Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/101

 Many a tenth-rate scrapper has copped fame and fortune through the efforts of a brainy pilot, and many a champ has lost both through the coarse work of a poor one. Again, they ain't a dozen cases on the books where a fighter tried to manage himself and was a success of it. One bright and shinin' example of this is Monsieur Jessica Willard, the martyr of Toledo, which might of lasted a few more seconds before the ferocious Dempsey if he'd had shrewd and experienced handlin' from his corner.

Popularity with the mob is what brings home the sugar in professional boxin' the same as in professional anything. Jim Coffey shook a mean controller on the front end of a New York street car before he seen a picture of Peter Maher and decided he was a sucker to work for a coupla bucks a day when he could put on half a bathin' suit, knock a lot of Englishmen cold, and get from one to five thousand berries for doin' it. Coffey was rechristened "the Fighting Trish Motorman," and every time he started against some set-up they had to call out the reserves to keep the motormen and conductors from tearin' the clubhouse down to see their ex-colleague perform. In a few months Coffey cleaned up a fortune. Frank Moran gets paid in thousands for his work because he can and usually does take a terrific lacin' with a wide grin on his face and a runnin' fire of wise cracks for the ringsiders. Al McCoy, when middleweight champ, was prob'ly the least popular fighter which ever wore a crown, yet he got large dough for his services because he jammed the clubhouse with thousands of fans which wildly hated him and come for the sole