Jerry Lisker in Lisker-Land


 Jerry Lisker was the top
boxing writer for the NY Post,
which is to say, he was the
top boxing writer in New York,
which means the top boxing
writer in the country, and
that means in the world. Yes,
perhaps that is a stretch, but
who else could string together
sentences like Lisker? I can
only think of one, Hugh Mc-
Ilvaney of Scotland, and they
were close. And both were
brilliant.
 Both had a breezy dream
about the way they looked at
the hard sport of boxing. They
could find a laugh where none
existed. They had an ear for
humor in boxing and where
there wasn't any, they could
make it up.
 I shall give you a prime ex-
ample of a Liskerism. It was
the second Ali-Frazier fight.
Ali had given Frazier a mer-
cy fight. Off a savage beating
that George Foreman had giv-
en Frazier, Joe Frazier looked
shot and finished. The beat-
ing Joe had taken from Ali in
the first Ali fight had left him
marked. Foreman compound-
ed his shot condition. Ali felt
sorry for Frazier. Ali was look-
ing for an easy fight. He was
shot and, off the Foreman
beating, much worse than the
boxing people thought. Ali was
in tip top shape. The consen-
sus of opinion of Ali's chances
was an easy fight for Ali.
 I was one of the Ali Inner
Circle who had the opposite
opinion. Joe Frazier was nev-
er soft. And he wasn't shot,
so I went into the corner with
trepidation. Joe Frazier is still
tough old Joe Frazier. Rough
as a cob, hard as a rail. Tough
ol' smoking Joe Frazier. Yeah.
 The first four rounds were
all Ali. He gave Joe a box-
ing lesson, and in the fourth
round virtually knocked out
Joe. He buckled Joe, and but
for an error of the referee, who
stepped in to save Joe from
going down. It looked like it
was going according to form.
Round five would see Ali put
Frazier down.
 But Joe Frazier was a
tough nut to crack. He got off
his stool with fire in his eyes.
Joe was "smoking".
 Joe Frazier gave Ali a sav-
age body beating. As Ali had
in his first fight, Ali fell back
into the ropes and took a sav-
age body beating. Ali took the
pounding. The next round
was the same. Joe was en-
couraged by the beating he
was inflicting on Ali, who ap-
peared helpless, and leaned
against the ropes.
 I had taken Lister with me
into the corner, so he could
hear everything said by Ali,
Angelo, and me, and listen
to the jabber of the hysterical
Bundini. Ali punched Bundini
in the mouth and drove him
down the ladder and down
the stairs. "Shut up! I know
what I'm doing" said Ali. I, for
one, was glad somebody knew
what Ali was doing. All I saw
was Frazier was beating Ali's
body to a pulp.
 Finally, at the height of a
viscous Joe Frazier two-fisted
pounding as Ali tied up Fra-
zier's arm in a bear hug, Ali
grunted something in Fra-
zier's ear, which seemed to
energize Frazier, and he un-
leashed a two-fisted attack to
Ali's ribs.
 Both Lisker and I were up
on our feet yelling instruc-


tions to Ali. The bell saved Ali.
Lisker, his black eyes ablaze
in surprise. "Did you hear
that?" said Lisker.
 "No, what?" I said. The
noise was so loud, no. one
could parse out the words
from Ali.
 "Ali just said, 'And they told
me you were shot, Joe...' said
Ali as he wound up to take
Joe's next barrage."
 "They lied, Champ, they
lied to you." Joe then un-
corked the hardest punches
to Ali's ribs, which almost
put Ali down. Ali's face looked
stricken.
 "Wow! Write that down for
your lead," I said, thinking of
Lisker's column the next day.
 "Yeah," said Lisker but he
didn't write it down.As a mat-
ter of fact, he didn't write any-
thing down. It was all record-
ed in Liskerland.
 Next day I searched his
masterful write-up of the fight
and that quote was deep in
the story. He simply pissed it
away.
 "Why was that? That was
the key to the brutal fight that
followed. And the quote was
the bitter truth of the fight."
 "It was too good," said
Lisker, and I came to realize
when those quotes came to
Lisker, it was just that we had
stepped into Liskerland. He
heard what he heard. No one
else did.
 I was sitting next to
Liskerr, and I didn't hear that
exchange. What did it mean?
What had happened?
 It meant the exchange had
not happened. Lisker made it
up! It was a Lisker delusion.
It was my introduction to
Lisker's style of reporting. If it
didn't happen, he made it up.
It should have happened. In
Lisker's theatre of his mind.
It is now several decades
since that memorable night
and I find myself telling that
story when I give speeches
and interviews. It is always a
smash hit of my speech. Why
not? If you live in the delu-
sional world of Jerry Lisker,
the fight is always better and
the punches are sharper and
the drama heightened when
seen through Lisker's eyes in
Liskerland.
 Well, hell, what was wrong
with that? As Lisker saw it,
to make it better, to tell the
audience what they saw. And
what they saw, came through
Liskerland! I agreed with that.
Hell, it's only a sport, an en-
tertainment. Everyone in New
York expected an exciting
write up of a fight. Lisker told
it better than it was.
 Jerry Lisker came off the
pages of Damon Runyon. All
Manhattan bars loved Jerry.
He was welcomed to every
bar. Like an Irish drunk, Jer-
ry could story-tell until dawn,
and likely as not, punctuate
his stories with a fist fight or
two. Jerry had been a boxer
at the University of Iowa; and
the knock on him was he took
boxing seriously, and always
wanted to kill his opponent.
He was tougher than his
hands. The team consisted
of Jerry and Murray Gaby, a
Newark, New Jersey, Jew who
was also a great painter who
took lessons from George Gro-
sz, and a tall happy-go-lucky
street kid named Joey with
a penchant for gambling and
was always one step ahead of
the law. They quit their schol-


