Hard Luck The Triumph And Tragedy Of "Irish" Jerry Quarry

The story of boxing legend Jerry Quarry has it all: rags to riches, thrilling fights against the giants of the Golden Age of Heavyweights (Ali-twice, Frazier-twice, Patterson-twice, and Norton), a racially and politically electric sports era, the thrills and excesses of fame, celebrities, love, hate, joy, and pain. And tragedy. Like Muhammad Ali, the man he fought during two highly controversial fight cards in 1970 and '72, boxing great Jerry Quarry was to suffer gravely. He died at age fifty-three, mind and body ravaged by dementia pugilistica. In Hard Luck, "Irish" Jerry Quarry comes to life-from his Grapes of Wrath days as the child of an abusive father in the California migrant camps to those as the undersized heavyweight slaying giants on his way to multiple title bouts and the honor of being Boxing Illustrated's World's Most Popular Fighter in '68, '69, '70, and '71. The story of Jerry Quarry is one of the richest in the annals of boxing, and through painstaking research and exclusive access to the Quarry family and its archives, Steve Springer and Blake Chavez have captured it all.