I went searching for Stanley Ketchel on a recent September afternoon, an excursion that took me to the backstreets of Philadelphia's Port Richmond section, where abandoned railroad tracks hint of a time when its location on the banks of the Delaware River made it a major terminus.
Today, gentrification is nibbling away at the traditionally working-class neighborhood but has not yet reached the old industrial area, where weather-beaten warehouses from a bygone era still house an eclectic assortment of businesses. It was in one of these buildings that I found the "Michigan Assassin" looking as formidable as ever.
He appeared larger than life, standing like Superman, arms folded, looking into the distance, an enigmatic expression on his face. Ketchel, the erstwhile middleweight champion of the world, dead since October 15, 1910, had been resurrected in bronze.
His earthly remains were interred at St. Adelbert's graveyard in Ketchel's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was given a grand sendoff, complete with a military band, flower girls and a white horse-drawn hearse.
Ketchel's metaphoric rebirth took place at Port Richmond's Independent Casting more than a hundred years later, with far less pageantry but no less devotion.
When I arrived, sculptor Ann Hirsch was watching the foundry's patina artist, Melanie -- baseball cap on backward and goggles firmly in place -- wield a blowtorch and apply the finishing touches to the statue.
In a few days Ketchel would be headed home once again to Grand Rapids, but instead of a grave, his destination would be a place of honor, a perpetual reminder of the iconic fighter who was only 24 and still world champion when a bullet in the back ended his tumultuous life.
Art doesn't come from a mold. It comes from the heart and mind of the artist. Hirsch was a boxing neophyte when she received the commission from the Grand Rapids Community Legends Foundation to create the Ketchel sculpture. The foundation, established and funded by philanthropist Peter Secchia and headed by Joseph Becherer, is a long-term plan to erect 25 statues in Grand Rapids of notable figures in the city's history.
"Some people call me a method-actor sculptor," Hirsch said. "I do a lot of research before I start. I make the person very real in my mind's eye. That's what guides me when I sculpt."
Before Ketchel, the only athlete that Hirsch had sculpted was NBA legend Bill Russell, so she immersed herself in boxing in preparation for her mission. It proved a revelatory journey into a world that has changed little since the first decade of the 20th century, when her subject once rode down New York's Fifth Avenue, wearing a pink dressing gown and tossing peanuts to the cheering multitude.
"My grandfather was a crazy boxing fan, but I'm not generally a sports fan," Hirsch said. "I appreciate athletes, but, for me, boxing has been the most incredible discovery. One of the first things that struck me about boxing is that it's an art form. I love it."
Despite the difference in their crafts, Hirsch found herself simpatico with those who toil between the ropes.
"Boxers are very much alone in the ring," she said. "It's a weird comparison, but as a sculptor alone in the studio wrestling with my art, I really relate to that."
Reading everything about Ketchel she could get her hands on was just the start of Hirsch's education. She wanted to know how boxers move, how they learn their trade and what makes them tick.
"ESPN boxing editor Andres Ferrari helped me with research," she said. "He shared his boxing passion and knowledge with me and introduced me to Donegal middleweight boxer Jason Quigley and a number of Massachusetts fighters, including Mark DeLuca, Danny 'Bhoy' O'Connor and Ryan 'Polish Prince' Kielczewski."
Hirsch attended a fight card at the Barclays Center last August, when Danny Garcia fought Paulie Malignaggi and Danny Jacobs fought Sergio Mora, and witnessed boxing's spectacle first hand. But it was at the Somerville Boxing Gym, near her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that she gained her greatest insights.
"I walked in off the street, and they welcomed me with open arms from day one. Boxing people are some of the warmest, most loyal and kindest people I've ever met," Hirsch said. "The first day I was there I was getting hugs. Where else does that happen?"
Her host was Norman "Stoney" Stone, who was best known as the bellicose manager-trainer of heavyweight John Ruiz, but apparently is putty in the hands of a female sculptor.
"I love that man," Hirsch said. "He's really funny. He likes to bust your chops. After I visited the gym, he came to my studio, which was probably difficult for him. It's so outside of his comfort zone."
Boxing soon became Hirsch's new comfort zone, and the next step was to channel all she had learned into the creation of the sculpture.
Unlike so many boxing sculptures, Ketchel's does not show him in a boxing stance, fists raised, ready for combat.
