Crazy Fourth: How Jack Johnson Kept His Heavyweight Title and Put Las Vegas, New Mexico, on the Map

Product Description

In 1912 boxing was as popular a spectator sport in the United States as baseball, if not more so. It was also rife with corruption and surrounded by gambling, drinking, and prostitution, so much so that many cities and states passed laws to control it. But not in New Mexico. It was the perfect venue for one of the biggest, loudest, most rambunctious heavyweight championship bouts ever seen. In Crazy Fourth Toby Smith tells the story of how the African American boxer Jack Johnson–the bombastic and larger-than-life reigning world heavyweight champion–met Jim Flynn on the Fourth of July in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The civic boosters, bursting with pride in their town, raised a hundred thousand dollars for the fight, pushing events like the sinking of the Titanic to the back pages of every newspaper. In the end, once the dust finally settled on the whole unseemly spectacle, Las Vegas would spend the next generation making good on its losses.

Review

“Smith, a former sportswriter for the
Albuquerque Journal, researched microfilm news clips and photographs at the New Mexico Highlands University library in Las Vegas, New Mexico, to produce this delightfully entertaining yarn about a farcical fight and the colorful characters who somehow made it happen. Smith’s remaining sources, ninety-six books and newspapers, yielded literary gold in collective histories and personalities.”–Michael Hurd,
Southwestern Historical Quarterly

“An in-depth look at the fight, the months leading up to it, and its aftermath.”–David Steinberg,
Albuquerque Journal

“Filled with an assortment of colorful characters,
Crazy Fourth is a highly entertaining and funny account of the events that take place in the run-up to a heavyweight title defense by the great Jack Johnson in the unlikely setting of tiny Las Vegas, New Mexico.”–Jack Cavanaugh, author of
Tunney: Boxing’s Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey

“Many know of this 1912 fight, but few realize that the contest was a complete fiasco, from the first day of planning to its controversial last round. Toby Smith uses his wit and storytelling skills to write this boxing equivalent to Jimmy Breslin’s classic
The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”–Richard Melzer, coauthor of
A History of New Mexico Since Statehood

“A tale of ambitious promoters, desperate fighters, and America’s obsession with the color line. It’s a Las Vegas story set in the other Las Vegas.”–Randy Roberts, author of
Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes

About the Author

Toby Smith is a former sportswriter for the
Albuquerque Journal. He is the author of nine previous books, including
Kid Blackie: Jack Dempsey’s Colorado Days and
Bush League Boys: The Postwar Legends of Baseball in the American Southwest (UNM Press). He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.