George Plimpton Awarded the Liebling
Prima donnas are great in grand opera, but not so grand when it comes to a great sport like boxing…
Those of us who once looked to the boxing establishment to do the right thing have begun looking elsewhere. Wrongheaded decisions now seem commonplace, by those entrusted with the fight game’s integrity, no less than its history.
The International Boxing Hall of Fame, for example, an idea whose time has come and to some extent gone, is a case in point. That may be less the fault of the IBHOF than with the voters who, no matter how well meaning, remain ignorant or disdainful of the sport’s illustrious past.
Another organization whose reach exceeds its grasp, for reasons similar but more complex, is the Boxing Writers Association of America.
The BWAA has been around for decades and has handed out a slew awards to dozens of deserving participants. There’s the Sugar Ray Robinson Award (Fighter of the Year), Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier Award (Fight of the Year), Eddie Futch Award (Trainer of the Year), Al Buck Award (Manager of the Year), Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award, Sam Taub Award (Excellence in Broadcast Journalism), John F.X. Condon Award (Long and Meritorious Service), James A. Farley Award (Honesty and Integrity), Bill Crawford Courage Award, Nat Fleischer Award (Excellence in Boxing Journalism), and A.J. Liebling Award (Outstanding Boxing Writing).
With so many awards covering so many different categories, one would think that every writer, fighter, trainer, manager, good guy, and broadcaster would have received an award by now. But that is not the case. Sometimes the BWAA choices are right on the money, whereas other times the choices come from left field.
In a sport as multifaceted as boxing, perhaps that’s to be expected. Differences in taste, preferences in style, clashing standards, alternative objectives, and possibly favoritism, or some combination thereof, could be a factor.
The late George Plimpton was awarded this year’s A.J. Liebling Award. Plimpton was a superb writer. He was also a vocal advocate for the literary standards we now see in steep decline. For those reasons, if no others, he deserves an award. But does he deserve the A.J. Liebling Award? What are the criteria for winning the Liebling? Granted, Plimpton’s book “Shadow Box” is in the boxing canon and is a must-read for anyone drawn to fine writing (not to mention anyone drawn to that fine Old Mongoose Archie Moore). But with the exception of a rare article appearing here and there, that about sums up Plimpton’s contribution to the sport.
I wanted to look at the selection process and contacted Jack Hirsch, President of the BWAA, to have him clarify the distinction between the Fleischer and Liebling Awards, and ask what in his opinion made Plimpton worthy of such an honor.
I should state up front that I like Jack Hirsch. He’s unpretentious, loves the sport, and paid his dues many times over doing the dirty work more celebrated BWAA members looked down their noses upon. He filled countless goodie bags over countless years, biding his time, waiting patiently until his dream of running the organization became a reality. I believe it’s a fine thing, even a step in the right direction, that the BWAA has someone other than a prima donna center stage. Prima donnas are great in grand opera, but not so grand when it comes to a great sport like boxing.
“Just looking at the titles and the writing you might have a hard time distinguishing them,” Hirsch told me. “But if you look at the past winners of the award, the Liebling Award honors old-time boxing writers. The Fleischer Award more or less honors the guys who are active. For example, you and I would be eligible to win the Fleischer Award. You and I would not be eligible to win the Liebling Award. So the Liebling is basically an old-time award for writers who used to write about the sport and had a major impact historically, as opposed to the Fleischer, which is a modern award.”
That distinction as described seemed clear enough on its face. But Hirsch wanted to clarify clarity, and adding clarity on top of clarity can cloud the lens perception.
“For example,” he continued, “a couple of years ago we dug out a name that you know, of course, Larry Merchant for the Liebling Award. Now Merchant wouldn’t have been eligible for the Fleischer Award, but he was eligible for the Liebling.”
Merchant was awarded the Liebling in 2008, the same year Leonard Gardner and John Lardner won the same award (multiple winners is a practice that has since been discontinued). The Liebling is a relatively new award, having been resurrected by Tony Page in 1995. By contrast, the Fleischer Award dates back to 1972, with Barney Nagler being the first prizewinner.
