Pep, Lee had strong professional ties

A couple or three decades ago I, as a sports writer for the Hartford Courant, attended a dinner honoring a couple of old Connecticut boxers. When Willie Pep got up to speak (which he loved to do), he introduced three or four people and then looked down at me and said, “The Courant always treated me well. First we had Bill Lee, and now we’ve got . . . we’ve got . . . God, I want to introduce him, but I can’t think of his name.”

I laughed along with everybody else. That was Willie, once the greatest featherweight boxing champion in history and always a wonderfully funny man, even when he didn’t try. He came by both of these traits naturally.

When I was called upon to speak, I pretended not to remember his name, and that drew a laugh too, so the dinner was a success all around.

Bill Lee, who died some 35 years ago, was the Hartford Courant sports editor from the very early 1930s, when he succeeded a man named Bert Keene, until the very late 1970s, almost 50 years. People used to say he “sold” the Courant, a claim I would never argue.

Lee, known throughout the country as one of its best boxing writers, was Willie Pep’s Boswell. He covered the “Will ‘o the Wisp” from the moment he first stepped into a boxing ring in Hartford until the very last blow was struck. Boxing was a major thing in Hartford and in Connecticut at that time, and newspaper sports pages were a vital form of entertainment. Lee’s skill at the typewriter was appreciated as much as Pep’s lightning hands and feet were appreciated in the ring. Both had a flair that was practically guaranteed to please.

Those were the days, my friends.

Bill Lee belongs in the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame as much as Dan Parker belongs there. Parker was inducted a short time ago. Lee, as far as I’m able to learn, is not in the Hall, which is an unforgivable omission. (Both men are of course deceased. Lee was born in the same year as my father. That was 114 years ago.)

The hall, located at Mohegan Sun, has been in existence for about 13 years. Each year, a new class of boxers, judges, managers, promoters and writers is inducted during a dinner gala at the Sun. This year, Parker, a worthy choice, was inducted.

When I heard that Lee has never been selected, I was stunned. Leaving Bill Lee out of the state boxing hall of fame is like leaving Ty Cobb out of the baseball hall. Unimaginable. I obtained a list of Boxing Hall members, but it did not include the years from 2013 through 2016, so, unless Lee was elected that recently, which is doubtful, he’s not there.

It might be suggested that I am prejudiced in my view of this particular matter. Guilty, your honor, and in the first degree, because I knew Lee well. He hired me to join the Courant’s sports writing staff in 1965. He was both boss and father-like friend, who gave me every break and to whom I owed a great deal, professionally. I shared many an assignment with him.

But that’s neither here nor there when the discussion turns to Lee’s contributions to the sport of boxing. They are endless. It’s called: having Hall of Fame credentials.

That was Willie, once the greatest featherweight boxing champion in history and always a wonderfully funny man, even when he didn’t try.

OWEN CANFIELD