RELIEF to ROYALTY
The Story of

JAMES J.
BRADDOCK
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION

BY LUD

 

World heavyweight champion James J. Braddock has nicely signed and inscribed this book to baseball player and coach John Schulte... This is a 1936 first edition entitled Relief to Royalty which was written after Braddock beat Max Baer for the world title... A rare book and signed by Braddock while still world's champ!!

measures: 5.5" x 7.75"
condition: some fraying and fading of cover, some minor separation
of cover from inner cardboard of cover

$675
$16 insured shipping

sold

 
     
  John Clement Schulte (September 8, 1896 — June 28, 1978) was an American catcher and coach in professional baseball.

A native of Fredericktown, Missouri, Schulte appeared on five Major League Baseball teams in his five-year MLB career. Schulte played as a catcher for the St. Louis Browns (1923 and 1932), St. Louis Cardinals (1927), Philadelphia Phillies (1928), Chicago Cubs (1929) and Boston Braves (1932). In Chicago, he played under Joe McCarthy, whom he would later serve as a longtime coach.

After his maiden coaching assignment with the Cubs in 1933[1], Schulte joined McCarthy and the New York Yankees beginning in 1934. He coached 15 full seasons (1934-48) in the Bronx[2], even serving under Bill Dickey, Johnny Neun and Bucky Harris after McCarthy's retirement in May 1946.

Then, in 1949, he rejoined McCarthy with the Boston Red Sox[3]. When McCarthy retired for the final time on June 23, 1950, Schulte followed suit.

He died in St. Louis, Missouri, at the age of 81.

  
 


Wikipedia-The Free Encyclopedia
 

  
 
 
 
 
 


Foreward by: Damon Runyon
 

  
      In all the history of the boxing game you find no human interest story to compare with the life narrative of James J. Braddock, heavyweight champion of the world.
    Before Braddock came along, if any writer had offered, in fiction form, to any magazine, or to the scenario departments of the movies, the set of circumstances that befell Braddock, the tale would have been dismissed as wholly improbable.
    Fiction and movie editors like their stories to be about something that could happen. This couldn't have happened-before Braddock came along. I don't want to sound trite, but believe an old plot maker, truth in Braddock's case is much stranger than fiction.
    Before Braddock, I had three favorite life stories of heavyweight champions. One was the story of dapper James J. Corbett, who stepped out of a clerk's cage in a bank to box his way to the title. Another was the story of mighty Jack Dempsey, who dropped from a hobo's precarious perch on the brake beams, to slug his way to the crown.
    The third, and to me, best of all, was the story of James J. Tunney, who worked seven long years to strengthen his hands, and to fill out his body before he reached the top, then retired, married a wealthy society girl, and now lives the life of a Connecticut country gentleman.
    But James J. Braddock has made these stories seem pale and uneventful.
    Mark you, Braddock was contemporaneous with both Dempsey and Tunney, but through the years of their greatest pugilistic glory, he attracted only passing attention. Only one man that I know of ever made bold to suggest that Braddock might one day occupy the chair of the pugilistic king, and that man was Joe Gould, Jim's voluble manager.
    I remember Braddock as a mere stripling fighting preliminaries, with Gould hanging onto the lapel of every sports writer he could catch, babbling of Braddock's future. That was around the mid-Twenties, and as the Twenties faded into the Thirties, Braddock's future seemed to be going with them.
    By 1933, he was regarded as "washed up," and he vanished completely from the pugilistic news of the day. You heard rumors that he was working as a laborer on the docks over in New Jersey, then that he was on public relief, for Jim had a wife and children, and he couldn't let them starve.
    You didn't see much of Joe Gould in those days, but when you did, and you asked him about Braddock, he invariably said that Jim was all right, and that he'd be back some day, and he always said it with a courage that quelled any possible doubt in your mind as to Joe's sincerity. But you didn't believe it-that Braddock was ever coming back.
    Then in June of 1934, Braddock was offered a couple of hundred dollars to fight one Corn Griffin, an ex-soldier from Georgia, and it is my conjecture that Jim was expected to be a stepping stone in the advancement of Corn. It was a preliminary to the Baer-Carnera title fight, and the circumstance of Braddock getting off the floor to knock out Griffin passed almost unnoticed in the excitement of the main event.
    But that night hope was born anew in Braddock's heart.
    He always could punch. He found he hadn't lost his punch. He realized that he still could fight, and he felt that his Destiny, lost for many weary months, had finally found its way back to him.
    The night he won the title by defeating the garrulous, flashy Max Baer, I referred to Braddock as "The Cinderella Man," for truly, here in real life, was the old story re-enacted in its elementals with a big pugilist in the leading role.
    I happened to be one of the few who contended from the beginning that Braddock was entitled to the match with the champion, and after the match was made, insisted that Jim had a chance to win.
    But I confess now that the night of the fight, in the face of the overwhelming public opinion against Braddock's chances, and the betting odds of 1 to 10 in favor of Baer, I commenced to weaken on my own judgment.
    No contender for a title ever entered the ring conceded so little chance. Braddock, as he stood up to be introduced, was regarded by many of the ringsiders as a pathetic figure, as merely a pugilistic sacrifice to the glory of Baer.
    Only little Joe Gould, again, seemed cock-sure and confident as he stood proudly beside big Jim-that is, only Joe and Braddock. They had come a long way over a rough road together to this night.
    And so Braddock won the big title, and in the time he has held it, he has endeared himself to the American pugilistic public by his unchanging modesty, his affability, and his sturdy character. His devotion to his wife and family, his capacity for "mixing," and withal his attitude as champion of the world that he will fight anybody regardless of color, or creed, has made him the most popular champion in the history of the game.
    He is a great fellow, and he has a great story, and it is a privilege and a pleasure to me to introduce it with this foreword.