A ring death is always difficult to handle for all concerned, and that includes the boxer in the other corner. Tilman, “ brain was knocked completely loose from his skull.”Ī part of Baer died with Campbell. Then came what manager Ancil Hoffman called Baer’s “Gethsemane.” It arrived the night of August 25, 1930, not in a garden, but in front of a capacity crowd at Recreational Park, home of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.īaer hit Frankie Campbell so hard and so often before the fight was belatedly stopped in the fifth round, Campbell died the next day. His career was just getting started and there was plenty more money to earn and skirts to chase. DeLisa, author of Cinderella Man, Baer earned $50,000 for 16 fights in 1929, but was $10,000 in debt at the start of 1930. On Max got $35 for his pro debut, more than three times his weekly pay at the Atlas Diesel Engine Company in East Oakland.īaer quickly became a Bay Area favorite, attracting large crowds and making good money almost from the start. Baer’s first trainer, Persey Maden, said Max became fascinated by the “colour and the glamour” of boxing and loved being the center of attention. When the guy woke up he told Max that he ought to give boxing a try. It wasn’t until his father shamed him into fighting back that Max discovered he’d been blessed with terrifying punching power.īaer excelled at baseball, basketball and football in high school but never considered boxing until he fought a guy in bar parking lot and knocked him out. Baer was an accidental fighter, not a kid who grew up dreaming about becoming heavyweight champion of the world.Īccording to Buddy, Max was an introvert as a boy and bullied at school, especially when he moved west to Colorado and California from his birthplace in Nebraska. Perhaps Max Baer has been judged from the wrong point of view. Was Baer’s inconsistency due to not taking his career seriously enough? Did he have a million-dollar body and a ten-cent head, or was he simply a great talent who fell considerably short of his potential? Baer was all of the above and more. True, there were times when it looked like he’d taken boxing lessons from Charlie Chaplin, but there were also times when Baer’s fists fell like anvils dropped from heaven. To others he was the “Clown Prince” of boxing, a guy who brought laughter to the sport during grim days of the Great Depression. Some people called him the “Killer Clown” because of his involvement in a ring death. In the heavyweight championship pantheon Baer is the great could-have-been, the one that got away - the big if-only. Max’s legacy is a cautionary tale laced with tears and laughter, his failures remembered more than his triumphs. “For adventurous women, Max had it all, brawn, personality, a sunny disposition, a flashy car, glory, fame and money.” “ was literally surrounded by women who lured him into chasing them to bed, yet another sport in which my brother excelled,” said his brother, Buddy Baer. He had a mop of curly back hair and a smile that could melt the hangman’s heart. As the story goes, the source of his impressive physique was swinging an axe next to his dad at a meatpacking plant or as Max described it, “Up to my knees in gore.”īaer was a boisterous fun-loving charmer with a quick wit and self-deprecating sense of humour. He was a handsome hunk of a man, 6-foot-2½-inches of swoon-worthy muscle and bone. From “Two Ton” Tony Galento and “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom to Ray “Windmill” White and Randall “Tex” Cobb boxing has always welcomed screwballs that could fight. In the ring “Madcap Maxie” was a dangerous goofball, a jester with a punch that could knock you into next week. Sure it was shtick, but possibly closer to how Baer felt about his profession than any of the savage knockouts that made him a major player in the heavyweight division during the 1930s-and for a brief period champion of the world. Then he leaned back and assumed the swayback stance of a bareknuckle boxer of yore, all the while giving the camera cheeky side-eye. MAX BAER had this routine where he stood sideways to the camera, stuck his left thumb in his mouth, and blew, his belly expanding as if he was a human balloon.
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