The Kisseloff Collection

A few days ago I was watching the most recent GEICO commercial, when I laughed out loud. It’s the one where the tough-sounding actor asks, “Does switching to GEICO really save on car insurance? Is Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones really too tall?”

I laughed because that really was my former good buddy Ed on the scale.

It’s not a bad story.

When I was in journalism school, I wrote a long article on Gleason’s Gym, the last of the city’s old-time boxing gyms. I hung out there for months and got to know the fighters and trainers for whom it was a second home.  Even with the haze of cheap cigar smoke that permeated the place, I loved listening to the veteran trainers trade war stories about Benny Leonard and Rocky Marciano or just sitting around shooting the shit with boxers who were as a group the nicest athletes I ever met. All that nastiness dissipated as soon as they stepped outside the ropes.

Even after I graduated, I would take the subway down there to visit the friends I had made. One day in the summer of 1979, I heard derisive talk that six foot, nine-inch Ed “Too Tall Jones,” a starting defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys who had been the first pick of the 1974 draft, was giving football up for boxing. No one thought he could make it. Boxing was just too tough a sport they said, even compared to pro football.

A couple of days later I was running around the bridle path that circles the Central Park reservoir when I saw a TV truck up ahead, with a camera focused on a very tall African-American man as he was jogging along. He wasn’t going very quickly, so I caught up to him in a second or two and called out, “Who are you?”

“Ed Jones,” he said, peering down at me. “They’re doing a story on me, he said pointing to the cameras that had the ABC network logo on their side. I trailed behind a while. After a few minutes the camera crew went off and Ed continued on alone, ignoring the stares from the other runners, who, I’m sure had never seen a jogger that big in their lives and never would again.

I caught up to him again and asked him how his training was going. I mentioned that I had heard talk about him at the gym (but didn’t say that gave him no chance of succeeding). He was curious about Gleason’s (he trained at the Times Square Gym) and about who was working out there. We talked boxing as we ran. I was surprised at how knowledgeable — and friendly — he was.

We did a few more laps, and he was done. It turned out he lived around the corner from me on 77th Street, and he invited me up to his place for some Gatorade. I can’t remember what he said about boxing, except that it was always his first love, and he had hired Dave Wolf, a journalist, as a manager (Dave had written a terrific biography of the basketball player Connie Hawkins) and a respected trainer, Murphy Griffith — Emile’s uncle — to train him. They were two serious guys and wouldn’t have bothered with Ed had he not been as well.

When I got up to leave, Ed said he liked to run in the afternoon, and if I wanted to do, he’d be glad to meet me the next day. Frankly, as a runner Ed was a little slow for me, but, hell, it was Too Tall Jones and he seemed like any newcomer to the city who didn’t know anyone, so I thought, why not.

Over the next weeks, we ran together almost every day. The usual routine was three or four laps around the bridle path (maybe more) and then we’d do sprints on the path outside the reservoir.

Oh, those wind sprints.  I still hurt from them. We ran between two lampposts that were spaced maybe fifty or sixty yards apart. After each sprint, we’d rest maybe five seconds before we went back the other way. Murphy told Ed he needed to do ten of them. After two, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Still, for the first three or four, I’d easily beat him, and my chest would swell with pride when he’d say something like, “You can really bring it.” This was a guy who ran with Bob Hayes. But then with a wink he’d invariably say something like, “I think I’m going to push you on the next one.”

So on the next one, I was really determined. If he was going to run extra hard, so would I. And, I told myself, I was a pretty fast runner. Even Ed agreed. My trick was to say “go,” and then take off to give myself a little chance. Ten yards, I had him. Twenty yards, I was even further ahead, thirty he was toast. But then something would happen. It would be like that smoke thing on “Lost,” because it was the sound that hit, the sound of someone whooshing right be. By the time I hit thirty five yards Ed was done. I never saw anyone so fast in my life. Then he’d laugh, let me beat him a couple of more times before burying me again.

