Speaking of John L. Sullivan
The S.F. Chronicle runs these vintage articles in their Sunday section. Something about this article just reminded me of a few forum members. Will the real Oofty-Goofty please stand up? 
Champ puts hurt on S.F.'s pain-free freak
Charles McCabe, Esq.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
This is a sad story. It is about John L. Sullivan, the Boston Strong Boy, and a little freak of a man called Oofty-Goofty, who was for a time the darling of San Francisco’s saloon society in the late years of the 19th century.
John L. was the heavyweight-boxing champion of the world. He probably knocked out 200 men in his lifetime. He could carry a keg of beer up six flights of stairs, and then drink most of it. He looked like a side of beef, usually well marinated in whiskey. Saloons were his home and he always entered in style:
“My name is John L. Sullivan, and I can lick any S.O.B. in the house.” Then he would shake hands all around. And the men whose hands had clasped the champ’s would run into the street, wearing the mantle of greatness, and they would grab a passer-by and would say: “Put it there, my boy, and know you’re a man! This is the hand that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan.”
He won the last bare-knuckle championship fight (in 70 rounds) with Jake Kilrain at Richburg, Miss., on July 8, 1889. In the 44th round he had a tummy-ache and almost lost the fight.
On the morning of July 7, according to a contemporary record, John L. ate a breakfast of a seven-pound sea bass, five soft-boiled eggs, a half-loaf of graham bread, half a dozen tomatoes and tea.
For lunch he had a small steak, two slices of stale bread and a bottle of ale. For dinner he ate three chickens with rice, Creole style, and half a loaf of graham bread dunked in chicken broth.
Oofty-Goofty was a feeble-minded clown. To make a dollar he tried to dance and sing at Bottle Koenig’s Barbary Coast dance hall. He was terrible. So bad that he was thrown bodily into the street.
To his amazement, he found he did not hurt. He was one of those biological sports whose “threshold of pain” was so high that nothing could hurt him.
This led to a new career. He became Oofty-Goofty, the Human Punching Bag. For a sum of change, he would allow himself to be punched, kicked, *****ed and thrown about by the heftiest of men. No one could hurt him.
Then John L. came to town. The challenge was evident. The immovable object, sort of, was to meet the irresistible force. A meeting was arranged and the Boston Strong Boy, with all the force of his immense person, whacked Oofty-Goofty across the back with a billiard cue.
It hurt. Oofty-Goofty walked with a limp thereafter. And his special attainment was gone. The little clown’s nervous system was so scrambled by the blow that he now felt pain at the slightest touch.
His career was ruined at the hands of the great John L., and he stumbled around vacantly until death came and kindly bore him away.
I told you it was a sad story.
This column originally appeared in The Chronicle Feb. 5, 1960.
:)
(:mad::eek: