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Gym Bagley was a pugilistic author, writer, and “near-humorist” (not quite funny).

Not to be confused with

Frank “Doc” Bagley (né Frank Aloysous Bagley; 1884–1942), who, early in his career, managed Gene Tunney (1897–1978).

Career

James “Gym” Bagley (died June 17, 1910, Manhattan) – his wife, Kissie Bagley was a magazine writer. Began sports writing around 1884 under the pseudonym, “Right Cross,” a boxing term. He also contributed to The Popular Magazine → “Two Thieves”. The Popular Magazine. Vol. 13, no. 4. Charles Agnew MacLean (1880–1928), ed. New York: Street & Smith. August 1909. pp. 209–213.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: others (link) . Bagley is often credited with popularizing the sobriquet “Bonehead” for Fred Merkle, after Merkle’s 1908 baserunning blunder; Bagley’s September 25, 1908 column included the line, “A one-legged man with a noodle is better than a bonehead,” helping fix Merkle’s lifelong public nickname in baseball lore.

Atlanta Constitution

Mr. Morse has secured as contributors, writers and artists from all parts of the United States, journalists who stand as an authority in the baseball world, among them Allen Sangree: Hon. August Herrmann, chairman of the national commission; John Bruce, secretary of the national commission; Henry Chadwick, father of baséball; Gym Bagley, the sporting writer who for a number of years wrote under the title of the Right Cross; Lewis Pieper, coach at Harvard University: Walter Camp, coach at Yale University: William F. Kirk; Tad, the famous cartoonist, and a score of others, whose work cannot fail to make the Baseball Magazine the authority in this wide and interesting field.

March 23, 1903

James Bagley, who is accompanying The New York American League baseball team (New York Highlanders) as correspondent for several New York newspapers, has long been an authority on sports, particularly pugilism, baseball and yachting. He is known all over the country by his nom de plume, “Right Cross.”

While reading copy on the sporting desk of the New York Journal, Mr. Bagley wrote a description of what Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons would do on March 17, 1897, in the ring at Carson City for the World Champion Title.

In it he tipped Fitz to win. The article was written in a style then unknown. It had the adjective habit so thick upon it and was so rich in new slang that it brought Mr. Bagley to the attention of Arthur Brisbane, the managing editor. That was the beginning of Mr. Bagley’s “Right Cross” career. The nom de plume was taken from the most effective blow in boxing, where the right hand is crossed over an opponent’s guard for a knockout to the jaw (see Cross). Describing prize fights came easy to Mr. Bagley, as he had once held an amateur lightweight championship himself, and personally knew all the first-class artists of the mitts. His articles became extensively copied, owing particularly to their style, which was peculiarly his own. His metaphor and simile were startling, and in addition he lent a phrasing to a sport, brutal in its nature, which gave to it all the dignity of the Olympian games. He was probably the only one who pointed out in newspaper print that the first report of a prize fight was made by Homer, where the blind poet describes the glove contest between Ulysses and the beggar. In a preliminary article weighing the chances of Corbett and Jeffries prior to their battle at Coney Island, May 11, 1900, Bagley said:

“You might as well try to blow open a safe with a seidlitz powder as to stack up your yellow paper on long Jim and expect a visit from the stakeholder.”

Speaking of Kid McCoy and Peter Maher before they fought at the Coney Island Club, January 1, 1900, he said:

“Peter couldn’t hit carriage whip.”

In calling the time on the result of a big fight Mr. Bagley was very successful. He had two prominent misses when Fitz lost to Jeffries the first time and when Young Corbett beat Terry McGovern. But he had lots of company there. No one familiar with the game thought otherwise than did he. Before the second battle between Fitz and Jeffries, Mr. Bagley said that Fitz had “as much chance as a snowdrop in a barrel of ink.”

Speaking of Jeffries at the same time he said he was “the most corrugated brute that ever humped his boulders in a low tide bodice.”

Mr. Bagley doesn’t write copy at the ring side. He always dictates direct to a telegraph operator. He never takes his eyes off the men in the ring, and rattles off his discriptron, metaphor, slang and all, as they fight.

The best stunt he ever did was at the Young Corbett–Terry McGovern “go” at Hartford. He couldn’t get a wire in the building and the telegraph office was four blocks away. The fight was November 28, 1901 – Thanksgiving afternoon – and he had to get his story to The Evening Journal. He put in a long distance telephone affair and telephoned about 8,000 words of the fight, beating The Evening World on the street with the result over seven minutes. It cost him $300, but he knew The Journal would stand for it, if he made good. It was the first time a fight had ever been telephoned direct to a newspaper office.

