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THE S.llTURD.llY EVENING POST 7
those two things is what gave me the first idea of the A week before the fight, I busted a bon in my right Bill Delaney took me up to Shaw Springs, near
crouch. But later on, when everybody said Jim foot. I was so ignorant that I wouldn't quit work for Carson City, Nevada, where Corbett was training for
Jeffries was so big and tough nobody could hurt him, anything; I was doing fifteen miles on the road every the title fight with Bob·Fitzsimmons. Delaney was
the funny thing is that I was using a fighting style day, and ten to ·fifteen rounds of boxing. I cut the one of the best fight trainers the game ever had -
that I'd learned from getting hurt. Nobody ever shoe open and went on working my head off. When I middle-aged, bald as a baseball, a quiet fellow most of
found it out. went in the ring on the night of July 2, 1896, that the time, but a hell of a talker when he opened up.
A hook to the liver will give anybody the Jeffries foot of mine was like a boil. He knew fighters. At Corbett's camp, Delaney was
crouch; he'll cover just by instinct. But my weak- "The longer this goes, the worse my foot is going in a tough spot, because Corbett had two chief
ness there was so bad that I had to keep the spot to hurt." trainers-him and Charley White.William A. Brady,
covered, and I had to learn how to fight while I kept At the bell, I limped out as fast as I could and Corbett's manager, was there, too, and the whole
it covered. I developed that hard left-fast, with my pumped a straight left hand at Danny Long's nose. camp was at sixes and sevens. But Delaney knew
weight or the swing of my shoulders behind it. Be- It landed and he went down. He grabbed when he his stuff.
fore I was through, I got so I could whip out the right got up, and stalled out the round, but he was hurt. My first workout against Corbett was private. The
hand harder from the crouch than from the stand-up At the first of the second, I feinted him open and let training party had taken over the hotel at Shaw
position. And while training or fighting in the ring, him have it again with the straight left. He went Springs-a one-and-a-half-story frame building, with
I hever quit figuring out ways to use that style. down and out. a bar in it, dining room, kitchen and a lot of single
People got to thinking the crouch was natural to me. Next morning, Benny Benjamin, sports editor of rooms. Snow was on the ground, and it was cold and
Well, in a way, of course, it finally was. But I was the San Francisco Chronicle, told the town that kind of desolate. They had put up a handball court,
the guy that made it natural. James J. Jeffries was going to be heavyweight walled on four sides, and Corbett did his boxing
When I turned twenty-one at last-the way kids champion of the world. I went home with what was there. The fir t day I boxed with hi~, he let only
do-my sisters had a lot to say to mother about left of seven hundred and fifty dollars, a busted foot, White and Delaney in with us. Partly, he didn't
Jim's wanting to be a prize fighter. It was a
rough racket, and I've never said it wasn't.
Mother told them, though, that in this world
everybody had to decide his work for himself.
When I went to mother, she just said: "Keep
clean, Jim; I guess it'll be all right."
Five weeks later I was stranded in San Fran-
cisco, :flat broke, hungry, doing my sleeping in
pool-hall chairs and living off the fre·e lunches
in the barrooms. I'd gone there with Billy
Gallagher to train him for a fight, but after the
fight he pulled out and forgot me. I hung
around. Anybody in San Francisco would have
bought me a drink, I guess, but nobody offered
me a square meal. I went hungry for four days.
Danny Long was the answer. Danny is
police captain in Hollywood now, and in those
days he rated as a good heavyweight around
San Francisco. He walked into Groom &
·Ulrich's just as I was hitting Groom for a bout,
and Groom signed us; he offered a thousand dol-
lars, plit 75-25, and billed us for a twenty-
round prelim to the Mysterious Billy Smith-
Billy Gallagher fight.
Fighting on One Foot

ROOM gave me a card to show that I was
G matched for the fight, and I took the card
out to Old Man Blanken's place on the ocean
front-I'd worked there with Gallagher-and
I ate.two orders of steak and potatoes in thirty
minutes.
"Good Lord," Old Man Blanken said, "why
didn't you tell me you were hungry? You
didn't need that card!" That's the way the
old man was, but I'd been raised not to ask for
anything I wasn't sure I could pay for.

The Jeffries of 1898, Posed at the Old Reliance Club, Oakland, a Few
Months Before He Went East to Meet Fitzsimmons, at Coney Island

and as much of a swelled head as I ever had in my want to show me up; he'd heard of me as a good,
life before or since. rugged worker, and he didn't want to show me up in
Well, that was the beginning-that fight's in the front of a crowd and run me out of camp. Partly, he
record book. The next in the book is the start against didn't want to take any chances on my pulling some-
Theodore Van Buskirk, Olympic Club champion, in thing on him in front of a crowd. That first workout
April of 1897. But before that Van Buskirk fight, I was a pip. I learned a lot-I learned that I had a
put in six weeks as sparring partner for James J. lot to learn.
Corbett, champion of the world, and you could fill a "You'll do," Corbett said, when it was over. "I
book with yarns from that Carson City camp. need a big fellow around here that can take a punch."
I wanted to work there; I'd seen Corbett fight Tom He wasn't kidding. Thatletmeout, asfarashecould
Sharkey in San Francisco, and I knew what a boxer see-a big fellow that could take a punch. But I got
he was. That was the fight where Tom got sore, a lot out of those six weeks with Jim Corbett. I got
pjcked up Corbett and the referee in his· two hands my board and two hundred and fifty dollars cash
and piled them on the ropes. If the police hadn't money, but I got a lot more than that. I found out
interfered, Tom might have licked Corbett-Corbett that even if Corbett could outspeed me in the ring,
COURTESY GENE VAN COURT
Jl Blg/lellowJlllDreued Up. Jeffries Before Leav1 was not in shape-but I'd seen how Corbett could I could outsprint him on the road any time. That
ing for Corbett's Carson City Training Camp in 1897 box, and I wanted to work with him. bothered him-Corbett (Continued on Page 82)