One day, as I headed into Ed’s building, there was a kid in a red hooded sweatshirt, literally sitting in the bushes. “Are you going up to Ed’s apartment?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, “who are you?”

“I’m Boom Boom Mancini,” he said, shaking my hand. “I also train with Murphy. He said we should all do our roadwork together.” So for a while, Ray, who at that time had had just a couple of professional fights as a lightweightj, joined us on our runs. Ray was a real contrast to Ed, and not only in terms of size. He talked a mile a minute, about Youngstown where he came from, his father (who had been an excellent lightweight fighter, also named Boom Boom, but who never got to fight for the championship. Ray’s whole career was dedicated to winning the title his father never achieved), his training, everything. Ed looked upon him with great amusement, but telling me privately that Ray was a terrific non-stop fighter in training, and he was sure that Ray would win the lightweight crown one day.

Ray wasn’t a bad distance runner, but he couldn’t keep up with us on the sprints, and as a result, he didn’t like doing them. He also preferred to run in the morning and over time he joined us less often.

Because Ed and I were neighbors and he was new to the city, we’d occasionally get a bite to eat together. For a couple of reasons, he was especially taken with a place on Columbus called Tickers. One, it had an all-you-can eat Sunday brunch (I can still see the fear on the owners’ faces when he’d approach the front door). Even more so, though, was the really attractive and normal-sized waitress that Ed wanted to ask out, but was too shy about it (He complained that people were always fixing him up with tall women), so he would just go back repeatedly, leaving her bigger and bigger tips until one day he finally got the courage up to write his phone number on the back of the bill. I have no idea if she ever called him.

Ed was a Southern guy from Tennessee, and the city was a bit of a mystery to him, and it wasn’t just the women. He loved music but it frustrated him that the city had no blues clubs (“Why do people think that because I’m black that I’d be a jazz fan?”), and  it also pissed him off when people would ask him, “How’s the weather up there?” He was too much of a gentleman ever to take my advice about that, which was to spit down on them and say, “It’s raining.”

I also think he really missed his teammates. Boxing is a pretty lonely sport, and the only times he’d see his friends was when they’d come out for his fights. He was also being ridiculed regularly for what he was trying to — unfairly, I thought. Ed trained hard to learn a sport that outside of a few amateur bouts years before he barely had any background in. Nor was he looking for a big payday. In fact, he gave up a lucrative, guaranteed contract to try a sport that could kill him. It was months in the gym before he had his first fight, and while he didn’t lose it, he got hammered pretty hard. But while people laughed at him, he just went back to the gym and worked, determined to make it.

As it turned out, he never lost a fight, but it was also clear that he wasn’t going to win a championship. One day over lunch he confided that he was thinking of quitting. “I’ll tell you something I haven’t even told Murph,” he said quietly. “In my last year of college I hurt my shoulder, but I knew might be drafted first so I didn’t say anything. It’s bothered me ever since, and I can’t throw a punch right.”

It was true. A columnist said when Ed tried to throw an overhand left he looked  like he was tossing tinsel on a Christmas tree. I think he also missed being part of a team. There just isn’t a lot of companionship in boxing.

A few weeks later he did quit. He re-signed with the Cowboys and moved back to Dallas. The columnists all said, “I told you so,” but Ed got a bad rap. It took a lot of courage not only to give up the sport he loved but also to stand in the ring against someone who not only wanted to take his head off but was also perfectly capable of doing so. I’m sure none of the people who ridiculed him never had the guts to try something like that themselves. Years later when Michael Jordan quit the Bulls to try his hand at baseball, I instinctively understood and respected why he was doing it. He was also scorned. People are said to be stupid to leave so much money on the table to pursue something they love, but  the fact is, it’s those who toil with no passion at what they do, who are the real victims, especially those who have a choice.

Anyway, at some point after Ed left, I got a call from Ray, would I want to run with him? Sure, I said, except Ray liked to run in the morning, and I worked all kinds of late hours. Still, what the hell, I was training for a marathon and needed the push, so whenever Ray was in town, the phone would ring around six in the morning.

