confirmed that going back to Levinsky II, Baer used illegal drugs to fight at a higher level, most likely because with the exception of Schmeling, he was a very poor trainer.

I think I covered everything, but let me know if you need clarification, thanks!

 

He should've gotten the no love nickname.

 

I went down the Max Baer rabbit hole.

Please, save me.

My world is falling apart.

 

The Baerpill isn’t easy to swallow

“Let the boy watch, he needs to learn….like I learned!”

 

Have to disagree with you here, pal.

It’s not at all fair nor fitting that Max, if he is as @FrankiesGal describes (and I haven’t seen any refutation of what he cites as fact, although history will be a long time catching up with what he’s uncovered if anyone even cares enough), doesn’t get a true and honest (even when unflattering and worse) understanding of just what kind of creature he was.

Don King and other unsavory characters in boxing get vilified, so why should Max get treated as some kind of saint? Because he had a nice smile and could crack a joke? Because he was, if what is in this thread is accurate, as shrewd and shameless as self-promoter as King?

If Max doesn’t deserve to be a hero, let’s give that honor instead to someone who does.

Me, I don’t care for the Liberty Valance version of anyone (when the legend becomes fact, print the legend). Baer was a man with a big punch, nothing more. That shouldn’t come with it a get-out-of-jail-free pass for all transgressions, that we must worship at the alter of whatever myth surrounds the actual man.

Muhammad Ali was a far greater fighter than Max Baer could ever be, and he gets critiqued and examined. No reason we shouldn’t know it if Max was every bit as vile, or more-so, than he was portrayed in the film (with scores of defenders who don’t know anything more than an unsupported legend carrying pitchforks for the movie when it was actually pretty kind to him).

As the wise man once said, let justice be done lo the heavens fall. In this case, everyone learning exactly what sort of man Baer really was would equate justice.

 

I’ve shared this in other threads throughout the years, but my grandma was staying with her cousin for a time, who was a big time gambler in California back in the day, and he knew Max Baer and invited him to dinner at his house.

My grandma about died when she heard that the former heavyweight champion (this was many years after his retirement) was coming for dinner and she had nothing fancy to prepare so she had to scramble to put together a decent meal.

Anyway, she says that Max was an absolute gentleman and very kind, much more humble than she imagined he would be. I know this account can’t speak for the man as a whole, but it seemed fitting to include this in this thread. Make of it what you will.

 

I too prefer "Tender Hearted Tiger" Max Baer...