Standing Eight The Inspiring Story Of Jesus El

Matador Chavez Who Became Lightweight Champion

Of The World 1st Da Capo Press Ed Pitluk
download
https://ebookbell.com/product/standing-eight-the-inspiring-story-
of-jesus-el-matador-chavez-who-became-lightweight-champion-of-
the-world-1st-da-capo-press-ed-pitluk-5281130

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Standing Eight The Inspiring Story Of Jesus El Matador Chavez Who

Became Lightweight Champion Of The World 1st Da Capo Press Ed Pitluk

https://ebookbell.com/product/standing-eight-the-inspiring-story-of-
jesus-el-matador-chavez-who-became-lightweight-champion-of-the-
world-1st-da-capo-press-ed-pitluk-5281130
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“Boxing, the meanest sport, has always been forced to draw
its gladiators from the ranks of the poor and the disadvan-
taged. Jesus Chavez is a classic example. The hurdles he
had to endure to become a champion are manifold. Adam

★
Pitluk tells his story with equal parts devotion and distance,
so Chavez emerges as a boxer we can honestly root for.”
—Frank Deford

STANDING
THE INSPIRING STORY OF JESUS “EL MATADOR” CHAVEZ
Standing Eight is the stirring account of the life of boxer Jesus “El Matador”
Chavez. Born Gabriel Sandoval, he grew up in the impoverished city of
Delicias, Mexico. At seven, he swam across the Rio Grande with his mother
and five-year-old sister to join his father, an illegal worker in Chicago. There
Gabriel learned both English and boxing, eventually winning three Gold
Glove championships. After serving a stint in jail for robbery, he was released
and immediately deported to Mexico. Upon returning to the U.S., he settled
in Austin, Texas, taking on a new identity as Jesus “El Matador”—named
after the gym in Chicago where he learned to box—Chavez. He then fought
several contenders on his way to winning the Lightweight Championship in
October 2005.

Standing Eight is a riveting tale of a strong-willed boxer who has refused to

EIGHT
stay down for the count, both in the ring and in life.

INCLUDES EIGHT PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS

“Reads like a timely allegory for the plight of the undocumented. . . .

Precise and passionate.”—NEW YORK POST
★

ADAM PITLUK is a contributor to Time magazine. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ADAM
PITLUK
$14.95 US / £8.99 / $18.00 CAN SPORTS

Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group Cover design by Cooley Design Lab
www.dacapopress.com Cover photograph © Terri Glanger
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page i

Standing Eight
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page ii
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page iii

Standing Eight
THE I NSPIRING STORY OF J ESUS
“E L MATADOR” CHAVEZ, WHO
BECAME LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION
OF THE WORLD

Adam Pitluk

DA CAPO PRESS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page iv

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish

their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear
in this book and Da Capo Press was aware of a trademark claim, the
designations have been printed in initial capital letters.

Copyright © 2006 by Adam Pitluk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

Set in 11/14.5 point Janson Text by the Interactive Composition Corporation

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pitluk, Adam.
Standing eight : the inspiring story of Jesus “El Matador” Chavez / Adam Pitluk.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–306–81454–9 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0–306–81454–4 (hardcover)
1. Chavez, Jesus, 1972- 2. Boxers (Sports)—Mexico—Biography. I. Title.
GV1132.C43P58 2006
796.83092—dc22
2006000273

First Da Capo Press edition 2006

ISBN-10 0–306–81454–4
ISBN-13 978–0–306–81454–9

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group
www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S.
by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please
contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge
Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, or call (800) 255-1514 or (617) 252-5298, or e-mail
[email protected].

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9—09 08 07 06
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page v

In loving memory of Donna Ferrante and

A. Marshall Selznick, two tough individuals
who battled cancer into the later rounds.
Your courage was inspiring.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page vi
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page vii

Contents

Prologue ix

CHAPTER 1 Shining City upon a Hill 1

CHAPTER 2 West Side 21

CHAPTER 3 Promises 37

CHAPTER 4 Stateville 49

CHAPTER 5 Stranger in a Strange Land 68

CHAPTER 6 House of Lord 87

CHAPTER 7 King of Britannia 102

CHAPTER 8 Terri 117

CHAPTER 9 ¡Viva México! 134

CHAPTER 10 We’re up Here, and They Just Don’t Know 155

CHAPTER 11 Just a Camera 168

CHAPTER 12 Homecoming 175

CHAPTER 13 El Terrible 202

CHAPTER 14 “The Fight Could Go Either Way” 221

Interviews and Bibliography 233

Acknowledgments 239

About the Author 242

Index 243

vii
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page viii
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page ix

Prologue

W ith five minutes until fight time, the boxer moved restlessly in
the tunnel of the Arena Theater in Houston. He wore a white
gym towel like a poncho, with the middle cut out for his head to fit
through, and his closely cropped black hair was soaked. Boxers are
supposed to sweat before they fight, but his pores were working
overtime. The twenty-one-year-old pugilist had perspired through his
towel, and the wet terry cloth clung to his torso as though he had worn
it through a carwash.
He threw punches into the air and moved his head from side to side
to loosen his neck muscles while the saltwater dripped from the seams
of his towel and collected in a pool around his feet. He stood 5 feet 6
and had wide brown eyes, a pudgy nose, and thick eyebrows and eye-
lashes. His muscles expanded and contracted as he bounced in place,
which made the tattoo of a skull wearing a top hat on his right shoul-
der appear to be dancing. As his body pulsed with each undulating
step, his face remained stoic.
Richard Lord, his trainer, stood behind the boxer and kneaded his
charge’s shoulders with both hands. “Come on, champ,” Lord said to

ix
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page x

x Prologue

the boxer from behind. “This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.
This will make those 100-degree days in the gym worth the work. You
feel good?”
“I feel real good,” he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the blue box-
ing ring fifteen yards down the walkway. “I’m ready for this guy. I’m
ready.”
“Okay, champ. You know what to do in there. He’s gonna come out
strong and try to push you around. I don’t want you to let him do that.
I want you to control the momentum. You set the tone. Remember
your technique and fight the kind of fight you want to. Make a strong
impression. Take control.”
“Take control,” the boxer repeated. “Take control.” As he muttered
the words, his eyes began to well up with tears. His bottom lip trem-
bled as he tried to fight back surging emotion, but the harder he tried
to keep a stone face, the more his face cramped up. And the more his
face cramped, the harder he blinked.
Lord sensed his fighter’s heavy heart. He knew that the boxer’s par-
ents were in the audience and realized how much this fight meant to
his family. The trainer, however, had a job to do. He had to keep his
fighter’s head in the game. Although he sympathized with his charge’s
emotional state, Lord decided he’d have to take control and turn those
tears of concern into tears of rage.
Lord grabbed his fighter’s arm and turned him around brusquely.
“Look at me. Forget about all those people. You hear me? Forget
they’re there. You have a job to do. You’re a professional now, you got
that? A professional. This is business.”
The boxer turned back around and faced his destiny fifteen yards
away as three more tense minutes passed. Lord resumed his rubdown.
“Come on, Jesus. Get loose.”
Strange. He still wasn’t used to people calling him Jesus. But this
was a new beginning: new professional status, new hometown, new
name. With that, the announcer entered the ring and a microphone
lowered from the rafters.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our first bout is scheduled for four rounds.
Introducing first, the challenger, making his professional debut here
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xi