“Jeff?” a gruff voice would ask.

“Yeah, Ray,” I’d say with the same kind of sleepy rumble, “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

We’d meet in the park and run five or six miles around the main loop. While I slept on my feet, Ray would talk, of course, and I’d listen to his whirlwind conversation, a vocal style that matched his boxing technique.

One day, he brought along his roommate, Randy Stephens, who was as quiet as Ray was chatty. Randy was also out of Youngstown and was boxing as a cruiserweight. I liked Randy a lot, a gentle, sweet guy but also tough in the ring. One morning after we finished, we were standing in front of their apartment building, and I started joking with Randy about my own non-existent boxing style. Ray just shook his head in friendly disgust, but Randy decided to give me a pointer. “Hold your hands this way,” he said, moving my arms so they protected both my head and body. “There, that’s better. Now, you can defend yourself.” He then tapped me on the stomach with the same energy he probably used to flick a piece of lint off shirt, except it caused me to double over in pain while trying to catch my breath. That was the end of my pretend boxing career.

Ray was traveling a lot, so when he was on the road, Randy and I would run together, and then when Ray was back, it would be either the two of us or three of us. By far the most memorable run was before Ray’s big fight with Alexis Arguello. This was Ray’s first title shot. The fight was going to be held in Atlantic City, and Arguello was also training in New York. Ray and Arguello had terrific respect for each other, and neither was interested in engaging in any of the phony hostility that usually was a part of the build-up to big fights. Although they would soon try to destroy each other in the ring, they genuinely liked each other. The point was driven home to me during this one run one morning in the park about a week before their fight. It was already warm, and a thick mist enveloped us as we ran down the West Side drive. Suddenly out of the fog, coming right at us was Arguello on his morning run. Well, I thought, this was going to be interesting.

“Alex,” Ray shouted toward him. Arguello recognized Ray immediately and stopped in his tracks to reached out for him. For a few seconds they embraced warmly, before Ray said to him, “Good luck, my friend.”

“You too,” Arguello said. They meant it.

The next week I was sitting in the front row where I heard one of the most sickening sounds I could ever imagine. It was of a tremendous left hook, thudding against Ray’s face in the thirteenth round. Ray’s knees buckled. Blood flew everywhere, including all over my notebook. A few minutes later, the fight was over, and the two of them embraced, again with obvious fondness for each other.

Ray and I ran together a few times after the Arguello fight, although I remember becoming irritated with him when he made some negative comments about the press that I, as a member of said press, took personally. With Dave guiding him, Ray had played the press perfectly, but if you’re going to put your story out there, you don’t have the right to control it. Ray didn’t quite understand that. He was also a religious person, and I didn’t quite understand his willingness to fight in South Africa. But by then, he was a big celebrity and certainly didn’t have to answer to me, and if I recall correctly his training had shifted to Las Vegas or someplace out West. He did eventually win the title and with Dave guiding him, retired with his earnings in tact. I still enjoyed my runs with Randy and was delighted when he won the cruiserweight championship.

About ten years ago, I was wandering on the Third Street mall in Santa Monica with a friend when Ray came walking toward us. I stopped him to chat and he seemed genuinely happy to reminisce until his wife pulled him away. Before we parted, he said Randy was doing well in retirement. It was good to see Ray again. Those were good days and he didn’t seem to be the worse for wear after all those wars in the ring.

Ed and I spoke a couple of times after he left the city but I never saw him again. Ed had always talked about being an r&b promoter when he retired. I also remember an odd conversation with him, in which he mentioned his fear of going bald. He said he would shave his head if he lost his hair, so I wasn’t surprised that in the GEICO commercial he has a clean pate.

Back in 1980, I wrote a story about him for the newspaper where I was working as a sportswriter. They didn’t want to send a photographer into the city to shoot his picture, so they asked me to do. After they used the print, I asked Ed to sign it. Somewhere among my clutter, I still have the notebook with Ray’s dried DNA on the pages. I did manage to dig out the photo of Ed though.

