Perhaps the year’s biggest sports clash will take place Sunday, Feb. 5 when the New York Giants square off against the New England Patriots in the 46th Super Bowl — with nary a Jew on the field. More than 110 years ago, the country’s most brutal sporting event of 1899 took place between Jewish boxer Joe Choynski (the “Frisco Flash”) and future world champion James “Gentleman Jim” Corbett. Historian Fred Rosenbaum reports that the two San Franciscans fought 27 rounds on a barge moored near Benicia until Corbett got in one last, lucky punch. Interestingly, Choynski and Corbett were considered the era’s intellectuals of the ring — Choynski, son of the Yale-educated journalist Isidore Choynski, quoted Shakespeare, while Corbett turned to writing and the theater after leaving the sport.
This column is provided to j. by the Contemporary Jewish Museum (www.thecjm.org), where “California Dreaming: Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present” is on view.