An Irish Judge in New York

Love this story in our Tom Sharkey book.

After a fight of questionable legality between Sharkey and Peter Maher in 1897 all those involved were summoned to court. But the New York judge was a patriotic Irishman, like the participants.

The judge first called up Maher.

“Peter,” he said, “where were you born?”

“In Ireland, Your Honor,” replied Maher.

“And you, Buck Cornelius?”

“Ireland.”

“John Quinn?”

“Ireland.”

“Peter Lowry?”

“Ireland.”

“Peter Burns?”

“Ireland.”

“Tom Sharkey?”

“Ireland.”

“Tim McGrath?”

“Ireland.”

“That’s enough,” said the judge. “I can’t see any case here. Defendants dismissed!"

His sparring partners were like steers for the slaughter

Sharkey's manager Tim McGrath said that because the Sailor "was a fighter and not a boxer" he was very hard on his sparring partners.

"One of my hardest jobs was to get men to come to his training quarters to box with him," he stated. "I used to get a bunch of them, good and bad, and line them up like a lot of steers waiting to be killed.”

Tom would come out, remembered McGrath, and say, “How many you got?”

“Five or six.”

The “steers” would go in for a slaughter and after a little time, Sharkey would come out again. “How many’s left?”

If there were none to go in, that would be the end of the boxing part of the training and McGrath would go off to hire more sparring partners.

* From I FOUGHT THEM ALL: THE LIFE AND RING BATTLES OF SAILOR TOM SHARKEY