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FROM THE BOOKS |
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Jake
LaMotta, the Bronx misanthrope, parlayed a jail record into the
middleweight championship of the world. Jake, by his own
admission, began stealing at the age of ten--little things like
hub caps, copper wiring and typewriters. Once it was a violin.
Caught in a burglary, he threw a hatchet at a cop. While
awaiting sentence for that, he waylaid a shop owner and hit him
over the head so hard with an iron pipe that he didn't find out
till he got out of jail that the man had lived. "He was paler...
grayer and weak-lookin', but alive," said Jake without emotion.
When he became a famous fighter, Jake repaid his loyal fans
by throwing a fight to a Blinky Palermo fighter named Billy Fox.
When he quit fighting, he left his faithful wife and three kids,
opened a saloon in Miami and ran it until he got picked up and
sent to jail again for contributing to the delinquency of a
fourteen-year-old girl.
LaMotta was one of the most unpopular champions of all time,
and therein lay the secret of his perverse appeal. Fans by the
thousands turned out to "hate Jake" and see the little monster
brought to heel by some clean young middleweight sans peur et
sans reproche. In return, Jake cordially detested most
people. |
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John D. McCallum-The Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions
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