Prologue xi

tonight. From Austin, Texas, let’s hear it for Jesus ‘El Matador’ Chavez!”
Boos thundered in the boxer’s ears. A smattering of fans cheered, but
the boos came from everywhere.
Sitting in the middle of the arena—among the hostile fans and the
reverberating hisses—were Jesus and Rosario Sandoval, the boxer’s
parents, and the boxer’s kid brother, twelve-year-old Jimmy Sandoval.
Mom and dad had pooled their savings and bought the $750 plane
tickets—the cost for three to fly to Houston from Chicago at the last
minute—to watch their oldest child make his entrance. They ignored
the unruly spectators around them and clapped fanatically as their boy
made his way to the ring.
The boxer tried to choke back the sobs as he trotted toward the
squared circle, but seeing his mother, father, and younger brother in
the audience and knowing how much they sacrificed to make the trip
was too much for him to handle. Tears started streaming down his face,
which caused his mother to start crying as well. The boxer’s heavy
breathing, coupled with his guttural moans, caused him to slightly as-
phyxiate. He was overwhelmed with emotion as he made his way to-
ward the ring for his first professional fight. This was his crowning
moment: he had made it through an obstacle course laden with hope,
despair, and despondency in order to showcase his pugilistic talents in
front of a capacity crowd.
Then there was his family, and the young boxer wanted nothing
more than to make them proud—to show them that he’d become
someone. And Jimmy, his younger sibling, was there. The kid idolized
his big brother. The boxer needed to make a statement on that night;
successful professional pugilists don’t have many losses on their
record. If he was to become any kind of contender later down the road,
he needed to make a memorable first impression in his professional
debut. And that prospect daunted him.
Jesus Sandoval Jr., the boxer’s father, knew it was up to him to hold
the family together and keep them from making a public spectacle of
themselves. He looked at his son firmly, clenched his fist, and nodded.
His son took the cue and wiped the tears from his face with his red
boxing glove.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xii

xii Prologue

The boxer entered the ring and raised both hands, touching off an-
other wave of boos. Houstonians did not come out that August night
in 1994 to see Jesus Chavez, but to see the professional debut of their
native son, Lewis Wood. A hard-hitting southpaw and veteran of the
Houston Fire Department, Lewis was a man’s man. A violent fighter in
the ring, he was the type of guy the Houston working class could relate
to. He was grounded, dedicated, a family man after the bell and outside
the ring. This was Wood’s first professional fight too, and the fire-
fighter was already looking beyond his opponent to his first major bout
and big payday.
Two years earlier, Wood lost a tough amateur fight to would-be gold
medalist Oscar De La Hoya in the last round of the U.S. Olympic try-
outs. He hadn’t lost another fight since. Because he performed so well
as an amateur, Wood’s professional unveiling was highly anticipated by
boxing pundits. Local fight fans, who prided themselves on their re-
silient hometown amateur, attended this fight in droves to witness the
beginning of a new era for Houston boxing, where the lightweight
would be king.
“And his opponent,” the announcer resumed, “fighting out of the
blue corner and wearing red, white, and blue trunks, also making his
professional debut here tonight, let’s hear it for our own Lewis, the
‘Fighting Houston Fireman’ Wood!”
The two boxers approached each other in the center of the ring and
the referee gave instructions. Lord continued to rub his fighter’s shoul-
ders, kneading harder as his fighter blinked repeatedly.
Wood took his opponent’s eye twitching to be a sign of fear. Neither
Wood nor his trainers connected the boxer Jesus Chavez with an ex-
convict named Gabriel Sandoval who had the tic since he was a child.
They didn’t know that by twitching, the boxer was pumping up his
muscles. His biceps, triceps, and forearms pulsed with each hard blink.
They didn’t figure their opponent picked up a vicious temperament to
accompany his involuntary motions while he was in prison. And since
the Lewis Wood camp didn’t know the opposing fighter’s identity, they
had no way of knowing that although this was Jesus Chavez’s first fight,
in his former life he had an amateur record of 95-5 and three Golden
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xiii

Prologue xiii

Glove championships. Jesus Chavez and Gabriel Sandoval were the

same person: an undocumented Mexican immigrant.
When the boxer started blinking, it wasn’t out of fear but rather
white-hot anger. Lord sensed the confidence growing in his fighter.
The harder he kneaded the boxer’s shoulders, the tauter they became.
Chavez’s mind transported him back to the yard at Stateville maximum
security prison in Joliet, Illinois. Lewis Wood was no longer his pro-
fessional opponent, but a rival gang member who had just called him
out and wanted him dead. And in prison, when someone calls you out,
you strike first and beat him until his eyes bleed.
Lord gave his fighter some last words of instruction: use that jab, set
up a left hook to the body, and follow it with a right upstairs. He pulled
the wet towel off over Chavez’s head and slapped him on the ass. The
bell rang and both boxers, wanting to make a strong first impression,
charged to the center of the ring and began throwing measuring jabs.
Wood caught Chavez with a hard left cross midway through the first
round, which sent the crowd into a frenzy and clouded El Matador’s
head for the remaining opening minute. But that did not stop the chal-
lenger from swinging away.
His opponent’s lefts seemed to come from all directions. Chavez re-
alized in the first round that he was fighting a southpaw. Since this
fight was booked at the last minute and because Lord was following a
course he’d plotted early in their training to only put his boxer in the
ring with the toughest opponents available, neither of them had a
chance to scout Wood. They prepared to fight, yes, but the measures
they took were training for training’s sake. Midway through the first
round—before Lord even had a chance to report to Chavez that Wood
was left-handed—Chavez recognized that fact and responded accord-
ingly. Chavez withstood a bombardment of strong lefts by Wood. But
before the bell sounded to end round one, Chavez adjusted his stance
and began trading left-handed bombs with the stronger boxer. When
he returned to his corner after round one, Lord gruffly barked out or-
ders of encouragement.
“You look good out there,” he said, taking Chavez’s mouthpiece out
and rubbing his bicep. “He caught you, but you took it. That’s the best
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xiv

xiv Prologue

he’s got. And you already took it! Watch those lefts and try to slip a
right in there, and we’ll walk outta this joint with a win.”
The bell rang to signal round two, and Chavez sprinted to the cen-
ter with renewed confidence. Lord did his job: he reassured his fighter,
even though the trainer’s face told another story. Lord was confident
that his boxer had the tools to beat Lewis Wood, but he continued to
grit his teeth and furrow his brow when Chavez was out of eyeshot.
Wood had caught El Matador, and Lord knew that there was more
where that came from. In fact, Wood had a barrage of combination
punches in his arsenal that Chavez hadn’t sampled yet. Lord knew that
his boxer would never give up, though. El Matador had an iron will,
and the only way he would go down was if Wood were to knock him
unconscious. That’s what Lord feared the most; his professionally in-
experienced fighter wouldn’t know if he’d been licked and if he should
take a knee. But that’s not how Lord trains his boxers. And that’s not
how Chavez approaches a fight.
As Lord watched his prodigal son, he saw a Jesus Chavez he had not
seen before. Gym training is one thing; live competition is another.
Chavez, a right-handed fighter, entered a left-handed slugfest with the
natural southpaw, Wood. The hometown favorite was being matched
blow for blow in the center of the ring. Wood landed a powerful shot
to Chavez’s forehead halfway through the second round, and the fire-
man winced more than the punch’s recipient. Wood had thumped
Chavez’s skull so hard that he broke his hand on his opponent’s head,
snapping El Matador’s neck back violently. Yet this unknown from
Austin shook off the blow and pressed forward. Wood threw a hard
left, and Chavez returned with an even harder shot. Come round four,
the hometown crowd of white and Hispanic boxing fans started cheer-
ing for Chavez: He was fighting with such pure passion that his en-
ergy became contagious. And the Mexican Americans, previously
rooting for their hometown favorite, Wood, began to cheer for one of
their own.
El Matador was an underdog—an opponent scheduled as an auto-
matic mark in Wood’s “win” column. Yet the fighter who showed up
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xv

Prologue xv

on that night was no pushover. Chavez came to throw leather, and

if he won, his countrymen would likely rally to his corner. To beat
the favorite would require pulling for the underdog, and many
Mexican American fight fans in attendance clearly identified with the
underdog.
Wood managed to string together a hard one-two-three series
in the waning moments of the fourth and final round, and while
more experienced fighters have buckled and crumbled from such
ferocious punches, Chavez’s taut upper body was like rubber as
the blows bounced off. Lord learned something about his boxer that
night: the one hundred amateur matches Jesus fought, the three-plus
years of prison brawls, and Lord’s own demanding training regi-
men so thoroughly conditioned the boxer that a rival 126-pound
fighter could not deliver a punch that would put El Matador on
his back.
The fight went to the judges’ scorecards as both pugilists mugged
for the crowd. Pandemonium engulfed the arena as the fight fans—and
fighters—anxiously awaited the decision. The announcer reentered
the ring, and the spectators fell silent for the first time all night.
“Ladies and gentlemen, after four rounds of boxing, we go to
the scorecards. Judge McCowan scores the bout 37-39. Judges
McCullough and Martin score the bout 39-37 for your winner, by split
decision, Jesus ‘El Matador’ Chavez!”
The audience clapped and hooted with delight: they got their
money’s worth. Richard Lord lifted a jubilant boxer into the air.
Chavez’s parents and brother climbed into the ring and Lord released
his charge, who ran to his younger brother and hoisted Jimmy above
his head. Jesus Chavez had won his first professional fight. El Matador
blew kisses to Wood’s hometown crowd. He had managed to overcome
incredible odds and had beaten an up-and-coming contender in a
strange city.
Lewis Wood and fellow fighters on the professional boxing circuit
were one challenge. But the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service proved to be a much tougher opponent.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page xvi
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 1

Shining City upon a Hill

G abriel Sandoval was born in 1972 in the Mexican town of

Hidalgo del Parral, where the revolutionary Pancho Villa had
been tracked, killed, and buried. When Gabriel was a baby, his father,
Jesus Sandoval Jr., began to think seriously about migrating north to
the fabled lands of the United States. But the family moved to the
impoverished town of Delicias, Mexico, where they shared a humble
flat with Gabriel’s grandparents, Hermila and Jesus Sandoval Sr. It was
an aging structure with crumbling stucco walls that hosted swarms of
insects, though Hermila went to great lengths to keep her humble
house clean.
A proud Mexican family, the Sandovals toiled in various impover-
ished towns deep in the heart of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Most
men worked in the mines. Jesus Sr. had spent the better part of forty
years in the mines, and while the work fed his family, it was also
destroying his health. He labored in the fetid lead, zinc, silver, and
copper mines in San Francisco del Oro, where workers’ lungs became
coated with soot. Although Jesus Jr. had great respect for his father, he
longed for a better life.

