As spectator sports go, boxing is one of the oldest and most respected. While the popularity of boxing has plummeted in recent years, at least in America, the sport can be traced back as far as 4000 B.C. Some folks still see boxing as an art form, through which some of the most earnest and integral aspects of the development of human culture can be traced and defined. Nowhere is this connection more evident than in the famous manifesto, penned by journalist, war correspondent, and boxing enthusiast, A.J. Liebling, The Sweet Science. After all, the author argues, “The Sweet Science is joined onto the past like a man’s arm to his shoulder.” Published in 1956, during the hay day of American boxing, The Sweet Science might seem a little outdated, at first, but in truth, the fact that the work was published so long ago only adds another dimension to the historical appeal. The Sweet Science offers the reader a witty, insightful, and passionate look at the intricacies of a sport that, upon further inspection, might leave a reader wondering if baseball really is the great American pastime.
The title of Liebling’s work might lead one to expect that it will be packed with dry technicalities, analyses of strategy, and accounts of boxing history, none of which would appeal to someone who neither knows or ever cared to know the specifics of matches that were decided decades prior. However, while Liebling does use quite a bit of terminology, and delivers a great deal of information, he does so succinctly, in just over 200 pages, and the science is imbedded in colorful detail and good humor. The book reads less like a manual, and more like a series of episodic essays, each detailing a separate match that he attended – for, as the author explains, television has played a huge role in the diminishment of the sport, much like “potatoes brought down the standard of eating,” in Ireland. Liebling asserts that one can experience a match so much more thoroughly in person.
In fact, while the individual matches in this book serve as focal pieces and anchors, the beauty of The Sweet Science lies in Liebling’s narrative descriptions of the complete experience. He offers up descriptions of the boxers and their various performances, certainly, but he also spends quite a bit of time explaining the managers and the work that goes on behind the scenes, and the majority of the writing seems to be about the fans. Liebling never forgets to describe the Harlem residents, in their colorful felt hats, pouring into Madison Square Garden or the ladies, dressed in their best, who come to the matches to be seen, anticipating the prospect of trading in the men who escorted them for someone better. Liebling introduces the reader to Dr. Kearns, the trainer who takes the credit when his fighter wins, but blames the fighter for each loss, and the man who calls himself “Prince Monolulu,” a regular at the matches, in his cape and ostrich-feather headpiece.
Indeed, this work is held together by the cast of characters outside of the ring, and one could easily argue that the main character is Liebling, himself. He writes of the way he interacts and communicates with other patrons, and describes his own introduction to boxing, which began with his “Uncle Mike” when the author was still “in short pants.” He invites the reader into the boxing culture, to experience, along with him, the electric atmosphere, via all five senses; the cut of the fighters, the unbearable heat in the arena, the smell of cigar smoke, and even the taste of the pork chops he eats in the bustling city, on the way to a match.
Liebling’s ardor is obvious in his description, but most evident of his centrality to the story, and the underlying theme of lost eras is, perhaps, the connection that he feels to one fighter, in particular, Joe Louis, of whom he writes:
When Louis knocked Savold out, I came away singularly revived-as if I, rather than Louis, had demonstrated resistance to the erosion of time. As long as Joe could get by, I felt I had a link with an era when we were both a lot younger.
The way Liebling writes is almost poetic, which is fitting when one considers the scope through which he is describing the art of men pummeling each other senseless. Any reader could easily walk away from this book with a new appreciation for boxing; the history, the technique, and the people who participate. However, what really resonates is the deep, abiding connection that humans can feel to their culture and to each other, through the scope of a sport. Either way, The Sweet Science is worth a read.
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