| |
| |
|
|
| |
By
the late 1960's, Braddock, never a good businessman, had spent
all the money he had made as champion and from Mike Jacobs'
promotions. Still strong and full of vitality, he was working
for the Franklin Contracting Company, operating heavy machinery.
"If you feel good," he said on his sixty-fourth birthday, in
1969, "you might as well keep at it, and I'm outdoors in that
great Jersey air." Still married to Mae, he lived comfortably in
the house he had bought in North Bergen shortly after winning
the title.
In his lifetime, his celebrity never completely faded. Up
until the end, he received three or four letters a week from
people all over the world who had been inspired by his story,
which remains a testament to the indomitability of the human
spirit. In the record books, where his name will always appear
alongside those of John L. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis,
and Muhammad Ali, he is still called the Cinderella Man and
remembered as the quintessential fighter's fighter. When pride
still mattered, no one displayed more than Jim Braddock.
James J. Braddock died in his sleep in North Bergen on
November 30, 1974, at the age of sixty-nine. In the New York
Times, Red Smith wrote, "If death came easily, it was the
only thing in his life that did." |
|
| |
Jeremy Schaap - Cinderella Man
|
|
|
|
|