1
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 2

2 Standing Eight

But for the mines, the region was devoid of industry. Jesus Jr. knew
of other Mexicans who’d trekked north and made good lives for them-
selves. He made his first border crossing with a cousin and an uncle in
1964, when he was only fifteen. Their destination was Hobbs, New
Mexico, where in the past some fellow Chihuahuans had found work.
Jesus Sr. at first pleaded with his son not to make the journey: stay here
and work in the mines with me and your uncles, he said. But Junior was
spirited and told his father he had to go: a brighter future lay ahead.
Jesus Sr. gave his son two hundred pesos, wished him luck, and asked
him to call home when he made it to New Mexico.
The three men took a 350-mile bus trip from San Francisco del Oro
to Juarez, Mexico, and then prepared to swim across the section of the
Rio Grande that separated Juarez from El Paso, Texas. They waited on
the banks of the river until nightfall to avoid U.S. border patrol agents
making late-night sweeps. Jesus took off his cowboy boots and stuck
them in his knapsack, which held sardines and a gallon jug of water.
The temperature in the Chihuahuan desert plummeted after dark,
but they had a full moon, stars, and the faint lights of El Paso to navi-
gate by. Jesus Jr. shivered beneath his flannel shirt and blue jeans. The
water would surely be colder than the air. He rocked back and forth to
keep his blood running. When all was quiet and the desert was still, his
uncle spoke in a loud whisper. ¿Listo? Ready? Jesus Jr. nodded, and the
three men eased into the icy Rio Grande as silently as they could and
began to forge the river.
The cold rushing waters reached Jesus’s chin. He flailed with his
arms and legs to stay afloat, as the strong night current could easily
knock him off his feet and send him to a certain drowning. He was
not a strong swimmer, but a determined young man desperate for a
brighter future than the San Francisco del Oro mines could provide.
After spending an hour in the frigid river, the three men made land-
fall. Jesus Jr. put on his cowboy boots and followed his uncle and
cousin up a mountain in the darkness. For the next seven days, the men
traversed the desert, living on sardines and meager rations of water.
Jesus’s feet swelled inside his cowboy boots, but he refused to take
them off for fear he wouldn’t get them back on.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 3

Shining City upon a Hill 3

At night, when the rocky surface cooled and the desert wildlife
awakened, the three men would climb to a mountaintop. It was colder
at the higher altitude, but the desert overgrowth was thinner and less
bothersome. They could watch the lights of border patrol vehicles
from a safe distance. After walking seven days, they arrived in Hobbs,
New Mexico, on the New Mexico–Texas border.
They joined a community of Mexicans and found jobs under the
table. Jesus Jr. split his time between cooking and maintenance work
but barely made a living and couldn’t even call his father. He was
toiling fourteen hours a day in sweltering kitchens and in dirty barns
cleaning up after animals. After three months, sixteen-year-old Jesus Jr.
decided to go home to Mexico. Alone.
He hitched a ride to Jal, New Mexico, in the southeastern corner of
the state. From there, he figured he could follow the highway back into
his native land, but it led deeper into the desert between New Mexico
and Texas. Jesus Jr. stumbled on a farm and spent his first night away
from his uncle and cousin in a stranger’s chicken coop. The following
morning, he went to the owner and pleaded with the lady who an-
swered the door to give him a ride to the main highway into Mexico.
He didn’t speak English, but the lady could understand what the
sixteen-year-old Mexican was trying to say and read the desperation on
his face. Jesus did some work around the farm for a few days, spending
each night in the coop with the chickens. The lady honored her
promise and took him to El Paso, where he walked through a port of
entry back in to Juarez, Mexico.
He had no money but found a job picking chili peppers for a few days
until he could scrape together enough pesos for the bus fare back to San
Francisco del Oro. At night, he slept in the orchards. Jesus Jr. eventu-
ally made it back to his father’s house but felt ashamed. Jesus Sr. warmly
embraced his son, hugging him while thanking God for his return.
Jesus Jr. began working in the San Francisco del Oro mines and in a
plywood factory, hanging out with the men and drinking cervezas at
night. One year after returning to Mexico he met his future wife, Rosario.
Eventually they were married and moved into a tiny one-bedroom
tenement in the mining town. Jesus Jr. now worked full-time in the
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 4

4 Standing Eight

mines, spending most days nearly 3,100 feet below ground. Dust par-
ticles saturated his lungs and the absence of natural light dampened
his spirit. He’d start work at 5:30 A.M., go underground for ten to
twelve hours, and emerge from the earth’s bowels as the sun was going
down.
In 1978, after a rainstorm damaged the Sandoval home, Jesus Jr. had
enough. He had a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, and
their future was bleak. If they stayed in San Francisco del Oro or in
neighboring Delicias, his son Gabriel would go from high school to
the mines. Jesus Jr. decided to move his family to the United States, no
matter what the risk.
With some money from relatives, Jesus and his family moved to an
impoverished settlement in Juarez. It was a decrepit adobe structure
with busted windows and crumbling ceiling and walls. The heavy
wooden door, splintering and weathering, often fell off its hinges and
exposed the hut’s interior to the desert elements. There was a stove, a
sink, a tub, and a water tank. That was it. Jesus needed to return to the
United States to make enough money to move his family into a better
home.
Later that year, Jesus Jr. again swam the Rio Grande—this time
alone—and hitchhiked all the way to Oxnard, California. Rosario had
family in Juarez who helped out with the children and provided some
groceries. Jesus Jr. hired himself out as a repairman and stayed in
Oxnard for about six months, making less than minimum wage. He
sent his wife and children $35 each week—the bulk of his earnings.
While he was in California, his sister died suddenly and Jesus Jr.
hitched back to San Francisco del Oro to attend her funeral.
The whole family returned to Juarez after the burial, which is when
Jesus Jr.’s youngest brother, Javier, had a proposition for him. “Jesus,
I have some money saved up. There’s a huge Mexican community up
in the American north. Want to go to Chicago?”
“No, hermano. I’m either going back to California or I’m staying
here in Juarez,” Jesus replied.
“There’s money in Chicago,” Javier coaxed. “I know someone up
there who will give us work. We can make real money! You can put
some aside and save for your family, then you can send for them.”
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 5

Shining City upon a Hill 5

“Chicago is far away,” he said. “And it’s cold.”

Javier persisted for several days and Jesus finally agreed. The broth-
ers would swim across the Rio Grande and then fly from El Paso to
Chicago. The night before his departure, Jesus and Rosario sat in the
corner of their adobe and talked by candlelight. He would be gone for
a few months but would send money. In due time, he would send for
her and the children. Rosario agreed. She put her faith in her husband
and trusted his judgment. Jesus spent the rest of the evening playing
with Gabriel and his younger sister, Lidia. “I’m going on an errand,”
he told them. “It may take a little while, but we’ll be together again
soon. And we’ll stay that way forever.”

Entering the United States illegally was easier in 1979. Today,

Mexicans must go to great lengths to avoid border patrol officers.
Many try to enter the United States in unventilated tractor trailers
only to be dumped like so much lumber in remote parts of the country
or large cities. Nevertheless, these Mexicans spiritedly cling to the
hope of finding gainful employment once they get into the United
States.
Undocumented Mexican workers, then as now, work as hotel maids
and farmhands, auto mechanics and construction laborers, meat pack-
ers and slaughterhouse butchers, always fearing discovery and depor-
tation, constantly struggling to maintain their anonymity and stay
beneath the radar of government officials who are trying to deport
them. It’s hard on a Mexican’s psyche to live in abject poverty while up
north lies a country that Ronald Reagan described as “the shining city
upon a hill.”

