The Tar Baby

The sad-faced, spindly little Negro boy was broke, cold and hungry that winter day in Boston in 1902. He did not even know how old he was (he guessed maybe 16), but he knew well enough why he and his dog had run away from their Weymouth, Nova Scotia home. "My pa was always lickin' me," explained young Sam

Langford. Lost in some giant's castoff overcoat, he looked so woebegone that a fight manager named Joe Woodman gave him a job sweeping up at the old Lenox Athletic Club.

Just Point Me Straight. That is how Sam Langford got mixed up with boxing; he lived with it all the rest of his life. When he began to eat regularly, Sam put on weight. Soon he was strong enough to ask Woodman to get him a fight. By the next winter, he was good enough to whip Lightweight Champion Joe Gans (who kept the title because Sam had weighed in 8 oz. over the limit). By the time he was 18, "the Boston Tar Baby" was so good that he could beat almost anyone who would give him a bout. In 1906, weighing only 146, he tackled future Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson (185 Ibs.). Only the bell saved Johnson from a fifth-round knockout; only a dubious decision saved him the fight. Afterwards, big Jack would never fight Sam again.

In more than 600 fights the Boston Tar Baby hammered out his living with his fists. Stanley Ketchel, Harry Wills, Gunboat Smith--Sam held his own with them all. Even after an unlucky punch cost him the sight of one eye and cataracts dimmed the other, Sam fought on. In Mexico City, in 1923, he had to say to his seconds, "Just point me straight at him," before he could shuffle across the ring toward his opponent and lash out wildly to win the heavyweight championship of Mexico.

Mostly the Harlem Diet. Operations helped his eyesight twice, and then he went blind for good. Soon he was as broke as the day he wandered into the Lenox Athletic Club. Whenever he could cadge the price of a meal, he always filled his pockets with restaurant toothpicks. "Most of the time I'm on the Harlem diet now," he explained. "When I'm hungry and I ain't got the price of a feed, I drink a glass of water and pick my teeth. Then I use my imagination."

In 1944 New York Herald Tribune

Sportswriter Al Laney found Sam lonely and starving in a dismal Harlem flat. Laney's story about the great old fighter brought more than $9,000 in gifts, which gave Sam an income of $49.13 a month. He managed to get along.

"Don't nobody need to feel sorry for old Sam," he said. "I had plenty of good times. I been all over the world. I fought maybe five, 600 fights, and every one was a pleasure." When he died in a Cambridge nursing home last week (by then, Sam figured he was 76), the Tar Baby's pockets were as empty as ever, and his long record was almost empty of titles. But men who had seen Sam Langford fight still ranked him right up with the best.

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