Robert Sacchi

Friday's Heroes: Willie Pep Remembers... Robert Sacchi

This book is about some ghetto kids of the 1930's and 40's who became famous because they learned how to fight better than anyone else. We call them boxers and they came from the neighborhoods of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and other cities. The popularity of Television in America began to grow in the late 1940's and the televised Friday Night fights played a big part in that growth. Boxers became superstars on television. The Friday Night fights were broadcast weekly by Gillete and Pabst Blue Ribbon from the late 1940's into the early 1960's. Along with "The Milton Berle Show" the Friday Night fights helped to sell millions of television sets during this time as families and friends gathered together to watch their heroes. FRIDAY'S HEROES is also about a young man from the Italian section of Hartford, Connecticut who went on to become "One of the Greatest Fighters" in the history of the sport. His name was Willie Pep. This "Will O' the Wisp" was World Featherweight Champion from 1942-1951 and campaigned for twenty-six years. Finally, this is a book about such people as Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Graziano, Chico Vejar, Kid Gavilan, Joey Giardello, Billy Graham, Rocky Marciano, Ezzard Charles, Joe Louis, Jake LaMotta, and others who are no longer the ghetto kids making a living from boxing, but middle-aged men with the "roar of the crowd" behind them. Today, the athlete - never to be confused with a boxer - is a celebrated figure. Yet as boxers these men seemed to have a different kind of respectability in our society, perhaps because they had to fight for a living. Nevertheless, no warrior that stalked the arena was more gallant than these kids. Willie Pep Remembers... Friday's Heroes is a book about people, these people.