thedrifter
03-05-06, 07:53 AM
ESSAY
And in this corner, `The Pride of the Ghetto'
By Ron Grossman
a Tribune staff reporter
Published March 5, 2006
Like other graybeards, I have a pet diagnosis of what ails America's schools. I'm convinced of it every time my children's expressions go blank as I strike a boxer's pose and imitate a ring announcer intoning the sacred words: "And in this corner, the welterweight champion of the world, the pride of Maxwell Street, Bar-neeey Ross!" When it comes to Rosses, my own flesh and blood wouldn't know Barney from Diana.
If I were the education president every White House inhabitant claims to be, the reforms would begin with putting Douglas Century's new biography, "Barney Ross" (Nextbook/Schocken, 216 pages, $19.95), on the required-reading list.
Enough with the touchy-feely progressive education. Kids need rote memorization, like the value of pi to seven places, or the percentage of Americanboxers who were Jewish seven decades ago.
According to Century, it was 33 percent. That figure is more deeply engraved on my cerebrum than my Social Security number. The same may be true of the editors of the series "Jewish Encounters," of which "Barney Ross" is the third volume to be published. Only King David and Maimonides, the great medieval scholar, took precedence. Celebrated artist Marc Chagall only made the list of forthcoming titles.
And no wonder: The life story of the Chicago-bred Ross is the stuff of literature. Actually, Clifford Odets wrote a play, "Golden Boy," with a similar plot: To his immigrant family's horror, a boy gives up on his musical talents to become a boxer. (After his glory days, Ross appeared in a production of "Golden Boy." He got terrible notices.)
In his ring days, sportswriters sang prose-poem tributes to Ross. A Chicago Daily News reporter gushed about a ticker-tape reception Ross got: "It was a welcome such as only Chicago can tender to a native son who has added to the city's achievement in science, literature, music or jaw-busting."
When Ross retired from boxing in 1938, I was 4. But a decade later, we adolescent sharpies were still imitating his fancy footwork, shadowboxing on Albany Park street corners. We endlessly debated whether Ross would have left the ring a winner, not a thoroughly beaten loser, if he'd been in his prime when he fought his final opponent, Henry Armstrong. I myself was beaten by gentile boys several times. In that era, theological differences were debated with fists. Getting up from a thrashing, I'd take solace in softly mumbling Ross' retort to a reporter asking why he went the distance with Armstrong when the fight was obviously lost.
" `Champ's privilege,' " a battered and bruised Ross shot back. " `A champ's got the right to chose the way he goes out.' "
Ross' father came to America seeking refuge from the pogroms, the anti-Jewish violence he'd known in Eastern Europe. He was gunned down during a 1923 robbery at a little grocery store he ran in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. The tragedy sent his widow into a nervous breakdown, and the family was shattered. Ross was boarded out with relatives, his siblings were sent to the Marks Nathan Home, a West Side orphanage.
In 1992, covering a reunion of Marks Nathan residents for the Tribune, I got to sit next to Ross' kid brother, George. I was on a high for weeks thereafter. George told me:
"On his way up, before every fight Barney would come to the orphanage. He was like a god to the kids at Marks Nathan."
Ross was already boxing before his father's murder, but afterwards he was driven by new incentive: to get the money to put his family back together. It was the golden age of Jewish fighters, who saw the sport as a route out of poverty, much as blacks and Latinos would later. Ross was billed as "The Pride of the Ghetto." Among the other such were Benny Leonard, "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom, Jackie Fields, King "Kingfish" Levinsky and Lew Tendler. Some Jewish boxers wore Stars of David on their trunks. Ross limited himself to having the stadium organist play the tear-jerker pop song "My Yiddishe Momme" as he entered the ring.
During a nine-year professional career, Ross held three championship titles: lightweight, junior welterweight and welterweight. The money flowed in--and unfortunately out again. He set his mother up in a nice apartment. But he loved playing the horses, not wisely but too well; sometimes he'd lose a fight's whole purse at the races.
Retiring after the Armstrong fight, Ross was at a loss for what to do. He opened the Barney Ross Cocktail Lounge in the Loop, holding court and playing piano. Like the protagonist in "Golden Boy," he was an accomplished musician. His marriage broke up, and he married a showgirl. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines at age 33. " `He figured, what the hell, I'll go out fighting,' " Ross' brother George told Century.Fight he did, winning a Silver Star on Guadalcanal in 1942. Cut off by the Japanese, he single-handedly held the enemy off, saving fellow Marines' lives. Badly wounded, he got hooked on narcotics that he had been given to deaden the pain, making a nightmare of his post-war life. Ross died in 1967.
But we can't leave the story there. A morality play has to go out on a high note. During the battle of Guadalcanal, Century tells us, a Catholic chaplain scrounged up an organ for Christmas Eve services. The only one who could play it was an ex-champion of the world from the West Side of Chicago They hummed "Silent Night" and other carols for Ross, until he got the hang of the melodies.
After the carols, Ross noted to his young comrades in arms that they must miss their loved ones. He hit his theme song's opening chord and sang: "My Yiddishe momme/I need her more than ever now. . . .
