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  It was after his riveting march through a string of amateur opponents in Watertown that Sugar Ray Robinson really began to sense his own star quality. Winsome girls back in Manhattan began to stop him, angling for conversation. They badgered his sisters about his comings and goings. He could afford better clothing and favored loud-colored shirts, two-toned shoes, fedoras. He strolled about Times Square, the Bowery, Greenwich Village, imagining himself set apart from other boys in the city his age because he had money and car keys. He had newspaper clippings that told of his victories. He got hold of an old Victrola record player and began toting it on the road with him. He had a stack of records—Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin—that he packed up carefully. In small but discernible ways, Gainford began to bend to the will of his budding pupil: Robinson wanted music as he was preparing to leave the dressing room for his bouts. Gainford would put the music on and as the Fats Waller tune circled the dressing room, Robinson would begin dancing to it. Gainford could only smile as Robinson stepped out into whatever local arena, the jazz melodies wafting in the air, his fighter bobbing and weaving, guided by the jazz in his head and the beckoning lights.

  That Robinson now had money—a few $20 bills in those Depression years seemed like a small fortune—gave him a sense of accomplishment at home as well. He climbed the stairs to the family apartment with bags of groceries purchased with his money. He helped his mother with her overdue bills. George loaned him a 1928 Ford to tool around town, and he found plenty of girls willing to hop in the front seat with a rising young fighter. “I didn’t have a license but I had money for gas, and that was better than a license,” Robinson would recall. He took his dates out to Coney Island, swooping up and away on the roller coaster through the night air. The neighborhood juvenile delinquents—sashaying around with their folded pocketknives and razor blades—steered clear of him. It was his reputation.

  Her name was Marjorie, and she was pretty, with darkly hued skin, and an aggressive manner about her. He escorted her to dances on Lenox Avenue. They talked of his out-of-town journeys, of music and movies. He splurged, taking her to ice cream parlors, up and down the aisles of department stores. Other girls followed his comings and goings in the neighborhood, but he was bewitched by Marjorie and their sexual chemistry. When she became pregnant in 1938, he panicked, fleeing to his sisters for advice. They could only remind him of the importance of sharing the news with their mother, Leila. And that no-nonsense woman wasted little time in marching to the home of Marjorie’s parents. Leila Smith worried about scandal, her son’s future, and she promised them that her son would marry Marjorie. Marjorie’s parents, however, objected—while the girl remained silent under her father’s gaze. There were heated back-and-forth discussions, until Marjorie’s parents relented. The couple married in a ceremony at a local church—but not Salem Methodist. Ronnie Robinson was born in the fall of 1939. Shortly afterward, Sugar Ray and Marjorie had their marriage annulled. They had been nothing but teenage lovers and both came to believe it the best course. Robinson had financial responsibility for a child, but it did not derail him as it might have another young father. There were more fights, more money slipped to him by Gainford. It was, to him, an indication of what money could genuinely do. For the rest of his life, Sugar Ray would have just a minimal paternal relationship with his firstborn son.

  Beginning in 1922, the New York Daily News inaugurated a speed-skating event, dubbed the Silver Skates Derby. It was one of several activities and sporting events the newspaper promoted in hopes of boosting circulation and attracting new readers. Over the next few years the event became a public relations bonanza, talked about on the subways and praised in the executive suites of the newspaper itself. Paul Gallico, the Daily News sports editor, was surprised at the success of the annual event. Gallico happened to be enamored of amateur boxing, and had long dreamed of a local boxing tournament. He figured that such a tournament would be as successful as the skating derby if the newspaper got behind the idea. He decided to ask Joseph Patterson, the newspaper’s publisher, for a meeting. A group of newspaper officials, Patterson among them, listened to Gallico’s pitch over dinner at a restaurant in Little Italy. Patterson, himself dizzied by the success of the skating tournament, quickly agreed. (Anything that might boost circulation!) Patterson told Gallico he wanted it done in a topflight fashion, with nothing spared in terms of promotion. Gallico said he already had a name, a takeoff of Silver Skates: Golden Gloves. Sensing possibilities, the newspapermen made quite a merry party of it.