Jesus and Javier Sandoval made five unsuccessful attempts to cross

the Rio Grande into the United States in as many days. They were
turned back by border patrol agents at gunpoint, detained, and driven
to the border. On their sixth attempt, the brothers Sandoval made it
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 6

6 Standing Eight

across the border. Using fake papers they had forged in Juarez, Jesus
and Javier bought one-way tickets to O’Hare International Airport
with what was left of their money. The Windy City was home to
140,000 documented Mexican immigrants, and presumably tens
of thousands of undocumented ones. The living conditions would be
cold and harsh, but Jesus Sandoval was a man of resolve. He would
make a life for himself and his family on the shores of Lake Michigan.
He had to.
Jesus Jr. landed at O’Hare on a freezing November day in 1979 with
$20 in his wallet and no English-language skills. It was the first time
he’d seen snow other than on distant mountaintops. Javier decided to
take a train to Waukegan, a far-north Chicago suburb, where they had
distant relatives. Jesus Jr. went in search of an uncle he had never met
in downtown Chicago.
He had an address on a scrap of paper, and that was it. The streets
were confusing to Jesus. Sure, he’d been in a big city before—Juarez
was huge and sprawling. But the Windy City skyscrapers were enor-
mous, and giant steel elevated cars zoomed by in a huff. Jesus was lost.
He studied passing faces, hoping to find a fellow Mexican among the
racing pedestrians.
He zeroed in on a woman who looked Hispanic, and luckily she
spoke Spanish. Jesus showed her the scrap of paper with the address: it
was for a tiny Mexican restaurant on State Street. She pointed him in
the right direction and he walked to the address, which was several
miles away. The cold air bit his ears and made them feel hot. He fought
through the chill and found his uncle.
Jesus Jr. was put to work painting the restaurant for $2 an hour. Then
a local businessman hired Jesus to help move furniture between ware-
houses. He made little money working sixty hours per week. Jesus Jr.
checked into a halfway house that was already filled to capacity, but was
permitted to sleep in the bathroom as long as he kept quiet. Jesus slept
on the bathroom floor, with his head next to the commode and his legs
jutting out into the hallway.
Jesus called his wife in October 1980 and told her he was thinking
about coming back to Mexico: this was no life. He was making only
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 7

Shining City upon a Hill 7

$40 a week and sending most of it to Juarez. He put the decision to her:
should he save up money and bring her to Chicago, although he did
not know when that would be, or should he return and take the family
back to Delicias or the mines of San Francisco del Oro? Rosario said
she needed time to think.
Jesus returned to his job doing heavy lifting at the warehouse. A
week after his conversation with Rosario, his boss flagged him down at
the loading docks. His wife was on the phone.
“My wife?” he asked questioningly. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what she said in Spanish. She don’t speak English.”
Jesus ran back to the office. It was Rosario. And Gabriel and Lidia.
The whole family was at O’Hare.
Rosario had become distraught after their last phone conversation.
Life for her husband in Chicago was rough, she recognized, but life in
Juarez was unbearable. She couldn’t always find food and the house
was falling apart around her. Family members offered to buy her and
the children plane tickets from El Paso to Chicago, which she grate-
fully accepted, and she crossed the Rio Grande without incident.
Rosario’s brother escorted her, five-year-old Lidia, and seven-year-old
Gabriel across the same river that caused Jesus Jr. so many headaches.
Her brother carried Gabriel on his shoulders and pulled Rosario and
Lidia on an old black inner tube. Once in El Paso, Rosario bought
plane tickets to Chicago.
Jesus took the CTA train to O’Hare and scoured the airport for his
family. And then he saw the three of them. Lidia wore a pink dress, the
only hint of color against that gray Chicago backdrop, and when she
saw him, she sprinted into her father’s open arms. It was a loving re-
union. The Sandoval family was together again and Jesus brought
them back to the boardinghouse, where they all lived in a bathroom
for a couple of days. Luckily for them, a cousin was moving back to
Mexico, and he had already paid two months’ rent on an apartment.
The family moved in and Jesus went looking for a better-paying job.
He answered an ad for a delivery truck driver in the Chicago Tribune,
but when he showed up for the interview, they shoved a broom in his
hand. Apparently Mexicans were only qualified to sweep floors.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 8

8 Standing Eight

Pressured by his dire circumstances, Jesus swallowed his pride and

accepted the job.
Two months later, the boss’s brother slipped Jesus a scrap of paper
with a name and an address on it. “You go to this address tomorrow,
Jesus, and you’re gonna start working right away.” It was the business
address of Bob Powell, an administrator with the Chicago Housing
Department.
“What kind of a job is it?” Jesus asked.
“I don’t know,” the boss’s brother replied. “What difference does it
make? You’ll have work and a paycheck right quick.”
Jesus arrived at the address and slipped the secretary the piece
of paper with Bob Powell’s name on it. She then handed Jesus an
application for a position with the Chicago Housing Authority. The
application, much to his surprise, was already filled out. “Just sign your
name,” she directed. It did not matter that Jesus was an undocumented
immigrant and did not speak fluent English. He was issued a jumpsuit
and put to work that day cleaning vacant city lots. For a while, CHA kept
Jesus working outside, so as to show off to any passersby (and meddling
city administrators) that there was a Hispanic on the all-black cleaning
crew. Jesus became the Housing Authority’s example of diversity in the
workplace.
Equipped with a fake social security number, Jesus was put on the
rolls of a city voucher program, which let him move his family into a
government-subsidized housing project. The job paid well—more
than minimum wage—but Jesus was apprehensive about using his
real name and a fake social security number. But time passed and his
concern faded. A week went by, then a month, then a year. Jesus eased
into a routine.
He labored as an undocumented though on-the-books mainte-
nance hand in West Side housing projects. Much like Jurgis in Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle, Sandoval rose at dawn, donned his grimy blues,
and trekked across Chicago Avenue to clean the day’s soot. He returned
to his own housing project twelve hours later, when the sun was sink-
ing behind Chicago’s towering skyscrapers and the streets were coated
with another day’s litter. Jesus became a regimented worker. Each
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 9

Shining City upon a Hill 9

morning he made a point to see his children before he left for the day,
peeking into the small room they shared and taking a long look at their
sleeping bodies, sometimes leaving a gentle kiss on each forehead.
Then he went into the kitchen to bid a brief adiós to Rosario. He’d often
remind her to make sure the kids went to school and paid attention. But
Gabriel and Lidia didn’t need reminding. They were dutiful children,
respectful and mindful of their father and mother. Such is the custom
with Mexican families: the father is the lord of the manor, even when the
manor is nothing more than a stale apartment in a building with chip-
ping lead paint and leaky pipes. Father’s words had the force of law.
Jesus Jr.’s English improved on the job. In 1982, Jesus and Rosario
had a third child, Jimmy, who became the first of the Sandoval clan
born in America. Over time, Jesus Jr. managed to move his family out
of the projects and into a modest two-bedroom house on West Rice
Street. The impoverished Sandoval family felt they were living the
American Dream. Jesus Jr., though, knew that West Rice Street and
the surrounding areas were home to some tough vatos.
Their eldest child, Gabriel, was mild-mannered and polite. His
English was coming along, albeit slowly. He and Lidia were each
other’s practice partners. They’d sit in a corner and attempt to con-
verse in English, which for a while was more Spanglish than anything.
Outside the cozy house, though, lay a fierce neighborhood, in any
language.
Only ten years old, Gabriel was aware of West Side violence and
wanted to learn martial arts as a means of self-defense. He watched
Kung Fu reruns on television and asked his parents if he could take
karate lessons.
Jesus was in favor of his son’s request. Karate could teach young
Gabriel a useful skill, but more importantly, it could keep him off the
streets and away from the crowd of vatos who hung out on Harrison
and South Cicero. Those thugs spent their time in front of Belmont
Cut Rate Liquors and routinely knocked off the Vienna hotdog
stand. They harassed the poor and homeless congregating in front of
Precious Grove Missionary Baptist Church and robbed pedestrians at
gun and knifepoint as they cut through the vacant lots.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 10

10 Standing Eight

Jesus and Rosario scouted out some local dojos, but even the
cheapest ones were too expensive. Swimming lessons, however, were
free for local kids at Eckhart Park, so the Sandovals signed up Gabriel
and Lidia.
On the first day of lessons in 1982, Rosario dropped her children off
at the Eckhart Park recreational complex an hour early, as she was being
extra careful they weren’t late. That one hour ended up changing her
son’s life.
Gabriel and Lidia sat on the concrete steps of the complex and
waited for the pool to open and the lessons to start. Over the sound
of chirping birds, Gabriel heard a bell ding every few minutes. He
also heard muffled grunts and groans, tennis shoes screeching on
wood floors, and what he would soon find out was the pounding of
leather.

