Pete Herman

Sport: Boxing

Induction Year: 1960

Induction Year: 1960

Bantamweight boxer Pete Herman won the world championship by defeating Kid Williams in 1917, and lost it to Joe Lynch nearly four years later. Then he became the first bantamweight to reclaim a title, beating Lynch at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field before a crowd of more than 20,000 people on July 21,1921.

Two months later, Johnny buff took away his title for good. But Herman went out a winner on April 24, 1922.

He beat Roy Moore in Boston’s mechanics Building that nigh, but lost what was left of his sight in the middle rounds. He was missing so badly from outside that the referee warned him about carrying his opponent. But when they went toe-to-toe and Herman was able to fight by instinct and sound, he gave his opponent such a fierce pounding that Moore was begging him to ignore the referee’s warning.

When it was over, and the referee lifted Herman’s hand in victory, Moore whispered, “I sure do thank you, Pete.”

Pete Herman won $1,000 that night, and lost his sight.

It wasn’t the first time Herman finished a fight in the dark, but this time it was for keeps. He would spend the remaining half-century of his life in blindness.

The vision problem started several years earlier, in an exhibition about in Philadelphia for the benefit of servicemen. Gussy Lewis thumbed one of his eyes during the fight, leaving Herman with only one good eye for the remainder of his career. And sometimes, that one wasn’t exactly 20-20.

One of those times was a title defense against Charlie LeDoux in New Orleans. “He hit me in my good eye, and I couldn’t see him the last two rounds,” Herman recalled. “I whipped him by talking to him. The championship was in his hands and he didn’t know it.” That fight later made Robert L. Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not.”

Herman didn’t tell anybody about his eye problems—not even his manager, Sammy Goldman. He always suspected that the most serious damage was done when he was a Navy fight instructor during World War I.

“I used to fight 10-15 guys a day,” he recalled. ‘That didn’t get into the record book, of course, but I guess it was too much fighting.”

What got into the record books: 71 victories, 12 losses, eight draws and 57 no-decisions (at that time, fights held in cities where boxing was illegal were recorded as no-decisions).

His real name was Peter Gulotta, and he was born in Convent, La., on Feb. 12, 1896. His father was a gypsy, and Pete grew up wandering through South Louisiana-spending much of his time in the French Quarter of New Orleans, where Marquis of Queensberry rules were not observed in his early fights.

“My dad didn’t want me fighting, but he’d stand out there and watch,’ Pete recalled. “if I won, he’d beat the devil out of me. If I lost, he’d just laugh and say, ‘Good. That’s what you get for fighting.’ I once let a guy whip me because I figured I’d come out a lot better taking a beating from him than my dad.”

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He worked as a shoeshine boy and a bellhop, and learned that people were being paid to fight by reading discarded copies of The Police Gazette in barbershops.

That’s how he got his name—changing it because stories about a lightweight named Kid Herman captured his fancy.

His experience as a shoeshine boy came in handy in the ring when he developed what he called the “Shoeshine Punch,” locking an opponent’s left arm under his armpit and popping his midsection as quickly as he had applied a shine to a pair of brogans.

At the age of 18, he got his first shot at Kid Williams. It was one of those no-decision bouts, but Herman made a good showing and it set the stage for two 20-round championship fights.

Williams won the first on, but Herman thought it was a bum decision. On Jan. 9, 1917, he decked Williams twice at Louisiana Auditorium in New Orleans and was awarded unpopular decision over the champ. Referee Bill Rocap credit Herman with nine rounds, Williams battered Herman’s body many times, it is equally true that any fighter can hit an opponent in the body. It requires no boxing skill to do this.”

When he lost the title to Lynch at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 22, 1920, smoke literally got in Herman’s “good” eye. That was the last time officials allowed the spectators to smoke in the Garden. “Just imagine 14,000 people, with 10,000 smoking,” he said. “I couldn’t see Joe Lynch.” He won only two of the 15 rounds.

He went to Europe and knocked out English flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde and British bantamweight champion Jim Higgins before Lynch gave him a rematch. This time, they were fighting outdoors at Ebbets Field. “I kept him away from my good eye,” Herman said. He scored with a solid left in the first round and forced the issue for the entire fight, winning 13 of the 15 rounds.

“I knew I had to win, and I fought my hardest,” he said. “And I won.”

By that time, he knew he was losing his sight. “Nowadays,” he recalled more than 40 years later, “I wouldn’t have gotten by, fight blind, as long as I did. But then, doctors just checked your heart and blood pressure. If you passed those two, you could fight.”

He had no regrets, “I fought a lot of good men in my day,” he said. “I made nearly $500,000, and aside from that, God has been might good to me.”

Pete Herman died in 1973 at the age of 77, 14 years after he was enshrined in the National Boxing Hall of Fame and 13 years after he was the first boxer inducted into the Louisiana Sport Hall of Fame.