sport historian
Master
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2004
- Messages
- 2,954
In another thread a while back, I mentioned Mark Kram's 2001 book, "Ghosts of Manila." The reviews made it into a vicious personal attack on The Greatest. Actually, it is much less than than that. Yesterday, I went to a library that had a copy. You can skim through it in an hour, which is why I didn't buy it when it came out.
The book is mostly anecdotes from Kram's days at Sports Illustrated along with what couldn't be printed at the time. There were a few interesting parts. Kram quoted a friend of the then Cassis Clay who grew up with him in Louisville on why he wouldn't go in the army. "It was fear," this person said, "He is used to be around only black people. In the army he would be around whites all the time and this terrified him."
Another time, Kram wrote that Joe Louis' tax problems with the IRS caused him more trouble than Ali's difficulties and the U.S. government hounded Louis far longer than it ever did Ali. This is an unexamined topic, but Kram dropped the subject after raising it.
Kram wrote about Joe Frazier owning Duane Bobick's contract for a time. He then wrote that "a white heavyweight will always break your heart." Mark Kram died in 2002.
The book is mostly anecdotes from Kram's days at Sports Illustrated along with what couldn't be printed at the time. There were a few interesting parts. Kram quoted a friend of the then Cassis Clay who grew up with him in Louisville on why he wouldn't go in the army. "It was fear," this person said, "He is used to be around only black people. In the army he would be around whites all the time and this terrified him."
Another time, Kram wrote that Joe Louis' tax problems with the IRS caused him more trouble than Ali's difficulties and the U.S. government hounded Louis far longer than it ever did Ali. This is an unexamined topic, but Kram dropped the subject after raising it.
Kram wrote about Joe Frazier owning Duane Bobick's contract for a time. He then wrote that "a white heavyweight will always break your heart." Mark Kram died in 2002.