Month: March 2024

When the Irish Ruled the Ring

By Joe Guzzardi

The date; Sept. 7, 1892; the place, New Orleans, the event, the World Heavy Weight title battle; the challenger, John J. Corbett; the champion, John L. Sullivan

No Super Bowl has so captivated the nation’s attention and aroused its passion more than the bout between Gentleman Jim and John L. “the Boston Strong Boy,” America’s first sports hero. John L., as most referred to him, and Corbett were both sons of Irish immigrants. Sullivan had won the title 10 years earlier and had defended it against all comers, including a 75-round bare-knuckle title defense marathon in 100-plus degree heat against Jake Kilrain.

John L. was the last of the bare-knuckle champions, pugilists who slugged each other fearlessly in fights that lasted for hours. Sullivan won the bare-knuckle title 1882 from another intrepid Irishman, Tipperary-born Paddy Ryan, six years older, at least ten pounds lighter, but an inch or two taller, which gifted him with greater reach. With the crowd estimated at 5,000 and following an old tradition, Sullivan tossed his hat in the ring at 11:45 am, and Ryan entered moments later. The men then approached the scratch line in the center of the ring and shook hands. From the first round, Sullivan took charge. After nine rounds and only twenty minutes, Sullivan knocked Ryan out with a final right-handed punch, the last-ever bare-knuckle heavyweight championship.

In the decade between capturing the crown from Ryan and accepting Corbett’s challenge, Sullivan defended his title dozens of times which led to his braggadocio dare: “I can lick any SOB in the house.” Sullivan had a well-deserved reputation as a street brawler and a drunk.

When Sullivan and Corbett faced off, boxing was in transition from a mostly illegal to a legitimate sport. Corbett’s ascendancy to the top challenger’s slot helped improve boxing’s image. College-educated and a bank clerk before he turned to boxing, Corbett began his career in 1886. He fought his matches wearing padded gloves that the new Marquis of Queensberry rules permitted. Other revolutionary changes included three minutes rounds followed by a minute of rest; declared wrestling illegal, imposed the mandatory ten second count, and introduced weight divisions

Because he wore his hair in a full-grown pompadour, dressed fashionably and used excellent grammar, Corbett became known as “Gentleman Jim,” and because of his advance, then retreat style, became recognized as modern boxing’s father.

On the big night, a crowd of over 10,000 jammed the arena. Sullivan weighed in at 212 lbs. – 25 lbs. heavier than his challenger. Betting was heavy with Sullivan, a prohibitive favorite. Two thousand miles away and connected by telegraph, beacon lights atop New York City’s Pulitzer Building alerted the fans below as to which fighter was winning— red for Sullivan, white for Corbett. Years later, Corbett published a book which described the blow-by-blow.

From the first round, Corbett wrote, Sullivan was aggressive; he wanted to eat me up right away. “I sidestepped out of the corner and was back in the middle of the ring again, Sullivan hot after me. I allowed him to back me into all four corners, and he thought he was engineering all this, that it was his own work that was cornering me. But I had learned what I wanted to know – just where to put my head to escape his blow if he should get me cornered and dazed. He had shown his hand to me,” Corbett continued. Sullivan taunted, “Sprinter!” The fight’s pattern had been established.

By the time the 21^st and final round arrived, Sullivan had been beaten as much by his advancing age as by the skills of the younger boxer. Bruised, bloodied, and beaten, Sullivan hung on to the ropes to address the crowd, still chanting his name, “Gentlemen, I stayed once too long. I met a young man. I’m glad the title remains in America.” Sullivan’s only career defeat came against Corbett.

Sullivan., “I’m still John L., ain’t I,” retired to his farm in Abington, and after a lifetime of overindulging in alcohol and food, died a pauper at age 59. Corbett treasured his title and held on to it as a vehicle to promote other ventures. In 1887, Bob Fitzsimmons knocked Corbett out in the 14^th round. In 1933, age 66, Corbett died of liver cancer.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

When the Irish Ruled the Ring

When the Irish Ruled the Ring

‘Migrants’ Crime Spree Accelerating

By Joe Guzzardi

Immigration advocates are always on-the-spot with a prepared rebuttal to Americans who pose reasonable questions about whether a better way might be found to manage the inflow of foreign nationals. About those ten million unvetted, under-educated, low-skilled, limited English speakers — -they’ll grow the economy! But if immigration were beneficial for the economy, then America with its 46 million immigrant population, and unknown millions of illegal immigrants, the economy would be booming. Instead, little evidence exists that a higher, immigration-driven population translates to a richer economy. A country’s standard of living is determined by its per capita GDP. Slower population growth, less immigration, means a higher per capita GDP. Finally, if diversity were America’s strength, as has been repeated for decades, then the nation’s public schools attempting to educate millions of non-English speakers would be graduating budding Rhodes Scholars instead of students who can neither read nor do math at grade level.