arship and filtered down the
boxing chain and into Jersey
Boxing.
 If there was one thing
about Jerry Lisker that out-
did his passion in life, it was
his passionate love of his little
daughter Holly. Jerry's ex-
travagant praise of Holly's ac-
complishments knew no lim-
its. Holly was everything great
in Jerry's book. We who lived
near Liskerland, the land of
delusion, took his Holly sto-
ries with a grain of salt.
 One Sunday morning, on
a slow day in sports, Lisker
wrote his Sunday column on
Holly-Dolly hitting a home-
run for her team, which was a
game her team was losing 1-0.
From then on, for the seven
years, she played softball'in
New York. Lisker called her in
print Home-run Holly Lisker.
 The fact was Holly never
hit another homerun for the
rest of her seven year career.
As a matter of fact, she really
didn't hit a homerun that first
time. With two out, runners
on second and third, Holly-
Dolly came up to bat. She hit
a soft loopy bouncing ball to
the pitcher, which the pitch-
er misplayed, and when she
recovered threw it high over
the first baseman's head. The
ball rolled on into Canterfield.
Holly-Dolly was a fast base
runner. She ran past first
base and second. Centerfield
picked up the ball and pitched
it to the second base, but way
over the head of second. Holly
chugged past second and into
third. Left field retrieved the
overthrown ball and threw it
to third base. Again the ball
sailed in to third, but over
third into the bleachers. Holly
kept running and scored a
homerun of fielder's errors.
Score 3-1, Holly-Dolly was
given a homerun on fielder's
errors but in Lisker's agitated
delusional mind, he wrote in
the Sunday New York Post:
"Lisker's mighty homerun
wins the game 3-1, Holly
Lisker is the hero of the day
today!" And so, for as long as
Holly-played softball, she was
known in print as Homerun
Holly. Holly played for seven
years morel


 So, okay, we knew Lisker's
 ability to over-elaborate a
 sports story and forgave his
 father's pride. She was a legit-
 imate softball star, player and
 pitcher for seven more years.
 So, well forgive Homerun Hol-
 ly. So what?
 Holly was small but cute
 as hell and she was filled with
 ambition to be like her father.
 His exploits through college
 and in life were mighty events.
 Lisker saw all events in his life
 as mighty struggles which he
 Fought and prevailed. In his
 rough neighborhood, Lisker
 was a legend. And the stories
 he told of his fights made him
 even more legendary. Holly
 grew up by his side. She was
 a daddy's girl.
 She couldn't fight, nor cre-
 ate earth shaking struggles,
 but she was a good student,
 a musician and grew up with
 the Lisker credo.
 "If you want to do something
 in life, put your head down
 and keep trying until you ac-
 complished your goal, and you
 will succeed." Jerry was very
 proud of Holly's ambitious
 drive to succeed. She accom-
 plished all the goals she set for
 herself. Early in her sports life
 she excelled in softball. She
 won many pitching cups. Jerry
 covered her stories in the NY
 Post. His editor looked the oth-
 er way. She was good, but this
 was a paper for adult sports.
 Still, it was Holly-Dolly.
 The day I got on a Brit-
 ish airliner to go to London,
 Jerry rushed up with a piece
 of paper which contained
 Holly-Dolly's address in Lon-
 don. Proudly, he wrote she in
 RADA (Royal Academy of Dra-
 matic Art) and as we left for
 London Jerry said she was in
 the Royal Academy of Ballet.
 Which one? He was vague.
 My Tina was a wide-eyed
 10-year-old in the middle of
 the craze for British rock acts.
 She knew all about the Bea-
 tles and the Stones. Now she
 was going to go to the actual
 schools where, perhaps, one
Sday she herself might enroll.
 We picked up Holly-Dolly
 who was around 16 years old.
 She was a small size girl, very
 cute and athletic. She was


animated. Very talkative like
Jerry. This was going to be
fun. We had a car and drove
through downtown tour. What
a thrill for Tina to see the
names on sightposts in Lon-
don. Strawberry Fields, what
a kick!
 We came upon the huge
building for the various col-
leges.
 Tina said, "Look Holly,
.there is your school. The Roy-
al Academy for Ballet. Can we
get in and see the girls danc-
ing inside?"
 One look at Holly's face and
I knew we had stepped on a
Lisker-mine. Holly blushed.
"Actually I'm not enrolled in
the ballet school. I'm in RADA.
Drama."
 A distinct lack of enthusi-
asm to cruise by the drama
school took us to see where
she lived. Lisker had told
us she stayed at the RADA
dorms, where she should re-
side. "Well, right now I'm ac-
tually staying with a British
family. I'll take you there,
then well go to a famous Brit-
ish pub for lunch." British
pub sounded good.
 Her digs were meager. One
large room upstairs where
a rock band all slept in one
room. The band consisted of
four rock boy musicians and
the singer, Holly. And she
slept with the four musicians.
Yikes! Luisita looked stricken
as Tina jumped up and down
in excitement. Oh boy! Spend
a night with four rock 'n roll-
ers and Holly. Wowl After a
bitter battle which she lost,
Tina came back to our hotel,
her little lips out in a pout.
Why couldn't she stay with
Holly and four rock musi-
cians? She wanted to know.
She never found out, and
Mom would only say, Holly
would probably be dead by
20, which wasn't enough to
shut up Tina.
 Of course Holly didn't re-
 side in RADA dorms. She was
 not enrolled'in RADA. She was
 the girl singer in a girl band. I
 decided not to puncture the
 Liskerland version of what
 she was doing in England.
 And I lost track of sweet little
 Holly-Dolly. She didn't die.


Page 10/LA GACETA/Friday, May 6,2011


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