LITERARY NOTES
Thomas Hauser nds plenty to enjoy but there is one cause for concern
Thomas Hauser reviews Gene Pantalone’s book about Lew Jenkins
LEW JENKINS was born into poverty in 1916 and dropped out of school before reaching his teenage years. His hardscrabble adolescence in Depression-era Texas included countless carnival fights contested for 30 or 40 cents an outing.
Jenkins rocketed from obscurity to fame at age 23 during a 10-month period that culminated in his seizing the world lightweight crown. He was the second Texasborn fighter to win a world championship in boxing (Jack Johnson was the first). Then Jenkins self-destructed as spectacularly as he had risen to prominence. From Boxing Ring to Battlefield by Gene Pantalone (Rowman & Littlefield) tells his story.
Jenkins fought from 1935 through 1950 and compiled a 73-41 (51 KOS, 12 KOS by) ring record. He made a name for himself when he won 10 consecutive fights (nine of them in New York) between July 18, 1939 and March 8, 1940. At Madison Square Garden on May 10, 1940, at age 23, he knocked out lightweight champion Lou Ambers in the third round to claim the crown.
“I’ve been hit by many other good punchers,” Ambers said in his dressing room after the fight. “But this Jenkins kid punched harder than a lot of them put together. What’s the use of trying to alibi? He did it, and he did it good.”
Nineteen months later, Jenkins lost his title by decision to Sammy Angott. His best days as a fighter were over.
Jenkins is regarded as one of the hardest pound-for pound punchers ever. Arthur Donovan (who refereed 14 heavyweight championship fights including the historic rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling) said of him, “That Jenkins, what a puncher he was. He was skinny and he looked half-starved all the time. But he’d hit you, and you’d just cave in, crumble to your knees.”
But Jenkins had lifestyle issues that destroyed him as a fighter. Legendary sportswriter W.C. Heinz called him “a guy who, when champion, didn’t live or behave like one.”
Jenkins was an alcoholic and smoked 30 cigarettes a day. Pantalone writes, “Lew had been drinking alcohol and smoking
‘ONCE, JENKINS WAS SO DRUNK WHILE CLIMBING INTO THE RING, HE FELL ON HIS FACE’
cigarettes since he was a kid. He hardly slept or trained. He just depended on the power of his right hand. After winning the title, his training consisted of running a short distance, sitting and smoking a cigarette, sparring while taking swigs from bottles of liquor in his corner, working five or six rounds, washing up, then making the rounds of the nightclubs. Even during matches, he would put whiskey in his water bottles and drink between rounds. He was seldom not under the influence of alcohol. Once, he was so drunk while climbing into the ring, he fell on his face. He achieved so much with so little effort that no one will ever know how great he could have been had he trained - or at least not abused himself.”
“I just drank myself down,” Jenkins acknowledged in his later years. “I just completely wore myself out.”
Along the way, Jenkins also found time to have an affair with Hannah Dempsey (Jack Dempsey’s third wife) that figured prominently in Dempsey’s 1943 divorce litigation.
Over the years, Jenkins served four stints in the military. At age 19, he’d joined the peacetime army. He was in the Coast Guard during World War II. Later, there were two tours of duty and bloody infantry service in Korea. The military gave Jenkins at least a modicum of discipline and, at the same time, satisfied his lust for combat.
“Finding no meaning in life at the peak of his success,” Pantalone writes, “he discovered values to which he could cling amid death during war. He shared the ring with many greats, but he found purpose in sharing the field of battle with comrades in arms.”
Jenkins died in 1981 at age 64. Late in life, he liked to refer to himself as “poundfor-pound, the hardest hitter and biggest drinker in boxing history” and proclaimed, “I enjoyed every drunken minute of it.”
From Boxing Ring to Battlefield is an engaging read. Katie Jenkins - Lew’s spitfire first wife and de facto manager for much of his ring career - comes across as a particularly interesting character. It’s also worth noting that Jenkins met his second wife in 1947 and married her after two dates. “Either you do or you don’t,” he said of their abbreviated courtship.
But there’s cause for concern with regard to From Boxing Ring to Battlefield. An “About
the Author” note at the end of the book says that copies of an earlier book by Pantalone – Madame Bey’s: Home to Boxing Legends were given out at the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2017. Giving a book away isn’t noteworthy one way or the other. But the note goes on to state that book recipients included Arturo Gatti and Bert Sugar. Gatti died in 2009. Sugar died in 2012. By definition, they couldn’t have been given books in 2017. Why is this important? Because something that’s so clearly inaccurate can lead a reader to question whether he or she can trust the rest of the book.
That said; I knew next-to-nothing about Lew Jenkins when I started reading From Boxing Ring to Battlefield. I feel as though I know him much better now.