  Gallico and others set about scouring the city and outer boroughs, informing amateur coaches of the planned competition. There would be elimination rounds in the city and outlying areas, they explained; there would be safeguards against fixes and the type of skullduggery long associated with the sport; there would be a round of championship bouts staged at Madison Square Garden to declare weight-class champions. Gallico worried, wondering if the feverishness of the preparations would be matched by the number of entrants. Some of the organizers of local boxing events considered themselves lucky if they got a hundred entrants in amateur tournaments. In one of his columns prior to the event, Gallico wrote that he hoped the competition would “unearth some unknown with a bland and modest smile and a kick like a navy smokeless, who will blast his way through” to the championship rounds. He was stunned when the entry forms began piling up on his desk; he had to cut off the submissions when the number of applications topped a thousand.

  The elimination rounds began in Brooklyn on March 11, 1927, and spread to all of the boroughs. The finals were held at Madison Square Garden before an audience of more than 21,000—while another 8,000, huffing with disappointment, were turned away. Soon, a similar event was staged in Chicago and, sensing a potential rivalry, New York and Chicago officials combined the two competitions, bringing together the Golden Gloves champions from each city. The popular event became known as the Inter-city championships. Flashbulbs went off at train stations in both cities as the young pugilists leaned over the railings, whistling and waving their fedoras and grinning their world-beating grins. By the mid-1930s the event had become a sensation, even adding foreigners to the mix. In 1937 an international competition featuring U.S. boxers against the Italian team was staged outdoors, at Yankee Stadium, with a crowd of more than 52,000. A tough and gritty team from Mussolini’s Italy—boasting the presence of 1936 bantamweight Olympian Ulderico Sergo—won the event, 6–5. (There would be no international contest the following year, owing to the specter of war in Europe.) In 1937 the organizers staged a one-day quarterfinal round at Madison Square Garden. Thousands of Golden Gloves fans peered down, over and across three boxing rings, as simultaneous fights took place throughout afternoon and evening sessions. A total of 107 bouts were held, with the arena in constant motion. Daily News newsboys hawked fresh editions outside the Garden, barking in staccato rhythms the results of many of the fights. Paul Gallico, the energetic force behind the Golden Gloves, had gone off to write novels and screenplays—but his event had made Manhattan an undisputed amateur boxing mecca.

  Broadway and Hollywood stars were always spotted among the throngs inside the Garden on Golden Gloves nights. (Outside, police officers on horseback struggled mightily to control the crowds.) Champion fighters—Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, and Max Baer among them—were also spotted, thick-shouldered men in sharp suits adding luster, waving and pointing, sometimes even doing radio play-by-play. George Gainford’s young fighters at Salem Crescent were excited about the thrilling extravaganzas taking place at the Garden.

  In 1938 Sugar Ray Robinson began dreaming of getting his own shot at a Golden Gloves title. Several members of the team harbored such ambitions. Robinson’s dream consumed him: All through the year he trained harder than ever; he asked Gainford more questions about fighters he might be fighting; he thumbed through Chicago newspapers, gleaning what he could about fighters he might face there if he made it far enough in the competition. Robinson
also worried that Gainford might pay more attention to Buddy Moore, the Salem heavyweight prospect, than to him. And that fear made him train harder still. There was a severe intensity in his eyes, owing to the regimen he set for himself. He ran long stretches along the pathways of Central Park as the sun set behind the trees. He watched his diet, he reminded wayward friends he could not keep company with them any longer because of his fight preparations.

  Salem churchgoers realized what was taking place down in their basement in the months prior to the 1939 Golden Gloves elimination trials: George Gainford and Harry Wiley, another coach, getting their boys ready for the intense battles that lay ahead. And when the 1939 trials began, three Salem fighters—Robinson, Buddy Moore, and Spider Valentine—quickly stood out. They kept eliminating their foes. And the more Robinson fought, the louder the murmurings became about his lethal left hook, the swiftness with which he danced around the ring.

