Strong Boy: The Life and Times Of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero - Hardcover

Klein, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0762781521 ISBN 13: 9780762781522

Publisher: Lyons Press, 2013

Synopsis

“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the world.”

So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who  was the gold standard of American sport for more than a decade, and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. In the process, the “Boston Strong Boy” transformed boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today.

Strong Boy tells the story of America’s first sports superstar, a self-made man who personified the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. Everywhere John L. Sullivan went, his fists backed up his bravado. Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout against Jake Kilrain, and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he literally challenged all of America to a fight are recounted in vivid detail, as are his battles outside the ring with a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging alcoholism. Strong Boy gives readers ringside seats to the colorful tale of one of the country’s first Irish-American heroes and the birth of the American sports media and the country’s celebrity obsession with athletes.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher Klein is a history and travel writer and the author of two previous books. A frequent contributor to The Boston Globe and History.com, he has also written for The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Harvard Magazine, Red Sox Magazine, ESPN.com, Smithsonian.com, and AmericanHeritage.com. Visit him at christopherklein.com.

Review:

"In this muscular, relentlessly detailed book, Christopher Klein not only tells Sullivan's story but also documents the evolution of boxing from illicit bare-knuckle savagery akin to today's steel-cage extravaganzas to the 'sweet science' of legally sanctioned bouts between skillful gloved opponents."--Wall Street Journal

"In Strong Boy, The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, the book that should go straight to the top of your holiday gift list, Irish American author Christopher Klein has written an immensely entertaining and insightful biography that's worthy of his formidable subject."--Irish Voice

"Strong Boy--The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America's First Sports Hero by Christopher Klein is a raw, powerful and disturbing biography--a head-spinning take on Sullivan's turbulent life. Unlike other sports memoirists, Klein doesn't pull punches; he offers slashing comments on a mythic sports hero."--America Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0762781521
• ISBN 13: 9780762781522
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368