Historical Meet-Ups

Rocky Graziano
Future Boxing Legend 

meets

Lou Gehrig
Retired Baseball Legend

In January of 1940, Rocky Graziano was a 21-year-old thug (or “hoodlum” in the parlance of the times) with a lengthy rap sheet that included a conviction for statutory rape. Lou Gehrig was retired from baseball and still reeling from his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis the previous summer. As it happened, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had appointed the ailing Iron Horse to a sinecure job on the Municipal Parole Commission—and Graziano (then known by his birth name of Thomas Rocco Barbella) was being incarcerated for violating his parole. Summoned to appear before Gehrig, the sneering Graziano tried to win the ex-Yankee’s favor by telling him baseball was his favorite sport. But Gehrig, who had staggered into the hearing room in agony on crutches, would have none of it. “I’ve been over your record, and it’s pretty bad,” he told the unrepentant youth. “You’ve caused a lot of grief.” He then ordered Graziano returned to Riker’s Island and prepared for reform school. The sentence sent the future middleweight champion into a sputtering rage. He spewed curses at Gehrig and had to be hauled out of the hearing room by guards.