Consider how the immigration lobby recasts crime as a social issue. Venezuelan illegal alien Jose Ibarra’s brutal murder of University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley has sent pro-immigration advocates scurrying to dust off one of its well-worn, most baseless reports which claims, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that immigrants, legal and illegal, commit less crime than citizens. Their message: don’t worry about Ibarra; he’s an aberration. Kate Steinle, the young woman a Mexican national killed on a San Francisco pier in 2015 — -she’s old news. But the following brutalities occurred in the last few months. Nilson Granados-Trejo, 25, the Salvadoran illegal alien who shot and killed a two-year-old infant in Maryland, is another statistical improbability as advocates rigged studies would point out. Local police ignored two detainers, and abetted Granados-Trejo in his murderous rampage. In Minnesota, an illegal alien dressed in a UPS uniform, killed three adults in the presence of two young children. ICE had issued a detainer request against the suspect who also had been convicted of felony gun possession. UPS hired Alonzo Pierre Mingo as a temporary employee. Blame UPS? The mainstream media’s myth that immigrants present no greater criminal danger than the everyday citizen became a talking point in California’s senate primary race. Campaigning, U.S. Rep. Katie Porter said that enforcement advocates shouldn’t let Ibarra’s murder of Riley “shape our overall immigration policy,” inferring that the murders of innocent Americans at the hands of illegal aliens is no big deal.

Except for Steinle, the other slayings are more recent and the perpetrators, border surgers. The Daily Mail compiled a partial list complete with mug shots that detailed illegal aliens’ crimes recently committed against unsuspecting victims. The charges against the illegal aliens, some previously deported multiple times, included murder, rape, sexual assault, child sexual assault, robbery, hit-and-run, assault on police officers, armed robbery, carrying a dangerous weapon, and vehicular homicide. The victims lived in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts — -a veritable coast-to-coast illegal alien crime spree.

But, Cato Institute’s Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies Alex Nowrasteh insists that Americans have no cause for alarm. Shortly after Steinle’s brutal murder, a crime that Nowrasteh referred to as her “alleged murder” even though multiple-times deportee and convicted felon Jose Inez Garcia Zarate was found at the scene and charged with first-degree murder — -hardly the definition of “alleged.” Nowrasteh’s bias in defense of criminal illegal aliens in his slanted studies has been adopted by other immigration advocates like the New York Times. Their collective but dubious conclusion: “immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates.” But the inarguable, key point is that if Garcia Zarate, Ibarra, and dozens of other illegal aliens who murdered citizens had never been allowed into the country, the victims would still be alive, a fact that cannot be intellectually denied.

Consider the CBP report on criminal non-citizen arrests that covered FY 2017 through FY 2024, year-to-date. The term “criminal noncitizens” refers to individuals who have been convicted of one or more crimes, whether in the U. S. or abroad, prior to the Border Patrol’s interdiction. What follows is a comparison of FY 2017 to FY 2023, the last complete 12-month period included. Total arrests, FY 2017, 8,531; FY 2023, 15,267; the dramatic increase in apprehensions reflects the lure that Biden’s open borders represents to criminal aliens. The CBP data excludes the estimated 1.6 million gotaways, mostly single, military-age males that have eluded immigration officials since Biden’s inauguration. Among them are hundreds of bad actors who otherwise would have chosen the easier option — -surrender to CBP, get processed and be released into the interior. Combined, illegal border crossers reported since January 2021 is greater than the estimated individual populations of 38 U.S. states, and more than all U.S. cities with the exception of New York City, all U.S. counties with the exception of Los Angeles County, and the populations of over 120 countries.

Statistically speaking, millions of unvetted illegal aliens from lawless countries like Senegal, Haiti, Venezuela, and Cuba will assuredly have criminals among them. Brace for more crime, a spike so dramatic that no volume of rigged studies will be able to minimize its consequences.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org