Cinderella Man: James Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History [Hardcover]

Jeremy Schaap (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929. With one good hand, Braddock was forced to labor on the docks of Hoboken. Only his manager, Joe Gould, still believed in him, finding fights for Braddock to help feed his wife and children. The diminutive, loquacious Jew and the burly, quiet Irishman made one of boxing's oddest couples, but together they staged the greatest comeback in fighting history. In twelve months Braddock went from the relief rolls to face heavyweight champion Max Baer, the Livermore Butcher Boy, renowned for having allegedly killed two men in the ring. A charismatic, natural talent and in every way Braddock's foil, Baer was a towering opponent, a Jew from the West Coast who was famously brash and made great copy both in and out of the ring. A ten-to-one underdog, Braddock carried the hopes and dreams of the working class on his shoulders. And when boxing was the biggest sport in the world, when the heavyweight champion was the biggest star in the world, his unlikely upset made Braddock the most popular champion boxing had ever seen.
Against the gritty backdrop of the Depression, Cinderella Man brings this dramatic all-American story to life, evoking a time when the sport of boxing resonated with a country trying desperately to get back on its feet. Schaap paints a vivid picture of the fight world in its golden age, populated by men of every class and ethnic background and covered voluminously by writers who elevated sports writing to art. Rich in anecdote and color, steeped in history, and full of human interest, Cinderellla Man is a classic David and Goliath tale that transcends the sport.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In retelling the story of a near-impossible sports comeback in 1935, Schaap intricately chronicles the history of boxing during the Depression. Jimmy Braddock, an Irish-American heavyweight who began his career as a light heavyweight, was determined to win the title until a series of jinxes hit: the stock market crashed, he broke his dominant hand and a succession of losses crushed his spirit. Schaap, host of ESPN's Outside the Lines, goes into captivating detail on the brawny, reserved Braddock, who, at his lowest moments, was reduced to living off government relief and doing grueling work on the Hoboken, N.J., docks. But the story is as much about Max Baer, the lovably clownish and handsome heavyweight Braddock defeated as a 10-to-one underdog. The account is inspiring: no one ever thought Braddock would come back, especially against Baer, who'd previously killed two men in the ring. Braddock succeeded with the help of his manager, the short, fast-talking Joe Gould; the two were "the sport's favorite odd couple." Boxing enthusiasts will be more than satisfied by Schaap's meticulous account, which includes round-by-round details of the fight, as well as profiles of other fighters of the era. Not overly emotional, the story hits a nerve at just the right moments and features many of the same elements that made Seabiscuit a hit. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Just a few months removed from receiving welfare to supplement his income as a dockworker, a small, slow, washed-up fighter became heavyweight champion of the world. James J. "Cinderella Man" Braddock's life makes a heck of a story, but there hasn't been a biography of him in decades. Schaap, an ESPN veteran, portrays Braddock as a man of his time. After a promising start in the late 1920s, Braddock--a lovable family man with three kids--ended up as broke and beaten as the country. But with the help of a fast-talking manager whose passion for the sport was equaled only by Braddock's own, the fighter managed to emerge from his Great Depression to make an improbable run at the title, culminating in the defeat of the gargantuan Max Baer in 1935. Like a SportsCenter puff piece, Schaap's account can get repetitive and doesn't always delve deep. But the fights here are crisply drawn, and Braddock's upsets have that Hoosiers thrill factor. Plus, it's refreshing to find a boxing story where the right guy wins, nobody cheats, and most everyone lives happily ever after. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618551174
• ISBN-13: 978-0618551170
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There are second acts to American lives, June 3, 2005

By 

M. Dog (Everywhere and Nowhere) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cinderella Man: James Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History (Hardcover)

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that there were no second acts to American lives. Yet, a fellow Irishman (one much less gloomy) proved him very, very wrong.

This book is the homage that James J. Braddock has always deserved. Braddock's amazing story has been slowly fading from public memory, as well as the memory of modern boxing fans, steadily over the years. This book puts things right.

Author, Jeremy Schaap, has written a Godsend of a book for Braddock fans, and his clean, direct style is perfectly suited to telling this story. If Schaap were a boxer, he would be referred to as a cagey, "cute" fighter; meaning that it might appear that he isn't doing much, but what he does counts and he will be there at the end of the fight with his glove raised.

