Charles Samuels Magnificent Rube

Annotation

"From the moment he was born, Tex Rickard seemed to be wherever the action was. He entered the world as a posse was riding by- the posse was after the James brothers. Rickard became a trail cowboy at eleven, and a town marshal in his early twenties. He was up in the Yukon Valley, working in gambling houses, two years before the Klondike gold rush started; there he prospected, made and lost several fortunes. As a sports promoter, he arranged title fights between Joe Gans and Battling Nelson in 1906 and Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in 1910. He gained fame by creating-with the collaboration of Jack Dempsey-the world's first ''million-dollar gate'' (Dempsey fought Carpentier in 1921 at Jersey City to a paid crowd of 77,328.) Rickard made more on the bout than either of the fighters."