January 18: The Champ

Boxing champion Barney Ross (Dov-Ber Rasofsky), who fought for nine years with a record of 74 wins and four losses and won belts in three weight divisions, died on this date in 1967 at 57. Ross turned to boxing when his father, a talmudic scholar and rabbi, was shot dead in a holdup of his grocery store, which caused his mother to suffer a nervous breakdown. Their son’s religiosity was waylaid by these tragedies, and he became a Chicago street tough (working a while for Al Capone). Ross eventually turned to boxing to earn enough money to rescue his younger siblings from an orphanage. Earn he did, with a career based on speed, stamina and counter-punching; he was never knocked out and only once knocked down. After retirement, Ross joined the Marines at age 34 and won a Silver Star for killing two dozen Japanese soldiers at Guadalcanal while rescuing several wounded comrades, all in a single night. His own wounds, however, yielded a morphine addiction that took him years to kick. Ross was also involved in Peter Bergson’s militant Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe.

“I never expected to get out. I was crying, and praying, and shooting, and throwing grenades, and half the time, I guess, I was out of my head.” —Barney Ross