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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 09 > Entry
COLUMN: Bob Dylan’s Miami Valley Connection
The first public hint that he was drawn to boxing came 46 years ago when he wrote a song about one of the Miami Valley’s most famous sports figures.
Bob Dylan penned “Who Killed Davey Moore?” in 1963, soon after the former Olympian and world featherweight champ from Springfield died from an injury he suffered defending his title against Sugar Ramos at Dodger Stadium.
In the 10th round, Ramos landed a series of uppercuts and stiff jabs, finally using a straight right hand to drop Moore forcefully onto his butt with the back of his head whiplashing off the bottom ring rope, which was an uncovered steel cable.
It caused a brain stem injury, though Moore made it to the end of the round before the fight was called. Afterward, he talked to reporters in the dressing room for 40 minutes before complaining of a head ache and then lapsing into a coma. He died three days later.
Dylan’s ode posed the question of responsibility to fight fans, Moore’s manager, the ref, boxing writers, gamblers and Ramos.
Afterward — following criticisms of the fight game by everybody from the Pope to several Ohio legislators — boxing did make some minor changes. After that ropes were padded and a looser fourth rope was added beneath the regular three to provide cushion.
Yet, don’t think Dylan was anti-boxing.
For years there’s been talk he’s owned a secret fight club beneath a Santa Monica coffee shop and though Dylan remains mum on that, Los Angeles Magazine slipped into the place a while back and wrote about it.
Sean Penn and Will Smith are said to have trained there. Quentin Tarantino has admitted getting caught flush by a Dylan punch and Gina Gershon claims to have knocked Dylan down once.
If that’s so, he should have drawn on the advice former heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey gave him at his Manhattan restaurant in 1961 when he mistook the poetic songman for a pug.
Recounting their meeting in his memoirs, Dylan said Dempsey told him: “You look too light for a heavyweight kid, you’ll have to put on a few pounds. You’re going to have to dress a little finer, look a little sharper…When you’re in the ring, don’t be afraid of hitting somebody too hard.”
When a music producer interjected — “He’s not a boxer, Jack, he’s a songwriter,” — Dempsey shrugged: “Oh yeah, well, I hope to hear ‘em some of these days. Good luck to you, kid.”
Dylan’s most famous boxing song was “Hurricane” in which he decried the plight of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the middleweight contender imprisoned 20 years for murder before the conviction was overturned.
Dylan also covered Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” and in 1964 his song “I Shall Be Free No.10” included: “I was shadowboxin’ early in the day. I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay.”
Recently, he told Rolling Stone magazine that boxing is his main training exercise and for a long time he worked out with “Mouse” Strauss, the colorful Omaha-born journeyman of the late ’70s and ’80s, who had as many as 250 pro fights — some 100 of them fought under other ring names — and three unsuccessful title bids:
“Mouse could walk on his hands across a football field,” Dylan said. “He taught me the pugilistic rudiments back a while ago, maybe 20 or 30 years. That’s not when I started though. Boxing was a part of my curriculum when I went to high school. Then it was taken out of the school system. I think maybe in ‘58 . But it was always good for me because it was kind of an individualist thing. You didn’t need to be part of a team. And I liked that.”
At a 1984 concert in Omaha, Dylan even gave Strauss a shout-out: “I want to say hello to my good friend, world boxing champion Mouse Strauss.. Mouse, if you’re out there, stand up and take a bow.”
While it’s unlikely he’ll make reference to Moore tonight, July 10, when he plays Fifth Third Field, Dylan could have visited Springfield if he had some spare time and seen where Moore is buried in Ferncliff Cemetery or met his widow, Geraldine, who he sang about.
He would not be able to see the public sculpture of Moore that Springfield planned to erect last year. The economic downturn has hit the city hard and the project stalled $37,000 short of its $92,000 goal.
But if Dylan can’t see Davey’s bronzed likeness, he could get an answer to that question he posed so long ago.
“Who killed Davey Moore?” said Geraldine. “No one. No one made him get in the ring. He died doing what he liked to do.”
Turns out, Dylan likes doing it, too.
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Comments
By Jerry
July 12, 2009 6:56 PM | Link to this
In 1963 in a concert in New York Dylan introduced “Who Killed Davey Moore?” by saying “If you want to know about th abolishment of boxing I’d ask Mrs. Benny Kid Paret or Mrs. Davey Moore before I’d ask Cassius Clay. That’s just a personal tendency there.” I’m a big Dylan fan but I can’t understand why he hasn’t scrupulously avoided having anything to do with boxing after writing such a powerful anti-boxing song.By Sharon Schlegel
July 10, 2009 10:26 PM | Link to this
What an informative and interesting piece for any Dylan fan (gulity as charged) or anyone still pondering why boxing remains legal. Thanks for the terrific journalism, which is harder and harder to find.By deephistory
July 10, 2009 10:24 AM | Link to this
Actually, Bobby Zimmerman Dylan had relatives in Dayton. I remember his cousin, Debbie Rutstein, who lived in Dayton in the 1960s,who talked often about her cousin Bobby. Perhaps that more direct connection to Dayton itself might be explored some day, just to make the story complete, of course.By carolinian
July 10, 2009 8:04 AM | Link to this
Excellent piece on an early Dylan classic. Dylan is a complex guy who reflects his upbringing in the 1940s and early ’50s. Re the Cassius Clay reference, back in the day no one would have thought that Bob was literally shadowboxing, but lo and behold he was just going back to his training! Well done, scribe.