Before Crowe, it was Braddock

Cinderella Man

James J. Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History

Jeremy Schaap

Houghton Mifflin: 288 pp., $24

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On June 13 it will have been 70 years since James J. Braddock surprised everyone when he defeated Max Baer and won the richest prize in sports, boxing’s heavyweight championship. Braddock, who entered the ring as a 10-to-1 underdog, immediately became known as boxing’s “Cinderella Man.” He remains so today, 31 years after his death.

In “Cinderella Man,” ESPN commentator Jeremy Schaap has crafted a compelling tale not only of that 1935 fight but also of two disparate personalities, Braddock and Baer, and their collision course. (A similarly titled movie of Braddock’s life starring Russell Crowe opens today, but it is unrelated to Schaap’s book.)

When Max Baer, son of a butcher from Livermore, Calif., turned pro in 1929, many boxing observers thought they were watching the next Jack Dempsey, to whom Baer bore a remarkable resemblance. Baer knocked out 18 of his first 24 opponents before his first loss. He became the heavyweight champion in 1934 by knocking Primo Carnera down 11 times before finally stopping him in the 11th round. By then, however, comparisons to Dempsey had ceased. Baer was far more interested in wine, women and song than in training. His performances began to be wildly inconsistent. He once said: “Listen, I don’t want to be one of these champions who fights once a year. I need to fight. Dames are expensive.”

Now we come to the backbone of Schaap’s work: Braddock’s indomitable spirit and his climb from Depression-era poverty to his championship bout against Baer. Braddock, who’d lost 20 fights from 1928 to 1933, probably could have been pegged a 50-to-1 shot to even get into a title fight, much less win one.

Braddock lived with his wife and three small children in a basement apartment in Woodcliff, N.J., during the worst of the Depression. His right hand was in a cast to fix a break in the late 1920s that was badly set. He owed the landlord, the milkman, the gas and electric companies. One winter, their electricity was turned off. He didn’t even have pocket change for public transportation. His family survived on bread and potatoes.

Schaap is at his best recounting Braddock’s darkest days in a chapter called “On the Waterfront”: “Exhausted physically and emotionally, he would walk in the early morning darkness to 69th Street in Guttenberg ... to the docks at Weehauken and Hoboken.” On the rare days when there was work, Braddock earned $4 a day unloading railroad ties. If not, he’d walk another two miles to the West New York docks. He offered to clean basements, shovel snow or sweep floors. Sometimes he’d find a temporary bartending gig. For one 10-month period, he was on relief, collecting $24 a month.

By mid-1934, Braddock’s right hand had healed. He won three fights and was setting up a title fight with Baer. On April 11, 1935, contracts were signed. Braddock and his manager, Joe Gould, would split $31,000 if the fight grossed at least $200,000, which it did.

Braddock was considered an unfit opponent by nearly everyone, including Baer, who trained in his usual fashion -- with indifference. The odds on the New York fight’s outcome ranged from 6-to-1 to 10-to-1 for Baer. (“Cinderella Man” has an inaccurate subtitle: “James J. Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History.” Nope. James “Buster” Douglas was a 43-to-1 underdog when he knocked out Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990.)

The far better conditioned Braddock put on a masterful boxing display that night and won. He would lose the championship two years later, on June 22, 1937, when Joe Louis knocked him out in Chicago. Braddock’s share of the purse that night was $320,000. Braddock called it a career in 1938 after defeating England’s Tommy Farr. He spent most of the rest of his life operating heavy equipment for a New Jersey contractor.

Max Baer died at 50 of a heart attack in 1959. The Cinderella Man was 69 when he passed away in his sleep in 1974.

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Earl Gustkey, a former Los Angeles Times sportswriter who covered boxing for many years, lives in Bozeman, Mont.