Billy Miske's last Christmas

Not a story about dogs but about a man who's game to the bone.

BILLY MISKE’S LAST CHRISTMAS

This is the story of Billy Miske, the most courageous fighter I have known in more than half a century of association with professional boxing. Miske came to the end of the fistic trail early in 1923. Although he had not reached his twenty-ninth birthday, Billy was mortally ill with Bright’s disease; his days were numbered and he knew it.

Billy Miske’s entire ring career, however, marked him as a boxer with a great fighting heart. When he became a victim of Brights’s disease in 1916 his family doctor told him he had five years to live, provided he quit boxing and took care of himself. Miske shrugged off the advice. Knowing that his number was up, he participated in seventy fights in the next six years, meeting the leading light-heavyweights and heavyweights. Included were three bouts with Jack Dempsey, three with Tommy Gibbons, three with Jack Dillon, three with Bill Brennan and two with Harry Greb.
At one time Billy was matched with Gibbons for a ten-round fight to be staged at Nicollet Park in Minneapolis on June 19, 1919. A week before the bout, Billy became ill and was ordered to bed by his doctor. An assortment of boils added to his misery in the humid ninety-degree heat.

Four days before the fight Jack Reddy, the St. Paul boxing promoter who was Billy’s manager, informed Mike Collins, who was then promoting boxing matches in Minneapolis, that it would be impossible for Miske to go through with the match. Collins, faced with this dilemma, called me and ask if I would go with him to Miske’s home in St. Paul.

“Any chance of your fighting on Friday night?” an anxious Collins asked Miske.
“We’ve already got $18,000 in advance sales in the till and the gate is a cinch to hit $30,000. The Minneapolis baseball team is coming home Saturday for a three-week stand and a postponement of that long will kill interest in the fight. It means a big pay day for all of us if you fight Gibbons Friday night. Try to make it, will you, Billy?”
Miske, still in bed and running a temperature, told Collins, “I’ll get up tomorrow. If I can walk around the block without falling down, I’ll fight Gibbons for you on Friday night.”
True to his promise, Miske was on hand for the battle. Weak as he was, Billy waged a furious fight for ten rounds and Gibbons was extended to the limit in gaining the decision. As referee of the match, I can vouch for the fury of Miske’s fighting.

Due to his health, Billy retired from boxing in the spring of 1920 and entered the automobile business. Within five months he lost $55,000 and needed additional money to carry on. He accepted a guarantee of $25,000 to meet (heavyweight) champion Jack Dempsey in a title fight at Benton Harbor, Michigan on Labor Day.
This match was their third meeting. Miske had lost a ten-round decision to Dempsey after a terrific battle in St. Paul on May 3, 1918. In their second fight, a six-round bout in Philadelphia on November 28 of the same year, Jack had gained newspaper decision.
Physically ailing, Miske merely went through the motions of training for his third fight with Dempsey and Jack knocked him out in third round. It was the only knockout suffered by Miske in 150 bouts. After paying Reddy his manger’s percentage, Billy had about $18,000 left. Intimate friends, his wife and his manager, all knowing that the automobile business was doomed to failure, begged Billy to go through bankruptcy and save the Dempsey purse for a nest egg.
“Not me,” Billy said, proudly. “Nobody is going to point a finger at Billy Miske and say he ever beat them out of even a dime. I’m going to pay off even if I go broke again.”
He put $15,000 into the business and was eventually wiped out with a loss of $70,000. Flat broke, Miske returned to the ring in 1921 and participated in twenty-four more fights before his death. He won thirteen by knockouts, ten were no-decision and he was held to one draw.

Miske’s illness finally forced him to retire again after he knocked out Harry Foley in one round in Omaha in January 12, 1923. Unable to fight, and too ill to work, Billy stayed home most of the time with his wife Marie, and their three children. Late November came, with Christmas in the offing. Months of idleness had depleted the Miske bank roll. He needed money badly. That was his predicament as he entered the office of Jack Reddy.