The Matador Gym was one of many boxing gyms in Chicago at the
time. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rocky fever still had a grip on
the country, and city kids wanted to learn how to box. Youngsters like
Gabriel believed they could punch their way to fame and fortune.
He was a short, wiry boy with a thin frame and a nervous eye twitch.
He had just returned home after spending a year with his grandparents
in their humble flat in Delicias, Mexico. Rosario developed heart prob-
lems when Gabriel was nine, and she couldn’t look after her children
because of her unstable physical condition. She sent Gabriel and Lidia
to Mexico for the year while she recuperated. When the children re-
turned after a year, Jesus and Rosario Sandoval decided to look for an
activity to better occupy Gabriel’s time.
Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s had a split personality. Some neigh-
borhoods such as Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, and Wrigleyville were
being gentrified while other neighborhoods, like the area west of the
Loop, fell into decay and became a refuge for illegal immigrants and a
breeding ground for gangs.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 11

Shining City upon a Hill 11

On Chicago’s West Side, where Chicago and Damen Avenues inter-

sect among aging bungalows and brownstones, things got sketchy at
night. The empty buildings were ideal spots for squatters and drug
dealers. Most storefronts had been tagged with graffiti, most windows
were boarded up, and English was a second language in almost every
household. Families of Mexican, Polish, and Ukrainian immigrants
lived amid persistent violence and pervasive fear: broken homes were
as common as broken glass. Hardworking immigrant families who
came to this country in search of the Jeffersonian entitlements of life,
liberty, and happiness wanted a safe, sheltered existence for their chil-
dren. But they had to work too many hours to keep a constant eye on
their children’s coming and goings, and gangs assumed a central posi-
tion among youth culture in this brutish section of the city.

Gabriel descended a narrow concrete staircase to a basement gym. As

he opened the creaky steel door, the muffled clatter he’d heard was
amplified. The activity in the gym seemed to center around a crotch-
ety Irishman. He was only 5 feet 7, but he commanded attention.
With thick black eyebrows and dark hair on his pale athletic body, the
Irishman looked like the quintessential boxing trainer in his gray
sweatpants and sweatshirt. He wiped perspiration from his pudgy
nose and red, fleshy cheeks and onto his soaked sweatshirt sleeve.
Tom O’Shea barked orders through a nasal rasp. His face was a trove
of frowns and furrows and his gruff words of instruction outnumbered
his words of encouragement. O’Shea was the lone white face in a throng
of black and Hispanic youth, but he obviously had their respect. Gabriel
watched these neighborhood toughs—the same ones he saw walking
around Damen Avenue—taking orders from this forty-year-old white
guy. Sitting in a corner of the basement, he timidly observed them box
until it was time to check in for swimming lessons.
That night, when Jesus Sandoval returned from work, his son sat
impatiently, anxious to tell his father about the day’s discovery. Jesus
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 12

12 Standing Eight

listened to Gabriel’s ramblings about the Matador Gym and the Irishman
he saw teaching kids how to box. The father was intrigued: perhaps
boxing could satisfy his son’s desire to learn martial arts while keeping
him away from the gangs. Also, if the gangs approached his boy looking
for trouble, boxing skills might come in handy.
On his next day off, Jesus walked with his son to Eckhart Park and
the Matador Gym. Right away, Jesus liked the scene. It was just as
Gabriel had described it: throngs of neighborhood kids punching away
at focus mitts and at their own shadows. There were other young kids
there, but none as young as Gabriel.
O’Shea saw the two walk in, the father holding his eager son’s hand.
A seasoned boxing veteran, O’Shea knew what was coming: a parent
was going to ask if his boy should learn to fight. He’d seen it a hundred
times. The Irishman’s first impression of Jesus was that of a loving
father and an athlete in his own right. Jesus Sandoval Jr. was a tall
Mexican—about 5 feet 11—with broad shoulders, a strong back, and
muscular forearms. He clearly paid attention to his physical appear-
ance: Jesus’s beard was well maintained and cropped close to his angu-
lar face. O’Shea liked that: athletic fathers with a sense of self-pride in-
stilled a certain discipline in their sons, which boded well in the ring.
He also liked fathers who looked out for their kids, as not many in that
neighborhood did. Truth be told, not many fathers in that neighbor-
hood stuck around.
O’Shea sympathized with these strong-minded Mexican families. He
admired their courage and spirit, their willingness to work long hours for
lousy pay while still finding time to love their children. The trainer also
knew what lay ahead for young Gabriel if he didn’t find a way to fill his
days. That too he’d seen a hundred times, like with the Hernandez boy.
Willie Hernandez had boxed since he was six years old. By fourteen,
he was a successful amateur, one who used the sport as a means of
avoiding gangs. Willie mouthed off to a gang member in his first year
at Wells High School. The gangster knew better than to fight Willie
and took the cowardly route. Willie was sitting on his stoop when a
carload of thugs drove by. Willie sized up the situation, saw trouble
coming, and took off around a building. But a bullet fired from the car
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 13

Shining City upon a Hill 13

hit a concrete wall and a piece of debris lodged in Willie’s eye. He lost
the eye and with it, his boxing future.
O’Shea made a point of helping kids so they didn’t succumb to
the same fate. Deep down, he wanted to save every one of them. He
knew how to earn their respect and how to unlock each one’s potential.
Boxing was a way to do that. The discipline it required could keep kids
on track, foster self-esteem, physical fitness, and an appreciation for
combat skills, but it couldn’t solve all their problems. Daedalus built
wings for son Icarus, fastened them with wax, and even taught him to
fly, but senior couldn’t keep junior from flying too close to the sun.
O’Shea could teach his kids how to live the right way in this world, but
he couldn’t live for them.
Jesus told his son to go sit on the lone gym bench while he talked to
O’Shea. Theirs was a cordial conversation. Jesus explained that he
worked hard and wasn’t always around. He had brought his family to
the United States for a better life—a concept that O’Shea, a son of
Irish immigrants, could relate to—but the Chicago street gangs made
life rougher than the streets of impoverished Delicias, Mexico. Could
boxing keep Gabriel out of the gangs?
O’Shea explained that boxing was a discipline and not a lifestyle. Yes, he
would keep Gabriel and his other students out of gangs and off the streets,
but the kid had to commit to the regimen. And if young Gabriel was re-
luctant to learn, then he was out; O’Shea wasn’t running a damn daycare.
On the walk home, Jesus told Gabriel that he’d let him learn to box,
but he had to be committed. “It won’t be easy for you, mijo. Those boys
are bigger than you. But you’re a tough hombre. You show them what
you’re made of: You show them where you’re from.” And father gave
son one standing order, an order that he intended for Gabriel to follow
in the gym as well as on the streets: “Mijo, you obey me, and you listen
to your coach.”

To understand boxing and its allure for Mexicans is to comprehend

their plight south of the border as well as the quandaries of immigrants
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 14

14 Standing Eight

who make it into the United States. Most immigrants experience some
degree of desperation, even though Americans downplay their
predicament. A Mexican migrant’s struggle for a better life also includes
an inner struggle between will and circumstance. For some Mexican
immigrants, this struggle is ameliorated by boxing.
Many of the greatest boxers in the world—past and present—are
Mexican, hombres who make a living with their fists. In fact, 37 percent
of the world’s top-ranked fighters are Mexican. Struggle is something
the average Mexican can understand. It is, after all, what many
Mexicans encounter on a daily basis.
Boxing was invented in eighteenth-century England to distinguish
between fights with rules and ordinary brawls. Aristocratic English
gentlemen and nobility promoted the idea of boxing as a “humane”
alternative to dueling. In time boxers were designated as either ama-
teur or professional. Amateur boxing was scored on punches rather
than physical damage to an opponent. That concept was taken further
at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, Missouri, when boxing made
its international debut as a sport.
Professional boxing began with the Queensbury rules set by John
Chambers in 1867. Instead of ending because of a knockout or sheer
exhaustion, fights could then be measured by a scoring system. In 1891
the National Sporting Club of London created nine additional rules
and began promoting professional boxing. The first world title fight
was held a year after these rules were set: Gentleman Jim Corbett
knocked out John L. Sullivan in the twenty-first round at the Pelican
Athletic Club in New Orleans.
In the late nineteenth century, amateur boxing spread among uni-
versities and the U.S. military. The most successful boxers, however,
came from poor city streets. This gentleman’s game became the grand
leveler: a way for poor folk to take it to the wealthy in a legally sanc-
tioned contest. And the distinction resonated even louder for the
underprivileged Mexicans south of the border, where more than half
lived in poverty at the turn of the century. The chance for a better
economic situation, for most, then as now, came with migrating to the
United States.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 15

