Foreword
by Dwight
Damn, Roosevelt has a
strong chin! Would you spar with President of the United States? Well that is exactly what Professor Mike Donovan
did in the late 1800s. He wrote a book about his experience in 1909, titled
"The Roosevelt That I know". Mike Donovan was considered one of the
best practitioners at the time. This section continues with the
perspective of Mrs. Carew.
The
Roosevelt That I know Part 4
He
went on to tell how his brother Jerry, who seems to have been a
famous fighter
before him, tried to discourage him from exercising this inborn tendency, and
gave him many a thrashing for fighting other small boys, and made him very sore
at heart, as well as elsewhere, until one day somebody remonstrated with Jerry,
saying, “Jerry, what makes you at so mean to that kid? He'll grow up and be a
credit to you if you treat him right, but if you go on pounding him like that,
people will think you're afraid of his cutting you out some day.” After which
the Sparten Jerry ceased from troubling, and the infant Mike made prodigious
strides in the art of fighting. The scientist questioned him about his first
fight, and how he felt over it. “Golly! I was the proudest thing you ever saw!”
exclaimed the Professor. “Did you win?” “No, I lost on a foul, but it wasn't my
fault.
You
see, I didn't know the rules properly, and when the other fellow kept
dropping
on his knees to escape punishment it made me mad, and I just picked him up and
walloped him good, like this” - and the Professor threw his arm around an
imaginary neck, dragged an imaginary head up to the level of his hip and
bombarded an imaginary face with his left.
There
were more reminiscences of Fistiana, and I wish I had time to repeat
some of
them. And there were learned disquisitions on the finer points of the art and
on the comparative advantages of globes and bare knuckles. Briefly, a more
cutting blow can be delivered with the knuckles, but a harder and perhaps more
damaging one with a glove, because the hand is protected from injury, and a man
accustomed to boxing with gloves is in great danger of disabling his hands if
he become involved in an impromptu fight with bare hands, because his tendency
will be to strike recklessly hard.
Moreover,
Professor Donovan's experience goes to show that a boxer's
training hampers him
in a street fight, because he instinctively observes the rules of fair play,
greatly to his own detriment. There was a story illustrating this and I wish I
had time to tell it in his own words. He was set upon by a gang of roughs while
walking home from the New York Athletic Club, and having spent the day sparring
with young stockbrokers and the like, he was very tired.
“Golly!
I was tired,” he said. “I was so tired that I walked along with my shoulders
bent like an old man.”
I
could imagine what he looked like a nice, venerable little old gentlemen
dragging himself home to a supper of gruel and dry toast. No feminine pen could
do justice to that Homeric combat. Not that Professor Donovan narrated it
Homerically. He was strictly technical, but one could read between the lines
that it was a showy affair. I forget how many men in buckram there were, but
our Professor had knocked down a few of them and never thought of kicking or
hitting below the belt, til suddenly he was overthrown by reinforcements and
given a terrific kicking. And even then there was fight left in him to such an
extent that when a policeman appeared he was in danger of being taken for the
aggressor if a sympathetic bystander had not explained that the old gentleman
had not started the fight – a climax which the Professor unfolded with much
humor.
Musings
So
many good parts of this section. First, the mythical place of Fistiana.
Absolutely wonderful, where only boxers live to punch each other in the head
all day. Secondly, it the section about bare knuckle fighting and how you can
hurt your hands is great to note this far back in time. In reminds me of all
those old episodes of McGuyver. Every time he punched somebody with his bare
hand, it ALWAYS hurt. Lastly, sport combat is not street combat. Even though it
seems like Donovan survived, his muscle memory and training blinded his street
fighting abilities and he could have easily been hurt or even killed.
References:
Donovan, Michael Joseph. The Roosevelt That I Know; Ten Years of Boxing with the President--and Other Memories of Famous Fighting Men,. New York: B.W. Dodge, 1909. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=x7QaAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA8&dq=boxing&ots=MYv8NVrKwf&sig=N21fmrbbSTU8P3S0scqcxphbg9M
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