SHARING SOME SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY
San Francisco, CA-Over the years, people have asked me just how I got involved in boxing. While that is a story for another day, and one that’s been told before, I’ve never really talked about my initial exposure to boxing. It was the mid 1960’s, and we were living at 414 Cortland Ave in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. My uncle, Ray Nyreneng, drank away a fortune across the street at the Cherokee tavern.
LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO FRANKIE KLICK
For all intents and purposes, uncle Ray was a functioning alcoholic, one that got rocked five or six nights a week, and yet he rarely missed work as a plumber. The reason why I’m leading you through my dysfunctional arm of the family is that it leads to Frankie Klick, an ex-World champion. A San Francisco born boxer, Klick, used to pass out in front of the library. He’d panhandle until Officer Sullivan, the beat Cop came and did one of two things. Either he sent the fighter who went 84-26-13 on his way, or called for the SFPD paddy wagon.
GOOD FORTUNE DIDN’T LAST BUT A MONTH!
Whether he was in front of the library, bakery, or corner store, Frankie Klick wasn’t your typical wino. In 1933, then 79-11, and having lost three decisions in a row, Klick TKO’d Kid Chocolate for a version of the World 130 lb. title. Not having a pot to, well you get it, just one month later Frankie lost a non-title dime on the road to Frankie Wallace.
FOUGHT AND DREW WITH GREAT BARNEY ROSS
After a controversial 1934 Draw in San Francisco with Barney Ross, who according to the newspapers, had won handily, Frankie ventured to Miami, FL to rematch Ross. After ten heats, there would be no robbery this time, and Ross was UD winner. After that fight, Klick went 3-14-1, losing along the way to Henry Armstrong, before dropping his finale in 1943 to a San Francisco legend, the late Al Citrino.
KLICK WOULD LAY ON THE SIDEWALK
There was many an occasion, before Officer Sullivan or another member of the SFPD intervened, that I’d see Frankie passed out in a doorway. There were other times that he’d be begging in front of the many Cortland Ave businesses for change, and my mother would repulse. When I tried to tell her the Frankie Klick story as I knew it then, she almost pulled my arm out of socket dragging me away from the prone ex-fighter.
RESIDUAL EFFECTS OF BOXING NO JOKE FOLKS!
When he was sober, you could see the 124 fights he had all across his mug. Klick had cauliflower ears, and when he wasn’t drunk, Frankie walked around on his heels. Having listened to his rendition of beating Kid Chocolate for the title via TKO countless times, I saw how Frankie could lose his train of thought. He’d completely forget what he was saying, and those of us that knew the story were kind enough to pick it up for him.
PUNCH-DRUNK SYNDROME OBVIOUS TO US KIDS
I estimate that he was about 57-60 years of age, seeing he died at 75 in 1982. Besides telling a good story to us kids, Klick also talked a lot to himself. Living in the neighborhood, Frankie would wander for hours with no apparent destination. One day my father gave him a dollar, and essentially explained to me how Frankie had traded in his senses to entertain fight fans. “Boxing ain’t easy,” were the words of my father time and again.
PARENTS DIDN’T HAVE TO CONFIRM STATUS
My uncle and father, they didn’t need to convince me that Frankie Klick’s condition was the result of professional boxing. Around 1971-72, trainer Don Stark, a Hawaiian based in San Francisco at the time, introduced me to the famed “Bayview Bomber,” Jimmy Lester. According to the late Christopher Coats, he of Ring Magazine fame, Lester was a “face fighter.”
HURTS WHEN YOU PERSONALLY KNOW THEM
Lester went 41-20-3, with 31 KOs. And from 1963 to 1973, Jimmy fought some of the best. He beat and lost to Denny Moyer, before losing to people like Bennie Briscoe and Curtis Cokes. Jimmy’s biggest win was at when he KO’d Angelo Dundee’s Cuban ace, Florentino Fernandez in 1965. Stark told me that I could learn how not to do things. I think he meant that if you fight face first, you end up paying a hefty toll.
AND NOW JIMMY CAN’T WALK OR TALK!
Fast-forward to today, and Jimmy Lester can’t recognize his own kin. Unable to speak not even a word, he suffers from paralysis as well. I remember my pops coming home from Lester’s fights. He used to take me through the same blow by blow sequence. Jimmy almost always took a pounding before winning at Kezar Pavilion.
RISK IS FAR GREATER THAN YOU PERCEIVE
In closing, I wrote this for all the bloodthirsty sharks running around disguised as boxing fans. You know who you are, the same folks that chided me because I thought that the Manny Pacquiao-Oscar Larios fight went four rounds too long. I tried to impress upon you that the unnecessary beating Oscar took is something none of us could ever correctly calculate. Ask the Quarry family about Mike and Jerry.
CAN YOU TAKE MY WORD ON THIS ONE?
As a fan, you probably don’t have the opportunity to meet a Frankie Klick, or even a Jimmy Lester, something I think you might need to do in order to visualize the damage. Therefore, you need to take it from someone who does. Beatings like the one Manny Pacquiao put on Oscar Larios down the stretch a fortnight ago, this was the kind of beating that starts somebody in the direction of a Frankie Klick, or Jimmy Lester. Are you getting it yet Pacquiao fans?
