"Cinderella Man"

"Cinderella Man", Jeremy Schapp's 2005 chronicle of professional boxing,
its rules and culture during the Great Depression, is an eye opening account
of the sport when it was much rougher and less regulated than it is today.
In the backdrop of that era, Schapp profiles two world heavyweight
champions with contrasting backgrounds.
     Max`Baer grew up working on ranches building up his muscles, but was
afraid of fighting. Whenever schoolmates bullied him, his sister Frances
defended him, and when she wasn't around, young Max ran in terror from his
tormentors.
     That changed at a dance when he was seventeen. Baer and his friends
were having fun, Prohibition style, when a big lumberjack spotted them and
charged toward them. Max fled, but the lumberjack caught him and punched
Baer in the jaw with his hardest right. Surprised but not hurt, Baer reflexively
fired back with his right, and the lumberjack crumpled at his feet.
     This started Baer's boxing career. Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey
was a cultural icon idolized by young Max and his generation during the
1920s, and Max suddenly realized he could follow Dempsey into
professional boxing.
     This is my favorite story in this book, I won't go into Braddock, but there is
plenty on him, his childhood fighting in schoolyards, his fight manager Joe
Gould, and lots of other players on the boxing scene-managers, promoters,
and the boxing press. This is an engrossing book that guides the reader
through Depression-era professional boxing.