Fighting For Recognition

LONG ISLAND'S boxing history reaches back 110 years to the middleweight title fight between bare-knucklers Jack (The Nonpareil) Dempsey and Johnny Reagan. Boxing was illegal in those days, but that didn't stop the fighters, their followers and fans from braving rain, snow and flooding to travel by tugbout from New York City to Sands Point and later Huntington Harbor to complete a 45-round epic won by Dempsey (no relation to the legendary heavyweight).

By Robert Cassidy Jr.