Shining City upon a Hill 15

Simply moving to the United States is not enough to create a bet-

ter life. Many immigrants have people waiting back home who need
money to survive. Mexican boxers fight a two-front battle for sur-
vival: against their opponents and against destitution. When Mexican
boxing fans cheer for the Mexican boxer, they are cheering a coun-
tryman who shares their struggle and understands their labor. For a
Mexican to beat an opponent in hand-to-hand combat—the most
primitive contest of guts and will—is for a Mexican to demonstrate
superiority through his own resolve. No outlying variables like
poverty or circumstance can disturb the natural order of a fight. Two
men enter and one man leaves a winner. When a Mexican boxer
fights, every Mexican sees some of himself in that fighter. When he
wins, every Mexican wins.
The sport has a way of uniting the country, a commonality often
passed down from one generation to another. In recent times, one
Mexican boxer in particular has embodied the values of a nation: one
who has triumphed on every level of the sport, one whom Mexican
kids grow up idolizing—Julio Cesar Chavez.
The greatest Mexican boxer of all time, Chavez represents the gritty
superhero Mexicans relate to—a man of steel with dirt under his fin-
gernails. He was born in Culiacán in 1962, a dirty, drug-infested town
in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains. Chavez made it a mis-
sion at a very young age to take care of his family and clean up the
town. He felt destined for a better life than what he could expect sell-
ing fruit or drugs.
Chavez’s two older brothers were boxers. Julio liked the action in
the ring and knew he could make a quick buck at it. His first fight, as
an eleven-year-old, was against a fourteen-year-old girl who bullied
the younger boys. This girl had a reputation in town as someone who
kicked ass. When she fought Chavez, he pounded her developing chest
so badly that she gave up boxing. At sixteen, Chavez quit school and
was fighting daily for $6 a bout.
Julio Chavez went pro in 1980 and won his first ninety fights. Known
as the Lion of Culiacán, he was the WBC super featherweight cham-
pion from 1984 to 1987; then he stepped up a weight class and became
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 16

16 Standing Eight

the reigning lightweight champion from 1989 to 1994. But the un-
thinkable was yet to come: Chavez shocked the boxing world when he
gained weight and fought for a third world championship at welter-
weight. He beat Roger Mayweather in 1989 to become the first
Mexican fighter to be a champion at three different weight classes. He
solidified the hearts and minds of the Mexican people with a 1993 vic-
tory over Greg Haugen in front of 130,000 screaming fans at Mexico
City’s Estadio Azteca. It was the largest crowd in boxing history.
Chavez realized that with his success came responsibility. The
Mexican people looked up to him the way they looked to their saints
for guidance and hope. In a Sports Illustrated article in 1993, Chavez
summed up his reasons for boxing: “I am fighting for a whole family,”
he said. “I am a sponge for their problems. It has given me many
worries, this role, but it has matured me. It has stabilized me. It has
made me who I am.”
Oscar De La Hoya is also a boxing champion who came from a
poor family, but Mexican nationals considered him a traitor. De La
Hoya built himself a mansion and became a media darling in later
years, a far cry from the hungry fighter who came from an East Los
Angeles barrio. After Chavez became wealthy, by contrast, he re-
turned to Culiacán and invested in the town, which helped define him
as a philanthropist as well as a boxer. De La Hoya loved the finer
things. He enjoyed reading and listening to classical music while
Chavez preferred sitting in the backyard of his childhood home and
chewing the fat with the locals.
Some Mexicans took offense at De La Hoya’s behavior. He seemed
embarrassed by his roots and took no pride in his culture and heritage;
he was a gringo, a U.S. Olympian golden boy. De La Hoya indeed
felt like part of the Mexican culture, but he had a hard time selling
that image south of the border. And what was more, he became an
American hero. Chavez, on the other hand, was first and foremost
Mexican, so much so that he never bothered to learn English. It typified
his national pride, and the Mexican people treasured his irreverence.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 17

Shining City upon a Hill 17

Tom O’Shea and fellow trainer Sean Curtin were Chicago boxing
icons. They were known not only for making great fighters but for
having a vested interest in assisting inner-city Chicago youths. Stu-
dents of the old school, they believed that the sweet science doubled as
a sure salvation for troubled kids. Their approaches, however, were
different.
O’Shea trained Chicago youths to become good amateur boxers, as
well as upstanding citizens. His tutelage centered on a grander disci-
pline: staying out of harm’s way. O’Shea’s idea for a boxing gym
evolved from a boxing club he started while he was teaching at King
High School, a neighborhood school in the notorious Cabrini-Green
housing project.
He was an English teacher, one of only a few white teachers, who
had a hard time keeping students’ attention. One student in particular,
a muscular black football player named Carmi Williams, used to harass
O’Shea. He’d murmur racial epithets and threaten him. “Man, if you
weren’t a teacher, I’d kick your fuckin’ ass,” he said after class one day
in 1977. O’Shea had enough.
“All right. I’ve got some boxing gloves in the car,” he replied. “If
you’re so tough, meet me in the basement at 3:15. We’ll settle this
once and for all.”
Word spread throughout the school that big, bad Carmi Williams
was going to fight a teacher. When the final bell sounded, Carmi had
an entourage of football and basketball players follow him into the
basement. O’Shea stood by the boiler awaiting his student. He threw
Carmi a pair of boxing gloves, rolled up his sleeves, and donned his
own pair.
They squared up and Carmi began making rookie mistakes. He
went for the knockout shot right out of the gate. The teacher evaded
him and countered with a shot to the gut. Carmi doubled over while
the students in attendance roared. Carmi tried to land a haymaker, and
O’Shea landed another shot to the gut. After the third punch to his
breadbasket, cocky Carmi waived off his smaller, older teacher.
The fight was over, and the days of Carmi Williams harassing
O’Shea were over too. Other students stepped up and wanted the
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 18

18 Standing Eight

medium-framed Irishman to teach them to box. Interest was so perva-

sive that by 1979, about the time Jesus Jr. was swimming the Rio
Grande, O’Shea’s first boxing gym opened around the corner from
Cabrini-Green. Two years later, the gym Gabriel eventually stumbled
on opened in the basement of Eckhart Park’s recreational complex.
The room that would become the boxing gym was used for
training dogs and stank of wet fur and dog urine. But O’Shea didn’t
care. His after-school project had a home. Now he needed a name.
One day some of his students from Cabrini-Green were mulling
over potential names. One boxer piped up with a name that stuck:
“Coach, you’re always telling us to be like a matador. You always say
get out of the way, don’t get hit.” Coach was struck by the image of
the lone matador—the solitary man facing a fierce beast. The mata-
dor was the crowd’s favorite, but he was the vulnerable underdog.
The Matador Gym—and the source of Gabriel’s eventual namesake—
was born.
There was one small ring in the gym, two feet off the floor, but
no free weights. There were a couple of punching bags, but O’Shea
purposefully kept them to a minimum. The repetitive thumping sound
of the heavy bag and the rat-a-tat-tat of the speed bag made too much
noise in that basement echo chamber. Boxers learned by hitting focus
mitts, sparring, shadowboxing, and mirror work.
O’Shea discouraged fighters from going pro. Sean Curtin, on the
other hand, was a more career-oriented trainer. Curtin was a former
army boxer, an official, a coach, and in later years, a Chicago boxing
commissioner. He was concerned with refining natural ability and
discovering whether a pugilist had the tools to become a contender.
Despite their conflicting opinions on boxing as a career, they both had
a keen eye for talent. And they both remember when a preteen named
Gabriel Sandoval started raising eyebrows on the Chicago amateur
boxing circuit.