When Hirsh brought up Larry Merchant, I pointed out that Merchant was writing for the New York Post in 1972 and would therefore have been eligible for a Fleischer Award at that time. Wasn’t the BWAA, in a sense, trying to make up for a past omission, for failing to give Merchant a journalism award when he was a working journalist? Was it any different than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarding Martin Scorsese a Lifetime Achievement Award to correct their having failed to give him an Oscar in 1980 for “Raging Bull”?
“It’s not a make-up award,” Hirsch said. “It’s not an alternative award in any way, shape or form. Keep in mind about the Fleischer Award—I don’t know how it was determined the first few years. It was before I was in the organization. That’s a good question, something to look into. I’d be a little curious myself. But the Fleischer Award today is only voted on by past winners of the Fleischer Award, and no one else. In other words, I don’t get a vote. Now the Liebling Award is made up of a five-person committee, and that committee chairman is John Schulian. George Kimball was the chairman before he passed away, and upon his request his friend John Schulian took over as chairman. Schulian was on the committee, but not as chairman.”
Hirsch pointed out that each member of the Liebling committee won a Fleischer Award in the past (and only Fleischer winners can vote on the Fleischer Award, which has led to unseemly lobbying and such). That’s not a formal requirement. Perhaps it’s a coincidence. Perhaps it’s inbreeding.
“I’m just pointing it out to say that they could recognize excellence in boxing writing,” Hirsch said. “If there’s a weakness in the system at all—I don’t need to tell you everyone plays to their audience—the past Fleischer winners, if they’re only reading certain work by someone else, they’re more likely to vote for that person. Like if someone reads Robert Ecksel all the time, and they don’t read someone else, they’re more likely to vote for you. If they never read Robert Ecksel, even though your work could be perhaps superior, they’re not going to vote for Robert Ecksel. My concern is that the past Fleischer winners, some of them are real old-timers and I’m not sure how much boxing they read. But a good number of them are modern guys. So it is what it is.”
Although I didn’t raise the issue with Hirsch, it would seem that those entrusted with dispensing BWAA awards have a responsibility, assuming they’re responsible and take their duties seriously, to familiarize themselves with the work of a broad range of boxing writers, not just their friends or the writers they’re used to reading, let alone just the writing of their brothers in the fraternity.
Returning to the subject of Plimpton and the Liebling Award, I mentioned some other fine writers who weren’t boxing writers per se, but whose work was/is, in my opinion, superior to the work of George Plimpton, in that their work was/is both more substantive and of more lasting value. What about Norman Mailer? His book “The Fight”, for example, is sui generis, boxing narrative as acid trip. But Mailer made enemies the way most of us make beds. Has that negatively affected the possibility of his receiving a Liebling? What about Joyce Carol Oates? Her book “On Boxing” in my estimation is superior in every way to “Shadow Box.” Is the fact that she’s a woman, and a woman whose formidable intellect puts the rest of us to shame, been a deterrent in her being awarded a Liebling?
“Your points are well taken,” Hirsch said, “but it’s kind of a matter of opinion.”
I pointed out that, from the outside looking in, it sometimes appears as if the BWAA is trading in celebrity, and that quality takes a backseat to name recognition.
“Doesn’t that go hand in hand,” asked Hirsch, “because if a guy has quality, he’s going to have celebrity?”
“But a guy can have celebrity,” I said, “and not have quality.”
Hirsch didn’t respond.
“Speaking of George Plimpton,” he said, “I think you’d agree with me, he was a very eloquent man. He struck you as extremely bright. I read some of his work in the past. He’s someone who struck me as someone who could have been an English professor. Take for example Pete Hamill,” last year’s Liebling Award winner. “He was considered a tremendous journalist, a tremendous newspaperman. He was more of a newsman obviously. Just like Plimpton wrote more about other sports, he did write about boxing,” albeit early in his career.
“I’m looking at the list here and I could make a compelling argument why they’re not in. It’s not my position to get involved, even though I might mention it. You pick a guy like Damon Runyon or Paul Gallico. Those are guys who were legends in their time and I don’t see their names on the Liebling. But you could make an argument in a way—they’re so much in the distant past. Should that be a factor? Should it not? Personally I don’t think it should. But the group of guys are thinking of someone who, when I say the word colleague don’t take it as their friends, so they’re relating more to George Plimpton than guys in the distant past because they followed Plimpton’s work as it actually happened in that era.”
That’s something I can’t argue with. Nor do I need to.
