THE MAN WHO MADE MADISON SQUARE GARDEN RELEVANT AGAIN
BOBBY GOODMAN, 82, is now retired from boxing, but when he sits in his home in Mays Landing, New Jersey, there are more than enough memories to sustain him. For a good part of seven decades Goodman was a boxing lifer, introduced to the sport at a very young age – or born into the business, as he likes to say.
The boxing bloodlines run deep. Bobby’s dad, Murray Goodman, handled the public relations for some legendary boxers. “My father was always taking me to training camps when I was a kid,” says Goodman. “The camps were either in New York or New Jersey. I grew up in those camps being around fighters like Marcel Cerdan, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Rocky Marciano.
“It was my first job in boxing. You could say I was a messenger boy. I would get things for the fighters in camp.
“I would wake up Marcel Cerdan in the morning and we would go out running together. He did not speak English and I didn’t speak French, but we communicated wonderfully. I had the run of the camps. It was like being in fantasy land.
“I used to play ball with Rocky. He was a pretty good ball player who once had aspirations of making it to the major leagues as a catcher. We were at the pool one day in Grossingers and he was