Gabriel did indeed obey his father and his coach. He dutifully walked
to the gym every day after school, then again on weekends. Even
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 19

Shining City upon a Hill 19

before he had the boxing skills, he had an incredible will. The older
kids from King and Wells High Schools immediately liked Gabriel
even though he was the youngest boxer in the gym. He was funny and
witty. They admired how hard he tried to perfect his English, and they
were even more impressed with his courage. Gabriel would get in the
ring and box anyone: young or old, good or bad, the young boy refused
to back down, even when he was outclassed by more skilled opponents.
O’Shea noticed that the boy enjoyed the battle. The coach cher-
ished that quality. He could teach someone how to box, but he could-
n’t teach someone to love and respect the sport. When the boy got hit,
he wouldn’t back up. He stood in there and fought off the ropes.
Gabriel was aggressive, and he absorbed O’Shea’s advice.
In boxing, when it comes to a stress point—when a fighter is alone
in the ring with an opponent and the coach cannot call time out—the
sport takes on an instinctive quality. Again, O’Shea noticed that
Gabriel had this sixth sense. He could visualize the match in real time.
The boy could tell from an opponent’s footwork and other subtle signs
which shots were coming, and he’d adjust and counterpunch in kind.
As the years passed and Gabriel matured, he became a recognizable
name in Chicago boxing circles at the 112-pound weight class. Sean
Curtin was promoting boxing matches around the city and O’Shea
called his buddy and asked if Gabriel could fight on an amateur card.
Curtin agreed, eager to see this kid in action. O’Shea had gone on at
length about his protégé, and the kid did not disappoint.
The coaches got together after the fight and talked about young
Gabriel’s future. Curtin, who ran the CYO gym on the South Side of
Chicago, thought Gabriel—if properly trained—could mature into a
professional prospect. O’Shea agreed, but he wasn’t about to start en-
couraging young boxers to go pro. The professional boxer to O’Shea
was a sad athlete. “He puts all his eggs in one basket, and the basket
usually breaks.” They differed on Gabriel’s professional future, but
they agreed that the kid had a stellar amateur career ahead of him.
Curtin started coming around the Matador Gym and helping coach
Gabriel. When he was sixteen, the boy won the Chicago Golden
Gloves at 112 pounds. O’Shea and Curtin took the boxer to Spring-
field, Illinois, to fight in the statewide Golden Gloves. Gabriel drew
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 20

20 Standing Eight

the defending champion in the first round and gave opponent Patrick
Byrd the fight of his life before eventually losing the fight. When
Gabriel got to be 119 pounds, some of the other athletes at that weight
class willingly left the division. Gabriel had to spar with the bigger
boys, the 140-plus pounders.
“He had a drive in him that I never had as a fighter,” Curtin recalled.
“It was a drive I wish I had. Nothing ever took away his confidence.”
O’Shea and Curtin were like second and third fathers to the boy. Be-
cause the Sandovals were undocumented immigrants, Gabriel had to
be promoted carefully. Curtin had contacts with a Mexican boxing
club in Tijuana that staffed the Mexican Olympic boxing team, and he
was in talks with a coach to give Gabriel a tryout for the 1992 Olympic
squad. Curtin was sure the kid would make the team and showcase his
talents to an international audience in Barcelona, Spain. But the
trainer was not the only influence pulling on Gabriel.
Chicago’s mean streets were beckoning. Gabriel was a tough
Mexican kid, good with his fists. Simpleminded neighborhood toughs
with street smarts worked on the boxer. They began to show him a life
where knowing the right people made you a neighborhood king.
O’Shea figured Gabriel was already a rock by this point, that the punks
couldn’t sway him. Curtin, however, knew better. He observed the boy
hanging out with locals who were more than just disreputable. These
were gang bangers, and a violent gang to boot. The Harrison Gents, a
mob of black and Hispanic West Siders, was a force to be reckoned
with. Curtin warned Gabriel to stay away from those guys and con-
centrate on boxing. But the streets have a way of deviling a boy, even
one as talented and streetwise as Gabriel.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 21

West Side

C hicago Avenue cuts a broad swath through historically rich and

culturally diverse neighborhoods of the city. The thoroughfare
borders the city’s storied Near North Side, home to a mix of shopping
boutiques and high-end restaurants. To the far west, Chicago Avenue
bisects the affluent suburban Oak Park, best-known as the stomping
grounds of the late architect Frank Lloyd Wright. There, framed by
ancient maples and oaks, sit the Bootleg Houses, distinctive dwellings
designed by Wright while he was employed by Adler & Sullivan, who
forbade the eccentric designer from taking outside commissions. Hence
the name.
In between Oak Park and Lake Michigan, however, Chicago Avenue
in the 1980s and early 1990s straddled a desolate no-man’s land. It was
the Midwestern equivalent of inner-city Baltimore or East Harlem
or Compton. This was the infamous Near West Side, where black,
Hispanic, and Eastern European immigrants lived within a five-mile
radius of one another, each ethnic group carving out its own territory
along Chicago Avenue. The impoverished surroundings contributed
greatly to gang activity.

21
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 22

22 Standing Eight

The nuclear family was a fairy tale. There were no picket fences or
pies cooling on the windowsill. Mothers did not always tend to their
children, and fathers were not always around. Even families that did
live together did not always produce children impervious to delin-
quency. The best parents on the West Side—the ones who immigrated
to the United States, legally or illegally, looking for a better life for
their children—also hailed from this area. They worked grueling
hours under backbreaking conditions for inadequate pay. Their dedi-
cation to their jobs meant that they were not around to ward off the
bad influences on their children.
The lure of the streets made it difficult for hardworking parents to
consistently keep an eye on their kids. The streets beckoned. They
tantalized and titillated. Chicago’s West Side, with Chicago Avenue as
its main artery, had pothole-riddled streets and dilapidated houses and
storefronts. There was no sense of civic pride or community as differ-
ent ethnicities lived near each other but were incapable of coming
together to remedy their common problems.
Foremost, Chicago Avenue offered an escape from domestic discord.
When tempers flared at home and parents screamed, kids bolted for the
street. When dad got hopped up on Old Style beer after work and mom
chain-smoked Dorals in the corner, and the babies wouldn’t stop
screaming and the third notice on the electricity bill threatened pro-
longed darkness and there was no retreat and no recourse, Chicago
Avenue was a constant. And when dad toiled away as a city mainte-
nance hand, working through rain and sleet and snow and through
parent–teacher conferences and stickball games, and when mom was
suffering from a heart condition and her lethargic body could not keep
up with everyone’s comings and goings, the street marauders became a
substitute family. These were the groups that welcomed a troubled
kid as one of their own. Strife was the binding tie. No matter the harsh
realities of home life, there was always a likeminded and like-skinned
group of teenagers who understood family friction. They chose their
own fate as a gang, and their booty resulted from their own labor. They
were a fraternal order with their own initiation rites, their own code of
conduct, and their own support system. When a kid was having trouble
at home, the gang offered sweet salvation, or so it seemed.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 23

West Side 23

The gangs were self-contained. They preyed on unaffiliated teens

like vultures circling fresh carrion, but they didn’t want someone to
join if he wasn’t willing to commit. Gangs were looking for teens with
heart who were willing to prove themselves to join and even abandon
lifelong friends as they crossed over to “the lifestyle.” Someone who
wanted in with a gang had to show how down he was. Only then would
the gang give him a chance to pledge, as it were. Good deeds don’t go
unrewarded, and the street code forces crews to honor and return
favors, even when the reciprocation has the potential to turn violent or
deadly.
The Harrison Gents were one gang among many on Chicago’s
bandit-ridden West and South Sides. They were daredevils. Renegades.
Murderers. Guys who would knife a passerby for fifty cents. They were
feared by the neighborhood adults yet revered by many Wells High
School teenagers. The students were mostly minorities, and many of
the Mexican members came from undocumented immigrant house-
holds. They lived a secret life. On the street and in school, they were
American, touting stylish urban fashions like Starter jackets and Air
Jordans. They listened to rap music.
But messing up on the street and getting mixed up with the author-
ities brought heat on the whole family. If one got pinched, all got
pinched. West Side kids felt alone in the world, afraid to go to their
folks—assuming they were around and they cared—with their fears.
Moms could offer words of encouragement, but the kids had to stay
under the public radar. As for dreams, how big could they be? Each
new day brought new risk, not new hope. All they could wish for
was to be left alone. Becoming a doctor or a lawyer or a professional
athlete was far-fetched for immigrant kids. What happens to a dream
deferred? On the West Side, it dries up.