----------
rgrossman@tribune.com
Ellie
And in this corner, `The Pride of the Ghetto'
By Ron Grossman
a Tribune staff reporter
Published March 5, 2006
Like other graybeards, I have a pet diagnosis of what ails America's schools. I'm convinced of it every time my children's expressions go blank as I strike a boxer's pose and imitate a ring announcer intoning the sacred words: "And in this corner, the welterweight champion of the world, the pride of Maxwell Street, Bar-neeey Ross!" When it comes to Rosses, my own flesh and blood wouldn't know Barney from Diana.
If I were the education president every White House inhabitant claims to be, the reforms would begin with putting Douglas Century's new biography, "Barney Ross" (Nextbook/Schocken, 216 pages, $19.95), on the required-reading list.
Enough with the touchy-feely progressive education. Kids need rote memorization, like the value of pi to seven places, or the percentage of Americanboxers who were Jewish seven decades ago.
According to Century, it was 33 percent. That figure is more deeply engraved on my cerebrum than my Social Security number. The same may be true of the editors of the series "Jewish Encounters," of which "Barney Ross" is the third volume to be published. Only King David and Maimonides, the great medieval scholar, took precedence. Celebrated artist Marc Chagall only made the list of forthcoming titles.
And no wonder: The life story of the Chicago-bred Ross is the stuff of literature. Actually, Clifford Odets wrote a play, "Golden Boy," with a similar plot: To his immigrant family's horror, a boy gives up on his musical talents to become a boxer. (After his glory days, Ross appeared in a production of "Golden Boy." He got terrible notices.)
In his ring days, sportswriters sang prose-poem tributes to Ross. A Chicago Daily News reporter gushed about a ticker-tape reception Ross got: "It was a welcome such as only Chicago can tender to a native son who has added to the city's achievement in science, literature, music or jaw-busting."
When Ross retired from boxing in 1938, I was 4. But a decade later, we adolescent sharpies were still imitating his fancy footwork, shadowboxing on Albany Park street corners. We endlessly debated whether Ross would have left the ring a winner, not a thoroughly beaten loser, if he'd been in his prime when he fought his final opponent, Henry Armstrong. I myself was beaten by gentile boys several times. In that era, theological differences were debated with fists. Getting up from a thrashing, I'd take solace in softly mumbling Ross' retort to a reporter asking why he went the distance with Armstrong when the fight was obviously lost.
" `Champ's privilege,' " a battered and bruised Ross shot back. " `A champ's got the right to chose the way he goes out.' "
Ross' father came to America seeking refuge from the pogroms, the anti-Jewish violence he'd known in Eastern Europe. He was gunned down during a 1923 robbery at a little grocery store he ran in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. The tragedy sent his widow into a nervous breakdown, and the family was shattered. Ross was boarded out with relatives, his siblings were sent to the Marks Nathan Home, a West Side orphanage.
In 1992, covering a reunion of Marks Nathan residents for the Tribune, I got to sit next to Ross' kid brother, George. I was on a high for weeks thereafter. George told me:
"On his way up, before every fight Barney would come to the orphanage. He was like a god to the kids at Marks Nathan."
Ross was already boxing before his father's murder, but afterwards he was driven by new incentive: to get the money to put his family back together. It was the golden age of Jewish fighters, who saw the sport as a route out of poverty, much as blacks and Latinos would later. Ross was billed as "The Pride of the Ghetto." Among the other such were Benny Leonard, "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom, Jackie Fields, King "Kingfish" Levinsky and Lew Tendler. Some Jewish boxers wore Stars of David on their trunks. Ross limited himself to having the stadium organist play the tear-jerker pop song "My Yiddishe Momme" as he entered the ring.
During a nine-year professional career, Ross held three championship titles: lightweight, junior welterweight and welterweight. The money flowed in--and unfortunately out again. He set his mother up in a nice apartment. But he loved playing the horses, not wisely but too well; sometimes he'd lose a fight's whole purse at the races.
Retiring after the Armstrong fight, Ross was at a loss for what to do. He opened the Barney Ross Cocktail Lounge in the Loop, holding court and playing piano. Like the protagonist in "Golden Boy," he was an accomplished musician. His marriage broke up, and he married a showgirl. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines at age 33. " `He figured, what the hell, I'll go out fighting,' " Ross' brother George told Century.Fight he did, winning a Silver Star on Guadalcanal in 1942. Cut off by the Japanese, he single-handedly held the enemy off, saving fellow Marines' lives. Badly wounded, he got hooked on narcotics that he had been given to deaden the pain, making a nightmare of his post-war life. Ross died in 1967.
But we can't leave the story there. A morality play has to go out on a high note. During the battle of Guadalcanal, Century tells us, a Catholic chaplain scrounged up an organ for Christmas Eve services. The only one who could play it was an ex-champion of the world from the West Side of Chicago They hummed "Silent Night" and other carols for Ross, until he got the hang of the melodies.
After the carols, Ross noted to his young comrades in arms that they must miss their loved ones. He hit his theme song's opening chord and sang: "My Yiddishe momme/I need her more than ever now. . . .
----------
rgrossman@tribune.com
Ellie