A true mensch, Marty Pomerantz won the 1935 New York Golden Gloves in the lightweight division before embarking on a professional career as a club fighter.
A former amateur boxer and instructor, Irving Cohen spotted Pomerantz playing handball at the Bensonhurst Jewish Community House (JCH) in Brooklyn. An excellent player, Pomerantz's skills figured to transfer to boxing, or so mused Cohen. He then watched a young Pomerantz train as a boxer, and after some time, the small shy man finally said, "Marty, you're a good fighter, but not as good as you think." An angered Pomerantz was ready to explode on Cohen, but decided to hear out his would-be mentor. The result would be eventually be a Golden Gloves title.
"I had no thought of being a boxer," said Pomerantz. Instead, he had dreamed of becoming a ballplayer as early as junior high, but his admiration for Cohen convinced him to box. Marty quickly saw the benefits of the sport. "Your body was in shape. Your mind was in shape. You ran, you ate well, you slept well. You had good discipline, you weren't dissipated. You didn't run around. We were part of the morals, the values of our family, and by and large those were good values."
Cohen turned the natural southpaw into an orthodox fighter. Marty's amateur career began in April of 1933, fighting for the Crescent-Hamilton Athletic Club. He applied to fight in the New York Golden Gloves, but a heart murmur discovered during the physical examination prevented him from doing so. It was just as well; his parents didn't want him to box.
"My mother didn't know I was boxing. She would have been very upset about it," Marty said. "And my father wasn't happy about it, but he did know about it." Unbeknownst to Lena, Marty snuck out the window to go train and fight.
By 1935, Pomerantz moved up to lightweight and over to the First Avenue Boys' Club. With brown eyes and black hair, swarthy Marty stood five feet and five and a half inches. He won the Jewish Olympics representing the JCH that year. During the New York Golden Gloves, he clipped Charles Diaz and beat Sedgwick Harvey in the final to win the lightweight crown.
Pomerantz was slated to join the New York Golden Gloves team to fight the Chicago squad and then travel to Tel Aviv for the Maccabiah Games. But Marty and others asked for expense money and the team was subsequently disbanded as amateurs were not allowed to receive payment.
Despite being a top amateur, Marty worked as a shoecutter for much of his boxing career. He figured he should supplement his salary with purses from prizefights, but his coach, Irving Cohen, initially refused to join him. "You're becoming a pro, and I'm going back to the hosiery business," Cohen told Marty. Marty responded, "I'm with you Irving. If you're not my manager, then forget about it. I quit, too."
The 19-year-old Pomerantz turned pro on April 8, 1935 with Cohen in his corner. Marty earned a second round TKO victory at St. Nick's Arena with ex-Jewish boxer Young Otto serving as referee.
Cohen would later become the mentor of Hall of Fame matchmaker Teddy Brenner and manage Rocky Graziano. Irving, who owned a little hairless dog, had baby blue eyes and rosy cheeks. "Irving Cohen was a dead honest guy," Brenner recalled. He looked out of place in the mobster-infested world of boxing. After dealing with a particularly shady character, Cohen once lamented, "What a rotten game this is."
Just a kid, Brenner's first boxing job was working for Marty. "He used to get into the fights by carrying my bag," Pomerantz said in 1992. "I don't know if he'd remember that or admit to that today."
Pomerantz was busy during the spring of 1935. On April 14, the JCH held "Marty Pomerantz Night." On May 6, the House presented Marty with a silver glove in honor of his achievements.
"The lad can punch as well as take - and is a smart ring general," Lou E. Cohen wrote of Pomerantz. "His clever footwork, and his ability to follow instructions given to him by his handlers constitute the chief reasons for his being rated as a good prospect in ring warfare."
That summer, he trained in the Catskill Mountains, chopping wood in White Lake, New York. He loved to dance and even moonlit as a vaudeville actor while upstate.
Pomerantz won his first eight pro bouts and thirteen of his first fourteen, but his career didn't match the heights his amateur success suggested it would reach. His best wins came against former amateur opponents Johnny Horstmann on June 18, 1935 and Johnny LoBianco on May 5, 1936. LoBianco would later become a longtime referee.