Mr. Bagley is an old baseball reporter. He covered baseball for The New York World for several years, and he and Sam Crane, of The New York Journal, have done many diamond stunts in common.

Mr. Bagley’s descriptions of the international yacht races between the Columbia and Shamrock II (1901) and III were acknowledged by all the New York yachting experts to be the best thing ever done on yachting. He tipped Columbia to win three straight races before the first Shamrock had her jury rig out of her, and did the same thing when Thomas Lipton (founder of Lipton Tea) sent his second hope over. Mr. Bagley illustrated with diagrams in The Journal just why the Shamrock wouldn’t do, and although all the other yachting writers, including Hank Hoff (Captain Henry “Hank” Coleman Haff; 1837–1906), disagreed with Bagley, The Journal stood for him and published his opinions. That he was right is now sporting history.

Bagley’s descriptions of the international yacht races – the America’s Cup – between Columbia and Shamrock II (1901) and III were acknowledged by all the New York yachting experts to be the best writing ever done on yachting. He predicted that Columbia would win three straight races before the first Shamrock even had her jury rig removed, and he made the same prediction when Thomas Lipton (founder of Lipton Tea) sent over his second challenger. Bagley illustrated in The Journal with diagrams exactly why Shamrock could not succeed, and although all the other yachting writers, including Hank Hoff (Captain Henry “Hank” Coleman Haff; 1837–1906), disagreed with him, The Journal stood by him and published what he wrote.

Duluth Evening Herald

Led by the New York critic, Gym Bagley, who, by the way, wields one of the most caustic sporting pens in the country, the movement to erect a monument for George Dixon is meeting with no more than its rightful share of ridicule. When thp white spirit of George Dixon inhabited the black frame, he was an outcast and a beggar. It was his own fault, but what’s the use of springing that on a man when he’s down and out? When the greatest featherweight champion the world ever knew was tramping the streets of New York with a dingy, battered derby pulled down over his eyes and the collar of his shabby coat turned up around his ears, there was nobody to pass him two hits for a meal. When his once perfect frame was weakened and shattered by whisky and exposure to the elements, no kind-hearted friends started a subscription to send him to a sanitarium to square away and get a new start in life. He was left to work out his own destruction, to fall in the gutter, a physical, mental and moral wreck to be carted to a hospital to die, penniless and alone.

New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier

Sullivan and Mitchell—The Champion bound to have the Englishman’s Head.

Boston, June 28—Five hundred people assembled at the Boston and Providence depot this evening to see John L. Sullivan off for New York. Sullivan, Frank Moran, Pete McCoy and Professor Bagley took the 10:30 train. “Will you be all right, John?” queried his father in an anxious hone. “All right, father. If this train don’t ran off the track I will be all right, have no fear,” replied John L. Sullivan stated that there was nothing the matter with him. “I will do this man to a certainty; mark what I tell you,” he said. “I propose to give him a licking and feel that I am competent to de so.”

Providence, Jane 29—John L. Sullivan passed through here to-night on his way to New York to meet Mitchell. He says he will “knock Mitchell’s head off on the first crack.”

New York, June 29—In an interview with Charlie Mitchell to-night he expressed himself as being in excellent condition and would step in the ring weighing about 150 pounds. Al Smith, Sullivan’s backer, was seen at the Gilsey House this evening. He said John L. Sullivan has just telegraphed him that he would be on hand early in the morning and that the public could see how much truth there was in the report that he had been on an extended debauch. Sullivan will weigh 190 pounds, which is lighter than when he met Paddy Ryan.

1. “News by Telegraph: New York” – “Sullivan and Mitchell — The Champion Bound to Have the Englishman’s Head”. Vol. 52. June 30, 1884. p. 3 (column 6).
1. Via Fultonhistory.com (PDF).
2. Via Chronicling America (digital image 3 of 4).

Note: Note: Sullivan did not fight Mitchell at Madison Square Garden June 30, 1884. Sullivan, claimed to be too sick, but, reportedly appeared drunk, and Mitchell looked pale, and stated that he was suffering from a bout of malaria. Instead, Dominick McCaffrey (1863–1926) sparred with Mitchell.

Boston

• In 1883, James J. Bagley was mentioned as a member of the West End Athletic Club of Boston

Bibliography

Notes

References