“Jack,” Miske said, “get me a fight.”
“You must be kidding,” replied Reddy. “You’re in no condition to fight.”
“Get me a fight anyway,” Miske said.
“But Billy,” answered the manager, “do you want me ruled out of boxing for tossing a sick man into the ring?”
“Look Jack,” pleaded Miske, “here’s how it is. I’m flat broke and I haven’t done anything for close to eleven months. I know I haven’t got long to go, and I want to give Marie and the children one more happy Christmas before I check out. I won’t be around for another. Please get me one more pay day. I want to make Christmas this year something Marie and the children will always remember me for.”

“This may hurt your feelings, Bill,” Reddy said, “but you know as well as I do that if you were to fight in your present condition, you might be killed. You might die right in the ring.”

“Sure,” answered Miske. “I know better than you do but I’m a fighter and I’d rather die in the ring than sitting at home in a rocking chair.”

Reddy continued to protest. He offered to do anything he could to help Billy financially. He pleaded with Miske to abandon the idea; he didn’t want his pal’s death on his conscience.
“Here’s what I’ll do,” Reddy said, finally. “You go to the gym and start working out. If you get into any reasonable kind of shape, we’ll talk about getting you a match.”

“You know I can’t do that,” replied Miske. “It’s impossible for me to train, but I’ve got to have one more fight for my family’s sake. Please get it for me.”

As there was no talking Miske out of his scheme, Reddy reluctantly said he’d look around. After pondering over the matter for several days, Jack engineered a match between Miske and Bill Brennan at Omaha. Billy had decisioned Brennan in three previous fights, all closely contested, and there had been enough excitement created to warrant a fourth meeting.
Bill Brennan was a tough hombre who had fought the best and had been knocked out only once - by Jack Dempsey in the twelfth round of a championship fight at New York in 1920. Brennan led on points in that fight up until the moment the Manassa Mauler flattened him.

I received a tip regarding Miske being matched with Brennan and I immediately called Reddy. I gave him a verbal lashing over the telephone for being willing to risk Miske’s life to make a few bucks for himself. I also threatened to expose Billy’s condition and promised to blast Reddy for being a party to such an affair.
“Hold everything,” said Reddy, when I paused for breath. “Don’t write anything until I bring Billy to your office. We’ll be there shortly to explain everything.”

When they arrived, Miske told me his story and begged me not to reveal it. I was a close friend of both Miske and Reddy; with reluctance I finally agreed to keep Billy’s condition secret, although like Reddy, I feared Miske might die in the ring.
All of these preliminaries took place about a week before Thanksgiving Day with the fight set for December 7. Miske, of course, wasn’t able to train. When inquisitive newspapermen and boxing fans asked Reddy why Billy wasn’t working out in the Rose Room gym in St. Paul, Jack explained he had a gym rigged up at his Lake Johanna home and Miske intended to do all his training there.
This was all ballyhoo. Billy remained at home, conserving is strength. He didn’t go to Omaha until two days before the fight. State athletic commissions weren’t as strict with medical examinations as they now are; probably the doctor gave Miske only a cursory examination. I wouldn’t know.
What I do know is that Billy knocked out Brennan in four rounds and picked up a purse of approximately $2,400. Reddy waived his manager’s share so Miske kept the entire sum.

Billy spent Christmas Day at home with Marie and their three children - Billy, Jr., aged six, Douglas, four, and Donna, eighteen months - gathered around him. He was just about the happiest man in the world although he knew it would be his last Christmas. Although in agony from the pain, Billy told Marie he felt fine. He romped with the children and laughed and kidded with relatives.

Early on the morning of December 26, Reddy received a telephone call from Miske. “Come and get me to a hospital Jack,” groaned Billy. “I can’t stand the pain any longer. I know I’m dying.”
Reddy and Mrs. Miske rushed the courageous fighter to St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis. Billy Miske died there six days later on New Year’s Day, 1924.
Maybe someone can name a gamer boxer than Billy Miske. I can’t.

- George A. Barton

 

clay moyles book on the man is a great read.

 

Victor Ortiz