When I was kid, my favorite show on TV was Superman. I was convinced, of course, that there really was a Superman someplace. I was also convinced that one day I would marry Lois Lane.

I also thought that one day I might become a reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper and fight never-ending battles for truth, justice and the American way. Well, that almost happened, although my never-ending battle has been for truth, justice and the American way in the Alger Hiss case.

What I also remember as a kid, were the never-ending discussions about the show: which was the best episode; where did he store his costume when he was Clark Kent; where did he store his suit when he was Superman? How come there was never anyone in the alley when he changed outfits? How come the window was always open when he jumped through it?

There were also lots of arguments about how George Reeves died.  Those in the know said he really did think he was Superman, and one day he jumped out of a window and fell to his death.

The truth was that on June 16, 1959, police in Brentwood, California found him upstairs in his home, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. The only real question was whether it was suicide or murder. Police at first called it a suicide, but there were indications that he was murdered. His death was the subject of a book called Hollywood Kryptonite and a pretty good Ben Affleck film, Hollywoodland.

Anyway, back to reality. A few years ago Inspector Henderson asked me to go to LA to find Lefty Louis who was committing a number of anti-American crimes for the syndicate and bring him to justice. While we were out there,  my wife Lois and I stopped by Reeves’s home to pay homage to our dead friend. Here I am disguised as mild-mannered reporter Jeff Kisseloff.

Oh, did I not want to post this one. It’s not the content, it’s the fact that this is the last picture in the “Dubin at Work” series. What a pleasure it has been to share Harry and Ron Dubin’s amazing creativity. What a gift they’ve left us with. If you are new to this series of color photos of old New York, click here for the first post and story. Click on the tag to the right for the rest of the pictures. I have two treats to accompany the post. The first is a copy of Harry’s notes that were included with the photos when they were put on exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. Click on the page to enlarge it.

This morning, I spoke to Ron Dubin on the phone. To hear  what he had to say about the series, click here.

So here’s the last one. Think of it as Harry waving goodbye. So long, Harry, we’ll miss you.

With President Obama favoring nuclear power, extraordinary rendition, the Patriot Act, abortion-rights curbs, and continued war in Iraq and Afghanistan, his opposition to gay rights and his backing of a healthcare reform bill that redefines the word reform to mean the maintaining of the status quo, I officially begin my protest campaign.

My grandfather wasn’t a great guy (in fact, he was a lousy one) but he was a great baseball fan. He often took my mother and aunt to Ebbets Field, and when the great ballpark was torn down he retrieved one of the bricks. It now sits on my bookshelf.

He was also one of those people who liked to score games, and as it turned out, he also liked to save the occasional scorecard. My Aunt lives in Florida, and a few years ago she sent me a package with a bunch of scorecards from the 1940s. I didn’t look too carefully at them before I put them away in a binder for safekeeping. Then a few weeks ago, I thought it would be nice to do a baseball-related post for opening day, so I pulled out those old scorecards.

That’s when I had one of those moments that a collector has once or twice in a lifetime — if he’s lucky. As I sorted through the small pile, I noticed that on the cover of one of the 1947 scorecards my grandfather had scribbled “Opening Day.”

Now, if you were a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, or if you just know a few things about baseball history, you know what happened on opening day, 1947. Do you? I’ll stop typing for a moment to let you guess.

Let’s see a show of hands.

That’s right. Opening day 1947 marked the historic day that Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut. It may have been the most important baseball game ever played, and here I was with the scorecard from that game in my hands.

Below are scans from the front and back covers and the inside pages. The scorecard itself is at this moment at Lelands.com, getting ready for auction. There’s a good chance it will cover our moving expenses this summer. My grandfather wasn’t an especially nice person, but from the grave he did me a solid. Knowing him as I did though, I’m sure if he was alive and had realized what I had, he would have grabbed it out of my hands in a second and taken off with it. Fortunately, he’d also be 102 now, so I could probably catch up to his walker and overpower him.

Here are the scans, and as always they’re clickable.