In a rematch against Horstmann a month after their first clash, Pomerantz lost when he entered the fight with a sprained right hand. Marty won the rubber match four months later.
Pomerantz was Irving Cohen's first fighter and the manager had no connections. One night, Marty had a meeting with his dad, Cohen, and Frankie Carbo at the Paradise Night Club. "Carbo wanted to buy my contract," Marty said. But his dad talked him out of it. "Listen, you started with Cohen, you make it, you'll be with Cohen," advised David Pomerantz. "We shook hands and Carbo left. I had no problem with it," Marty recalled. "I think I would have made a lot more money with him, and I would have gotten more fights and maybe I would have gotten a shot at the championship. I don't know."
Pomerantz finished his pro career in 1938 with a record of 25-10-2. "I wasn't going anywhere as a fighter," he lamented. He got an opportunity to go back into the shoe business and seized the chance. "It was the depression times and the money wasn't even that good [in boxing]. So when there was a chance to go into business, I took it."
But his daughter, Dr. Diane Pomerantz, told The Jewish Boxing Blog of another reason he retired from the ring. "My mother didn't want him to fight."
During World War II, Pomerantz joined the Air Force. He was an intensely likeable man and his commanding officer wouldn't allow him to leave Miami Beach and his cushy position as physical education instructor for the Airmen. He took part in intra-squad boxing matches, quite possibly without the knowledge of his wife, Rita.
His daughter described him as "a very sociable person." In addition to his shoe business, he also owned taxis and drove one from time to time because he enjoyed talking with people. He like being independent. "He was someone people would come to for advice," she said. He was the type of guy who drove strangers all the way out to Long Island at 2am just to make things easier for them.
One time, Marty and Rita were dining at a restaurant on Ocean Parkway when Marty was given a jacket that didn't belong to him. He checked the wallet located in the jacket pocket for ID and saw that it belonged to Marty Pomerantz, but the photo was different. As it turned out, there was another Marty Pomerantz dining at the same restaurant at the same time. Even more coincidental, the other Marty's wife was also named Rita!
Marty, the former boxer that is, was well-read and politically liberal. As the years went on, he increasingly distanced himself from his former profession. When Allen Bodner interviewed Marty for his book When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport, Marty didn't tell anyone in his family about the project.
He moved down to Baltimore, Maryland to live with his daughter for the last six years of his life where he was active in the community. He passed away on August 19, 2000. "His funeral was packed," recalled his daughter. "It wasn't filled with my friends. These were people he had touched during his short time living in Maryland. It was packed with people. I think that really says something about him." It certainly does.
Though Marty preferred not to dwell on his boxing exploits, they are still remembered and honored by his family. His daughter has kept his old boxing trunks with the Jewish star on them. When her son had his bar mitzvah, he was gifted a golden boxing glove as an ode to his grandfather's remarkable Golden Gloves championship. Over twenty years later, Marty Pomerantz's grandson still cherishes that glove and what it represents.
Sources
Bodner, Allen. When Boxing was a Jewish Sport. 1997.
Brenner, Teddy. Only the Ring was Square. 1981.
Cohen, Haskell. "From Nylon to Socks." The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. Apr. 19, 1946. Pg. 15.
Cohen, Lou E. "Sport Chats." Brooklyn Eagle. May 29, 1935. Pg. 38.
"Honor Marty Pomerantz." Brooklyn Times Union. May 6, 1935. Pg. 5.
"Marty Pomerantz Mixes Acting with Training for Ring Career." Brooklyn Eagle. Jul 25, 1935. Pg. 19.
"Marty Pomerantz Night a Big Success." Brooklyn Times Union. Apr. 15, 1935. Pg. 13.
"Maulie Injured, Pomerantz Loses." Brooklyn Times Union. Jul 10, 1935. Pg. 12.
"Pomerantz Ranks High as an Amateur." Brooklyn Times Union. Aug. 27, 1934. Pg. 13.
Special thank you to Dr. Diane Pomerantz for sharing her memories of her dad.
