50 Years At Ringside
About this ebook
“This is a story which nobody has produced in the past, and certainly is not going to duplicate in the future.
“It is the life story of a man who lived through increasingly exciting eras of the nation’s history, and the nation’s sports annals. The conditions which obtained through those eventful decades will not come again. The man who banged his typewriter through these crowding years will not come again upon a similar sequence in the sports kaleidoscope.
“Here are behind-the-scenes pictures, the inside stories of so many developments which have waited, until now, for my lifetime friend Nat Fleischer to reveal them.
“Here are pathos, comedy, and intrigue; the seamy, sombre stories, and the funny ones as well. Ring heroes of the past come to life in these pages to reveal themselves in the full panoply of their championship stature, or in the meaner habiliments of the character on the fringe.
“It is a fine book, and I thank Nat for having written it.”
—Dan Daniel, Foreword
About the author
Nathaniel Stanley Fleischer (November 3, 1887, New York City - June 25, 1972) was a noted American boxing writer and collector.
After graduating from City College of New York in 1908, Fleischer worked for the New York Press while studying at New York University. He served as the sports editor of the Press and the Sun Press until 1929.
Encouraged by Tex Rickard, he inaugurated The Ring magazine in 1922. In 1929 Fleischer acquired sole ownership of the magazine, which he led as editor in chief for fifty years, until his death in 1972.
In 1942, Fleischer began to publish the magazine’s annual record book and boxing encyclopedia, which was published until 1987. In addition, Fleischer wrote several other books about the lives of some world champions and about boxing history.
Fleischer contributed to the founding of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) and was twice presented with its James J. Walker Award. After Fleischer’s death, the BWAA named an award after him. Fleischer was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
