The Phantom Punch by Rob Sneddon

Author:Rob Sneddon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781608933662
Publisher: Down East Books

Footnotes

* It wasn’t long before the first Aw, isn’t that cute—the mayor’s just a kid! story hit the wire services. “I looked around for a good candidate I could support for mayor, and I couldn’t find one who was willing to run,” Couturier told the Associated Press. “I had to run for the office or shut up.”

* Within two years, NASCAR stars Bobby Allison and Richard Petty would win races at Oxford Plains Speedway.

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Public Nuisance

The rumblings were faint at first, like the precursory tremors of a volcano. In Massachusetts, people of influence were taking a closer look at the Ali–Liston return bout, rescheduled for Tuesday, May 25, 1965, at Boston Garden. A story in the April 8 Boston Globe carried the headline:

D.A. BYRNE PROBES LISTON’S ANTICS

According to the story, Suffolk County district attorney Garrett Byrne had “ordered one of his assistants to meet with the state boxing commission at 2 p.m. today to discuss the championship bout between Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston. . . . The talks will focus particular attention on Liston, his background, his behavior, and whether he should be allowed to compete in Massachusetts. . . . Why the former champion’s status suddenly becomes important enough to be brought up at an executive session with an assistant district attorney wasn’t divulged.”

But it was easy to guess. The political climate had changed dramatically since November. Endicott Peabody, the Democratic governor who had championed the championship fight, had left office in January. His replacement was Republican John Volpe. And it was becoming apparent that opposition to the fight was bipartisan. In fact, it was possible that D.A. Byrne had received his mysterious directive not from the Republican governor but from a Democratic senator, Edward Kennedy.

The first family of Massachusetts politics were no fans of Sonny Liston. Before the first Liston–Patterson fight, President John F. Kennedy had told Patterson to “make sure you keep that championship” because JFK hated the thought of the title falling into Liston’s hands. And when Liston associates Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo were convicted of conspiracy and extortion after attempting to strong-arm two Los Angeles men who managed welterweight champ Don Jordan, Attorney General Robert Kennedy said, “This verdict will be a great aid and assistance to the Department of Justice and local authorities in taking further action against the attempts of racketeers to control boxing and other sports.”

Given the Kennedys’ obvious enmity toward Liston, why hadn’t Ted Kennedy stepped in back in September, before the fight was first announced? For one thing, Kennedy wasn’t able to step anywhere at that point; he was laid up with a broken back, suffered in a June ’64 plane crash. He had called Peabody that fall to express his displeasure, but that was as far as it went.

But in the spring of ’65 Kennedy was back on his feet. And he no longer had to worry about the political awkwardness of opposing a Democratic governor.

Still, just because the Massachusetts political machine might have decided that they didn’t want the fight in their own backyard, they had no legal right to prevent it.

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