"I wanted people to see a different side of boxing, to suggest the man first, before the boxer. I want people to know how real he was," Hirsch said. "He's got arms crossed. It's kind of a stare-down, kind of a threat. Ketchel had what is known as controlled rage as a boxer, and it's almost like he's saying, 'I'm controlling myself because when I uncross my arms, I'm going to raise some hell.'"
Born Stanisclaus Kiecal, Ketchel certainly raised a lot of hell both in and outside of the ring. People used to tell him how he would turn white with anger when he fought, but that was all talk as far as Ketchel was concerned. He just did what came naturally, which was to keep throwing punches until the other guy was comatose. His reputation for viciousness, first established in hobo camps across the West and later reinforced in the ring, was well deserved.
After leaving home as a teenager, he settled for a while in Butte, Montana, a wide-open, freewheeling town crawling with miners, cowboys, gamblers and prostitutes. The town teemed with dance halls, saloons and seedy theaters, all intent on relieving the miners and cowboys of their hard-earned pay. After drinking and gambling, the most popular form of entertainment was boxing.
Ketchel was hired by the Casino Theater for $20 a week to take on all comers. "I hit 'em so hard that they used to fall over the footlights and land in people's laps," he liked to brag.
Ketchel had his first official bout in May 1904, against Kid Tracy, scoring the first of 49 knockouts he would tally in his 64 professional bouts. By 1906, he'd racked a long string of conquests and outgrown Butte. If he wanted to be champion, he'd have to move to California, then the center of big-time boxing.
It took him a while to obtain his first match on the West Coast, but once he got started Ketchel became the sensation he always knew he would be. He knocked out Jack "Twin" Sullivan in the 20th round on May 5, 1908, at the Mission Street Arena in Colma, California, to claim the middleweight title.
Ketchel was champ during America's White Hope era, an infamous search to find a white heavyweight capable of beating black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. It proved a fool's errand, so Ketchel, already widely acknowledged as a special fighter, stepped into the breach against Johnson despite being at a 35-pound disadvantage. He was knocked out cold in the 12th round.
Although Ketchel still held the middleweight championship, some of the spark seemed to go out of him after the loss to Johnson. He fought just four more times, knocking out Jim Smith on June 10, 1910, at the National Sporting Club in New York City in his final fight. Four month later he was dead, shot by Walter A. Dipley while vacationing on the Missouri ranch of longtime friend Pete Dickerson.
Ketchel and Dipley had quarreled over Dipley's girlfriend, Goldie Smith, and although what really happened that day depends on whose story you believe, both Dipley and Smith were convicted of murder in what amounted to a kangaroo court. They received life sentences, but both were eventually released. Dipley served 24 years before being freed because of failing health and died less than five years later.
How good was Ketchel?
Nat Fleischer, editor and founder of The Ring magazine, considered him the greatest middleweight of all time. Films of Ketchel's fights with Billy Papke and Johnson, however, showed him to be little more than a wild-swinger with a knockout punch in both hands. He looks raw and clumsy compared with today's fighters, but that's not a fair comparison.
A fighter can be accurately measured only against the best of his time, and outside of Johnson, Ketchel was the best fighter of his era. In his 2006 book, "Boxing's Greatest Fighters," historian Bert Sugar listed Ketchel 19th, ahead of such celebrated modern boxers as George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Sugar Ray Leonard.
According to David Mayo, who covers boxing for the Grand Rapids Press, "The only tangible memorial to Ketchel is a historical marker near the intersection of Bridge Street and Stocking Avenue." That situation was rectified on Oct. 2, when Hirsch's sculpture was unveiled on Bridge Street in the city's historically Polish section.
"Boxers are intertwined with history and have an important story to tell," Hirsch said. "There is a very strong Polish community in Grand Rapids, and Ketchel was their first champion. I'd like people who don't know about boxing or Ketchel to see the piece and become interested by wondering, 'Who is this guy?'"
Ketchel never fought an official bout in his hometown, just a three-round exhibition in 1909. But he did fight twice in Philly, against fellow legends Sam Langford and "Philadelphia" Jack O'Brien, in venues just a few miles south of Port Richmond, another Polish-American enclave where he emerged anew from a crucible of fire, ready to take another bow.