Dave Shade

Dave Shade: http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=461562

 

Dave Shade and his manager, Leo Flynn, were very enthusiastic about playing golf. Shade played golf while active as a fighter and during his retirement years. Hunting was another one of Shade's hobbies.

There are numerous stories or reports of Shade smoking cigars while in training camps. As a sparring partner in a training camp of Jack Dempsey's during 1927, he was seen hitting the speed bag while smoking a cigar.

In a book, ****** Brown, a fine sportswriter, wrote about a vivid memory of Shade at a training camp of Dempsey's during 1927. Brown was sitting down with Shade to have a conversation at a training camp of Dempsey's when Shade got a completely unexpected call that he was needed for a sparring session with Dempsey. At the time of having the conversation and being told about the sparring session, Shade was smoking a cigar. After getting changed, Shade walked from the dressing room to the ring while still smoking the cigar. In between rounds in the sparring session with Dempsey, Shade took puffs of the cigar. After the sparring session, Shade was still smoking the cigar while walking back to the dressing room.

- Chuck Johnston

 

While still in his teens, Dave Shade got married to his wife, Irene, during 1920 and became a father of a son, William Walter "Billy" Shade, during the early part of 1921. Dave and Irene were married for over sixty years until his death in 1983. William had at least one son, Robert, and passed away in 1980. Irene was 94 when she died in 1997.

By the late 1970s, Dave was suffering from a type of dementia and wasn't able to give an interview to a Pittsfield-based newspaper as a result. But he was in good shape physically at the time. Irene was interviewed for the newspaper article at the time.

According to the article, Irene said that she saw her husband fight in a bout during 1920, but never again afterwards because she didn't want to see him get hurt. When interviewed for an article in Ring Magazine during the early 1930s, Dave stated that he would not allow his son become a fighter. Dave added that as long as he himself was alive, it wouldn't happen. According to one 1960s newspaper article, Irene stated that Dave hadn't attended a professional boxing show since he had retired as a professional boxer.

- Chuck Johnston

 

In the February 24, 1972 edition of the Oakland Tribune, there was a UPI newspaper report about Dave Shade collapsing and dying from a massive coronary on a Los Angeles street corner in Los Angeles on Tuesday (February 22, 1972).

In the February 25, 1972 edition of the Oakland Tribune, there was an AP report from Daytona Beach in which Dave Shade declared, "I am alive and kicking. In fact, you tell them that I can lick any man my age." He added, "I am the real Dave Shade. I was born Charles David Shade and had more than 400 fights. The report said that Shade and his wife lived in Daytona Beach at the time. Shade also said, "My health couldn't be better."

According to the latter report, it was Herman Auerbach, another former fighter, who died in Los Angeles. But there was some confusion because it was reported that Auerbach fought while using the ring name of Dave Shade.

Note- Auerbach was a club fighter who fought as a welterweight and middleweight while based in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles during the 1920s. His father, A. J. Auerbach, managed Jack Dempsey at the time the latter sustained his only known knockout loss in his first bout with Fireman Jim Flynn. According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, Dempsey took an interest in Herman's career and showed up to see him fight in Los Angeles, adding that Herman's father was Dempsey's manager at one point in time.

Dave Shade is listed as Charles D. Shade in the 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census records.

- Chuck Johnston

 

When going back to his native state of California for some scheduled 4-round bouts during 1924, Dave Shade had been a leading contender in welterweight division for over two years by that time. During that trip, Shade won a bout with Joe Simonich in Vernon; drew and lost in two bouts with Bert Colima in Vernon; and drew in a Labor Day bout with Oakland Jimmy Duffy at the Oakland Oaks' baseball park in Emeryville.

It is probable that Colima and Duffy were the best drawing cards in Vernon and the Oakland area respectively at the time. Both Colima and Duffy also piled up impressive records in scheduled four-round bouts. Simonich certainly wasn't nearly as formidable as Colima or Duffy in scheduled four-rounders although he have far more experience than they did in longer bouts at the time.

Both Duffy and Colima had a very tough time of it when going back East for some bouts during early 1920s. During the same time, Shade had adapted well to fighting in longer bouts while in the Northwest and the East, becoming one of the top welterweights in the process.

Shade's Vernon bouts of 1924 took place at the new Vernon Arena, an indoor facility with a capacity of about 7,000 which opened for business during the latter part of 1923. It appears the two bouts with Colima drew large crowds while there were a number of empty sections of the arena for the bout with Simonich. For the bout with Duffy at the ballpark in Emeryville, the attendance was 10,000, according to the ringside report in the Oakland Tribune. As a result, it is likely that Shade's four bouts in California were quite lucrative for him overall during that year even if he did not fare that well for a top fighter when facing Colima or Duffy.

