I Remember Bennie Briscoe

By John McDonnell

Last week I thought of Bennie Briscoe, and I typed his name in Google and found out that he died on December 28 2010. Most people today don't know who Bennie Briscoe was, but there was a time when he was considered the second-best middleweight boxer in the world. He was a bald Black man who fought with a furious intensity, and he is still considered one of the hardest punchers to ever ply that vicious sport. Bennie never took a step backward in the ring, and boxers knew they were in for a war when they signed to fight him.

Bennie was born in Georgia, and he moved north to Philly when he was a teenager. He got involved with boxing in the glory years of the sport in Philly, when there were champions and contenders in every gym, and they all had colorful nicknames, like "Kitten" Hayward, "Boogaloo" Watts, and "Gypsy Joe" Harris to name a few.

Bennie, though, didn't have a colorful nickname. He was simply known as "Bad" Bennie Briscoe, probably because bad is what his opponents felt when he got finished with them.

He was a feared presence in the sport, and because of that it's said that champions avoided him. He only got three World Title fights in a twenty year career, and he lost them all (once on a controversial call).

The funny thing about Bennie was that he was more revered in some ways in Philly than the guys who actually won championships. He was our town's everyday warrior, the guy you'd see on the subway going to work at his job in the Streets Department. Bennie worked 40 years in the Streets Department, and trained for his biggest fights while hoisting trash cans every day. He rarely missed work, and sent most of his boxing winnings home to his mother in Georgia. He was a fearsome boxer, but he carried a lunch box every day.

To me he epitomizes the Philadelphia I grew up in. It was a town full of lovable losers. The sports teams almost never won their respective championships. With the exception of the 1968 76ers and the Flyers of 1974 and 75, the Philly sports teams usually finished far back in the pack each year, with second place the best we could hope for.

Even when a championship was in reach, something always happened to the Philly teams to snatch it away from them. The 1964 Phillies infamously lost 10 games straight at the end of the season, just when they seemed a lock to make it to the World Series.

That's the world I grew up in.

Philly was always an also-ran, always behind New York and Washington in everything, and we always had an inferiority complex about it. It was a town of Bennie Briscoes, people who worked hard and had talent but just never seemed to get over the hump to be the best in their field.

That's why it's so amazing to see what's happened in recent years. Philadelphia is routinely written up in national magazines for its beauty, its charming neighborhoods, its restaurants, and yes, its sports teams. The Phillies won the World Series several years ago, and they have won four straight NL East Division championships. They are rated one of the best teams in baseball every year. And this year during the offseason the unthinkable happened, at least for someone from my generation -- a high-priced player, Cliff Lee, one of the best pitchers in the sport, turned down an offer from the New York Yankees in order to sign with the Phillies.

This was amazing. A superstar chose Philadelphia over New York? It seemed almost too good to be true, for someone from my era. And now the Phillies have what many people think could be one of the best pitching staffs in history. Las Vegas oddsmakers are betting they'll get back to the World Series again.

Philly has come a long way from the Bennie Briscoe days. We always had people like Bennie, the warriors, the good men who did their jobs every day and did them with skill and passion. Now, though, the town has a spring to its step, and a feeling of confidence that yes, we can win it all, we can get to the top of the mountain.

I'm glad Bennie got to see that before he died.

THE END