  Arthur Mercante was a Golden Gloves referee during the 1939 preliminary events. He knew how much the city looked forward to the affair. “It was a very depressed period of our lives,” he would recall decades later. “The event really helped the New York Daily News stay on its feet, because they were having difficulty surviving. Everybody looked forward to going to the Golden Gloves.” Mercante had gotten to know certain fighters in the semifinals leading up to the finals night. Robinson struck him as having special talents. “I’d be watching him from my corner. He’d come into the ring looking absolutely beautiful. He textured his skin by putting some kind of ointment all over his body. And he was always well-coiffed. He would say he wanted to leave the ring exactly as he entered it—looking beautiful.”

  And as Robinson started defeating his foes on his way to finals night, Mercante, witnessing some of those bouts, recoiled at the power of his punches. He couldn’t remember seeing a fighter with such a combination of speed and brutal power. Golden Gloves attendees would stop Mercante in the hallways, heatedly inquiring about the kid from the church in Harlem.

  By early March, Robinson had garnered enough preliminary victories that he began attracting a real following. On March 6, more than eighteen thousand fans made their way into Madison Square Garden to watch the young fighters; many were looking for the fighter from Salem Crescent. He did not disappoint. “Among the more impressive youths,” The New York Times would note a day later, “was Ray Robinson … who gained the 126 pound open championship. Flooring his opponent for a count of eight in the second, Robinson proceeded to batter him at will and easily earned the decision.” Within the narrative of the Times article, Robinson received a small headline above the section lauding his exploits: ROBINSON FINE BOXER, it proclaimed. It was his first such recognition. The Times article added: “Robinson took the fancy of the crowd with his defensive skill as well as a punishing long right uppercut that invariably found the mark.” On the finals night of his 1939 Golden Gloves tournament, Robinson emerged from the bowels of the arena, ready for his bout, with more than fifteen thousand spectators hovering. The lights caught his shimmering satin robe as he came into view, and fans began yelping and pointing. One of those pointing toward him that night happened to be actress Mae West. West, daughter of a heavyweight boxer, was enamored of the sport. (She was also secretly linked to several Negro fighters, liaisons that provided scandal sheets with juicy material.) On Robinson’s big night, West—seated ringside between two older men in black tuxedoes—was swathed in white fur and a floor-length satin dress. She wore a bejeweled hairnet atop her blonde locks; a flowery adornment could be seen on the shoulder of her fur coat. The actress, who had started out in burlesque, billed as “The Baby Vamp,” looked every bit the grown-up now. Robinson would remember “a roar of applause” as he came into view. He happened to be matched against a familiar figure: Salem Crescent teammate Spider Valentine. The two fighters had won enough contests to be pitted against each other. Robinson wanted to make an especially good showing, the better to steal some of the Salem spotlight from heavyweight Buddy Moore, who had brutally vanquished several opponents on his way to finals night.

  It mattered little that Spider Valentine knew Robinson’s moves, having seen them so often in the Salem gym. Robinson was too swift a puncher; Valentine fell early from a Robinson blow. He took more punishment in the second round, unable to dodge Robinson’s punches, which rose and fell like the tentacles of an octopus. By the end of the third—the noise from the crowd rising—the referee had seen enough. It was all over.

  And all just beginning for Sugar Ray Robinson.

  The flashbulbs went off; there were shouts, and fans rose up, saluting Robinson’s victory. He stood in the ring, gazing, squinting, raising his gloved fist, bathed in the fluorescent glow. The boy from Black Bottom—by way of Salem Crescent—was now a champion. Buddy Moore was also a champion, but Robinson’s feat had been accomplished with what many concluded was rare artistry. The memory of the evening would mean so very much to him. “The greatest thrill I ever got,” he would say, “was when I won the Golden Gloves and they streamed that light down on me in the Garden and said, ‘The Golden Gloves featherweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson!’” Newspaper writers made note of him. Predictions now floated all about him. The next morning Robinson scoured the city, ignoring the cold weather, grabbing as many newspapers as he could. His Golden Gloves win boosted his confidence tremendously, as had his triumphs in Watertown, New York.

