Robert E. Garcia Jr.
Robert E. Garcia Jr., a 1940s welterweight pugilist and World War II veteran who is in the Maryland Boxing Hall of Fame Ring 101, died May 24 of the coronavirus at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown. The Lochearn resident was 95.
“My uncle was always kidding around and a real jokester,” said Larry Redemann, a nephew, who lives in Dundalk’s St. Helena neighborhood. “Whenever I went to see him at Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village, he’d say, ‘Did you bring any women?’ He was just a lighthearted guy.”
Robert Edlberto Garcia Jr., son of Robert E. Garcia Sr., a distillery worker who was also a boxer, and his wife, Ruth Loman Garcia, a Hecht Co.-May Co. department store sales associate, was born in Baltimore and raised in St. Helena. He was descended from Native Americans and Mexican indigenous people. He attended Baltimore County public schools.
Mr. Garcia followed his father, who was known as the “Mexican Wildcat,” into the ring when he made his boxing debut in 1941.
“Thursday night a tall, skinny kid will climb through the ropes at Carlin’s Arena for one of the four-round preliminaries, and when his name is announced it will bring back memories to old-timers of one of the fightingest scrappers ever to climb through the ropes around here,” The Sun reported.
“The kid is 17-year-old Bobby Garcia, a 5-foot-eight-inch lightweight and his dad was Bob Garcia, who fought around here after the last war. Bob senior quit the ring long ago, but the youngster is making his professional debut. When some of the fight fans who were following the game in the Twenties see the kid they will even see a resemblance between him and his father, who was a top-ranking featherweight in these parts and everywhere else that he fought.”
The son’s manager, Pete Jagodzinski, who was known in local fight circles as “Polish Pete,” told the newspaper, “The kid has always wanted to become a scrapper.”
As an amateur, Mr. Garcia had 35 fights and won 32 of them. “The one thing that shows most promise about his make-up are his hands. They are big boned and stringy looking,” The Sun observed.
He won his first fight Nov. 13, 1941, in a knockout against Robert Taylor at Carlin’s Park’s arena.
Mr. Garcia enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served in Guam with an ordnance unit and attained the rank of private. While he was in the service, he kept boxing and was “keeping his hand in by engaging in ring tests,” The Sun reported in a 1943 article.
In addition to bouts at Carlin’s and the Coliseum in Baltimore, during his career, Mr. Garcia fought in such legendry venues as New York’s St. Nicholas Arena, Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Turner’s Arena in Washington, and
Lochearn resident, 95