- Chuck Johnston

 

During the period from 1918 to 1920, Dave Shade had 86 recorded bouts, all of which took in his native state of California. Of the 86 bouts, he won 35, lost 9, drew in 39 and had 3 no-contest bouts. Only one of the 9 losses ended in a knockout, which was at the hands of another very active four-round fighter named Joe "Petie" Coffey during the third round of a bout in San Francisco on April 4, 1919. Shade was knocked out for the count with a left to the stomach, which reportedly caused him quite a bit of physical distress.

The only other recorded stoppage loss for Shade was in his first bout with Mickey Walker in Newark, New Jersey on November 21, 1921. Shade could not continue after sustaining a broken hand, resulting in Walker winning by a technical knockout in the eighth round after piling up a large lead. In the second bout between the two young fighters which took in Newark on December 21, 1921, Shade won a newspaper decision after 12 rounds.

From late 1914 to the beginning of 1925, California law mandated that a bout could not be scheduled for more than four rounds. There was a notable exception when professional boxing shows featuring bouts scheduled for six and ten rounds took place at some U.S. Military installations in California for a very brief period of time during the early part of 1920 until the federal government agreed ban them. On one boxing show staged at the U.S. Army installation, the Presidio, in San Francisco on January 12, 1920, Shade won a decision in a six-round bout with Earl Young. It would be the only recorded bout for Shade which was scheduled for more than four rounds until he started fighting in the Northwest during 1921.

- Chuck Johnston

 

As a boxer from 1915 to the end of 1925, Oakland Jimmy Duffy had 91 wins, 12 losses and 22 draws (according to BoxRec), a very impressive record under the circumstances. With the four-round bouts usually being very competitive during the era, almost all of the active California four-round boxers had many draws, a large number of losses and a low percentage of knockout wins on their records.

It is probable that Duffy's prime years as a four-round boxer were from the beginning of 1919 to the end of 1924. During that time, Duffy had only 5 losses and 13 draws while having total of 72 bouts, 47 of them taking place in his hometown of Oakland. 9 of the draws and none of the 5 losses took place in Oakland. The 5 losses are as follows:

1. July 4, 1919- Oakland Frankie Burns, Emeryville, CA...........L-4
2. Feb. 24, 1922- Lew Tendler, New York, NY..............TKO by 8
3. March 20, 1922- Bobby Barrett, Philadelphia, PA.........KO by 3
4. Dec. 29, 1922- Jack Josephs, Hollywood, CA....................L-4
5. Nov. 16, 1923- Gene Cline, Stockton, CA.........................L-4

Duffy had three bouts with Dave Shade, the first two during 1920 and the third one during 1924.
The first and third bouts ended with draw decisions while Duffy won a decision in the second bout.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I liked him in Tommy Boy.

 

According to a number of early 1930s newspaper items and columns, Dave Shade was worth quite a bit of money, much of it invested in real estate. Shade reportedly felt that investing in real estate enabled him to fare better than if he had stock market investments at the time. But as noted in a previous post of mine, 1940 U.S. Census records show that Shade made a relatively modest living as a "merchant" in the "restaurant" business and lived with his wife and son in a home renting 32 dollars a month in Pittsfield, Massachusetts during 1939. Note- Shade's reported 1939 earnings of $2,600. were almost twice the 1939 average American income of $1,368. In other words, Shade and his immediate family were doing fairly well compared to many other Americans at the time. Also keep in mind that news items and columns about the alleged wealth of certain fighters often turned out to be far off the mark later on.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Up to the 1990s, a friend of mine knew Dick Mastro, a younger brother of Earl Mastro, a fine featherweight from Chicago who was active during the 1920s and 1930s. Several times during a given year, Dick put out a publication which contained selected records of then-current fighters along with an editorial written by him. I use to go with my friend to visit Dick at his place which was located in an old multi-storied building in Hollywood about 1990.

When I brought up the name of Dave Shade to Dick as we were standing outside, Dick immediately demonstrated Dave's distinctive bob-and-weave style, adding that he thought that Dave was a top-ten fighter, giving the impression that he didn't think much of him. But it is likely that Dick saw Shade fight in Chicago during the late 1920s or early 1930s, not when he was in his prime from 1921 to 1925.

- Chuck Johnston