  Many fighters, of course, have good stretches, reaching beyond their trainer’s expectations for them. There were onetime Golden Gloves winners walking around the Bowery in 1939, destitute and out of the game. The has-beens were often spotted in the shadows at gyms around the city, dodging questions about what went wrong. The winner’s pair of miniature bronzed Golden Gloves—valued at $65—carried no guarantee of future success.

  If there were any one-shot-wonder doubts about Robinson’s gifts, though, they were dispelled when he returned to the Golden Gloves event twelve months later and offered a furious—and more lethal—display of his talent. He marched toward finals night like a man possessed: He knocked out Howard Hettich of Charlotte, North Carolina, in the first round. Andy Nonella didn’t fare much better. Sixty seconds, and Mr. Robinson’s work was finished. The New York Times allowed that Robinson had offered “the best showing of the night” in his victory. Robinson had flattened Nonella before the sixty-point mark, only to see Nonella rise. “He gamely made for his foe,” the Times reported of Nonella, “but was unable to reach the elusive Robinson, who sprayed a steady stream of lefts to the face.” Robinson squared off with Joseph Vidulich days later. Only forty-six seconds into round one, Vidulich went blank: another knockout. The Times called the deposing of Vidulich “a spectacular knockout” on Robinson’s part. “With a terrific right to the jaw, Robinson sent Joseph Vidulich of New Jersey sprawling over the lower rope.” At 1:41 of their first-round matchup, Jimmy Butler of Atlanta, Georgia, joined Robinson’s other victims after another knockout. Robinson had the reporters squirming in their seats. Photographers captured him—taller than most of his challengers—pounding into the heads of crouching opponents, who were desperately trying to defend themselves against the fusillade.

  Gainford was now witnessing a fighter withdrawing inside himself, blocking out the world, and unleashing scintillating gifts. Gainford could only wrap the white towel around Robinson’s neck and whisper into his ear about the fine job he had done. The applause was deafening. This is what Madison Square Garden fight fans loved—the maturation of a fighter right before their eyes. The Manhattan press did not at first accept Robinson’s moniker “Sugar” and began referring to him as “Death Ray,” an appropriate nickname, in their minds, given what they were witnessing. Robinson practiced a ring etiquette that some found odd, though women liked it: He moved gingerly toward his flattened opponents, helping to lift them from the canvas, even at times motioning for medical help. He possessed traits of magnanimity as well as vengefulness. The Salem Crescent fighter, it was agreed, had “set
the standard for sportsmanship” in the Golden Gloves event.

  Aware that future financial backers were watching, Robinson had badly wanted to pull the spotlight from Salem heavyweight Buddy Moore. Now he had done it. He had had admirers uttering his name as they rushed through the doors of the Garden; he had made his own headlines. He wanted George Gainford to see only one Salem Crescent fighter in his mirror—Sugar Ray Robinson. He had now become, in a span of twelve months, a Manhattan sensation. The old fighters at Stillman’s Gym would try to find comparisons, mentioning the likes of Henry Armstrong, the bolo-punching Missourian, and Kid Chocolate, the great Cuban-born fighter who was New York world featherweight champ from 1932 to 1934. They would spin their comparisons out all day long, giving them new angles, until Gainford and Harry Wiley would tell them—and anyone else who would listen—that Sugar Ray Robinson was unlike any boxer they had ever seen on the local or national fight scene. “Robinson never has lost,” Gainford reminded them, time and time again.

  And now, when Sugar Ray Robinson rose from the basement of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, gliding out into the sunshine, there was an unmistakable glow about him. Other team members allowed him to make decisions about where to eat, what movies to go see, which music to go listen to. Older team members liked his discipline and focus. He walked like a champion.