To put it another way, there is nothing prosy in Schaap's writing; but he really knows the way to hit the right spots. Like any very good writer, he recognizes true moments of drama and plays these moments with a pure economy of words that come at you from the blue. Bang! Suddenly I found myself very moved and didn't even see it coming.

James J. Braddock was in so many ways the perfect product of the Great Depression. He was a washed-up fighter, his best years behind him. He had been cleaned out by the depression, desperately trying to feed his family by taking odd jobs at the docks in New Jersey, even going on relief (which so humiliated him he wouldn't tell anyone, not even his mother). Yet dock work had made him lean and tough, so when his second chance came, the hard knocks of life had prepared him.

People loved him not because he was white, or Irish. Americans loved him because he was like them - all of them - and he represented a hope. He had been crushed and humiliated by life, yet he did not quit. He literally fought his way back. One of the most telling moments in the book, described beautifully by the author, was when Braddock walked into the pubic relief office. He had the amount that he had been given in cash in his pocket, and he wished to pay it back.

While this book is a pleasure for the mainstream reader, hard-core fight fans will have nothing to complain about either. His descriptions of the fights of Braddock's career make it plain the author knows his boxing as well. As an unexpected bonus, Schaap has portraits of many other fighters that entered Braddock's sphere; among them Primo Carnera, Max Bear and the great light-heavy, Tommy Laughran.

This book is a long-needed and wonderful portrait of a champion, as well as an important addition to boxing literature.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could not put it down, May 16, 2005

By 

Alan Ross "weekly reader" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Cinderella Man: James Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History (Hardcover)

It is the best sports book I have ever read! The author pulled no punches in detailing the amazing story of Braddock. The boxer's highs and lows were vividly portrayed. You could smell the gym, feel the training, and taste the victory. Moreover, the political, economic and social state of the world in those times was marvelously woven into the fabric of the story. This book was truly a joy to experience. By the end of the story, two champions emerged, Braddock and Schaap.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Admiring tribute to a great comeback fighter, January 8, 2006

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Cinderella Man: James Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History (Hardcover)

James J. Braddock wasn't a great Heavyweight Champ; he lost the title in his first defense bout after he'd won it. But his is, perhaps, the greatest comeback story of 20th century pugilism. The CINDERELLA MAN had heart.

Author Jeremy Schaap's book begins with the commencement of Braddock's comeback in June 1934 with his victory over "Corn" Griffin. Jim's last previous fight had been nine months earlier, at the end of which, with a right hand that had been repeatedly broken and numerous defeats under his belt, he was thought to be washed up. To the point of the Griffin match-up, he was barely able to feed his family with odd jobs on the New York and New Jersey docks and welfare help; it was the Depression, and Braddock's fortunes were at their rock bottom. Then, Schaap regresses in time to the period 1926-33 when Jim fought as a light heavyweight, almost winning that title in 1929. The author alternates the early Braddock saga with the same for the 1929-1934 career of Max Baer, who won the heavyweight title from Primo Canera, also in June 1934, thus setting up the confrontation that established Jim's fame and won him the heavyweight crown, the Braddock-Baer bout in June 1935.

Schaap's summaries of Braddock's eighty-three fights and Baer's forty-seven prior to their epic battle are, almost by necessity in a volume of only 276 pages, spotty in detail, yet are sufficient to establish the two fighters' characters. There is an adequate section of photographs, as well as the complete ring records of both Braddock and Baer and a complete listing of all the heavyweight division champs since John L. Sullivan. (Who is Hasim Rahman, champ in 2001, for Pete's sake?!)

For a boxing aficionado, CINDERELLA MAN is perhaps, despite its relative brevity, a must read. For those who otherwise couldn't care less about the sport, then viewing the excellent 2005 film CINDERELLA MAN, starring Russell Crowe in the title role, is the preferred, shorter option that provides all the basics. The visual version skips the preliminaries, starts with Braddock's last fight in 1933, his and his family's descent into near destitution, his enduring relationships with his wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) and manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti), his comeback contests versus Griffin, Lewis, and Lasky, and his win by decision over Baer in 15 gritty rounds.

Though it wasn't the author's intent, I gather, it was Baer's personality that came across as the more intriguing, at least for me. Max was a hard-punching, underachieving champ who fell more in love with the perks of his achievements - the fame, women, fine clothes, good food, showmanship - than with the commitment to his profession and hard work necessary to stay at the top. It's one of his quotes that stays with me:

"Listen, I don't want to be one of those champions who fights once a year. I need to fight. Dames are expensive." Truer words were never spoken.