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

John L. Sullivan was a poor Irish kid from South Boston with a big mouth and an even bigger right hook so powerful that it could send an opponent hurtling clear out of the ring.   During his ten years as heavyweight champion – from 1882-1892 – Sullivan became a living legend, both for his boxing prowess and for his hard-drinking, hard-living lifestyle.

 

 

Besides being a biography of proto-athlete badboy Sullivan, this book is a lively social history of America in the Gilded Age, when prizefighting was transformed from an illegal activity little better than bare-knuckled back alley brawling to a (nearly) respectable form of athletic competition.

 

Read this and find out more about the man who, according to legend, could walk into the toughest saloon in America and boast “I can lick any s.o.b. in the world!” and then actually do it.