Once a teenager curried favor with the gang and the brothers decided
that they wanted him as a member, a metamorphosis took place.
His free time became gang time. He began respecting imposed
boundaries—don’t go south of Chicago Avenue on Damen; avoid
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 24

24 Standing Eight

Humboldt Park. When the gang higher-ups deemed him ready for full
membership and he had proved his commitment to the gang’s mis-
sion—whatever it was—initiation rites commenced.
Different gangs had different criteria for new members. Some,
like the Two Two Boys and Vice Lords, observed a practice known as
“jumping” someone in. The initiate arrived at a designated spot like an
alley or an abandoned building, unarmed, and was surrounded by the
waiting brothers. They formed a circle around him and several mem-
bers entered the center. Some words of encouragement were spoken,
more Machiavelli than Lombardi, an explanation about how that kid
was about to become an associate of a select crew, and how the gang
comes before all else: before family, community, God.
Then they beat the teen bloody. It was usually three or more on one
and they beat him into their criminal family. This brutal right of pas-
sage was an act that all new initiates had in common. Taking a severe
beating and having the battle scars to show for it was a way for these
kids to prove their bravado, their heart.
Some gangs required an act of burglary or vandalism to join, while
others put teens to the ultimate test. Jimmy T wanted to prove to the
Vice Lords that he was hard. He was a marked behemoth with scores
of tattoos covering his bulging biceps. His eyes were deeply set and
when he stared, the dark brown irises swam in the bloodshot whites. In
1992, when Jimmy T was sixteen, the gang instructed him to demon-
strate his devotion.
“O.K., it was like this,” he told Time magazine. “They told me,
‘Time to put some work in for your homies. Here’s the gun. There’s
the car. Get up and go, boy.’” Translation: go snuff out some rival gang
bangers. He hesitated, as killing another young man in cold blood was
significantly more serious than the vandalism and schoolyard fights
he’d previously been engaged in for the gang. In the past, his lawless
ways were for show. The big, tough gangster was more like a bleary-
eyed sheep; like an attention-starved child trying to please his parents.
Jimmy T just wanted to impress the gang. The prospect of murder,
however, was like an electric jolt to his consciousness. It plunged
Jimmy T into the West Side’s version of a midlife crisis.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 25

West Side 25

He was so afraid of reprisals if he didn’t do what the Vice Lords

asked, though, that he pulled together what shards of moxie he could
muster, got high, and loaded his TEC-9 handgun. He drove around
the West Side streets in a stolen Honda Prelude looking for targets.
He rode past his high school, past the park he played in as a kid. One
street later, he was behind enemy lines. Jimmy T doggedly observed
the speed limits and stalled for time. He was trying to rationalize his
actions prior to the moment of truth. “I’m thinking, ohhh, man, this
sain’t for me. I’m just tired of this gang banging, and I’m like, real
scared,” he told Time.
But the pressure got to him. Jimmy T rolled up to a random group
of teenagers in enemy territory—kids who may or may not have been
rival gangsters—and fired several 9 millimeter rounds into the unas-
suming crowd. He wounded three people.
As trying as it was to join a gang, it was doubly hard to leave. When
you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet, all the way—Calling it quits was all but
impossible for active members. If a gangster stopped showing up for
meetings or refused to hang out with his brethren, some gangs issued
a BOS order (beat on sight). The Latin Lovers were more gracious:
They at least gave the turncoat a fighting chance, though the ex-mem-
ber usually left the fight via ambulance or black body bag.
The Latin Lovers were one of the West Side’s more vicious Mexican
gangs. They battled for turf with the Harrison Gents from time to
time, but on the whole, the Lovers respected the Gents territory, and
vice versa.
Keith S. informed the Latin Lovers in 1991 that he’d had enough,
that his lawlessness had finally run its course. The gang set up a de-ini-
tiation ceremony for midnight in the shadows of a local park. Much as
the Two Two Boys jumped new members in, the Latin Lovers jumped
them out. Keith S. would have to fight four other members—guys he
used to break bread with and who swore they’d stick by his side no
matter the circumstances—for three minutes. But the gang didn’t need
that much time. The fifteen-year-old buckled after one minute and
then slipped into a coma that lasted fifty-eight days. There was no
community uproar. West Side parents didn’t scream bloody murder,
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 26

26 Standing Eight

and school principals didn’t coordinate antigang task forces. Keith S.

was just another hoodlum who got what he had coming.
Then there was the collateral damage gangs caused. Steven Watts
toed the line throughout high school. Staying out of the gangs wasn’t
easy; life would have had fewer physical confrontations and bullying
had he followed his friends and joined up. He lived in a violent and
gang-riddled section of Chicago’s South Side and was a star football
player who had recently received a full athletic scholarship to Iowa
State University.
Steven was walking home from a high school dance one night when
a carload of gang bangers spotted him and mistook him for a rival
gangster. They opened fire.
Steven was a fast runner—one of Julian High School’s fastest—but
not fast enough. A bullet lodged in his spine. By the time an ambulance
arrived and rushed him to the hospital, Steven Watts was DOA.
Gangs on Chicago’s streets helped bring down the community.
The threat of turf wars and drive-by shootings and the muggings and
robberies contributed to local businesses boarding up and fleeing the
neighborhood. Gangs were the main reason why glass stayed broken
and strewn about the street; why flowers were never planted in the
spring; why as many students dropped out of high school as graduated.
Getting messed up with the Harrison Gents made Gabriel’s boxing fu-
ture take a dramatic and harrowing turn for the worse, and it ended his
formal education.

The Harrison Gents (Gentlemen) was founded by neighborhood

toughs from Harrison Street and Chicago Avenue in the mid-1980s.
Their call sign was a skeleton wearing a top hat and holding a cane.
At first the gang functioned as a social club. Members got together
and smoked weed, passed time in each other’s company, and stayed up
all night when there was no reason to go home. As Chicago’s gang
population grew, the Harrison Gents assumed a thuggish persona.
They began by marking up their territory with gang graffiti. Then
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 27

West Side 27

they marked up their skin. Eventually they graduated to robbing the

local population, fighting, and selling drugs.
Like many Hispanic kids on the West Side, Gabriel Sandoval
discovered the gang when he was sixteen years old. He was known
around the neighborhood as “the boxer,” a bon mot that eventually
served as his gang alias. Gabriel was a standout athlete at Wells
High School. His pugilistic talents were known on the schoolyard and
throughout the neighborhood. The boxer had friends in the
predominantly Latin street gang long before he joined. They hung out
on Harrison Street, not far from Wells High School and the Matador
Gym. The gang did not come calling Gabriel; he sought them out.
Gang culture was socially cool. Gangsta rap emerged on the national
scene with the 1988 release of N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton.”
The rap group spoke of urban blight and gang warfare in Compton,
near Los Angeles, although they could just as easily have been talk-
ing about the Bronx or East Cleveland or Chicago’s West Side. Their
lyrics hit home for urban kids. “When somethin’ happens in South
Central, nothin’ happens,” said lyricist Ice Cube. “It’s just another nigga
dead.”
N.W.A. sang of casual sex and killing cops, of living by the gun and
dying by the bullets. And city kids everywhere bought it. The Harrison
Gents were inspired by N.W.A. and other artists of the time like Ice
T and the Ghetto Boys. The Harrison Gents inspired fear in everyone
in the neighborhood, an emotion that masqueraded on the streets as re-
spect. They openly smoked marijuana and dealt crack. They got girls by
talking like rappers. Gabriel wanted desperately to be one of them.
As he was making his way to the gym one day after school, he ob-
served one of his Harrison Gents buddies getting his ass kicked in a
street fight. The sixteen-year-old boxer intervened and rescued his
friend, beating up the rival gangster in the process. He was instantly
accepted into the Harrison Gents. Gabriel’s boxing prowess and name
recognition in the neighborhood made him a good catch for a street
gang. Of course the gangs didn’t want him to know this. They treated
Gabriel like any other member so the respect wouldn’t go to his head,
except when it came to initiation.
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 28

28 Standing Eight

Like the Two Two Boys, Harrison Gents jumped new members into
the gang. The odds of how many guys would fight the prospect
depended on the physical size of the kid and on how badly he wanted
to be in the gang. Gabriel, however, was not jumped in, most likely
because he could have handled himself against the odds. The Gents
might beat him down en masse, but they knew that a few would get
severely beaten in the process.
He began hanging out with the gangsters outside of school. Gabriel
continued to go to the Matador Gym and train, but he started slack-
ing in the ring. Sometimes he’d bring fellow gang bangers to the gym.
They’d sit in the corner and make comments about the other fighters:
this one had no talent, that one was a pussy. The Harrison Gents
never dared enter the ring themselves; to do so would result in public
humiliation.
Tom O’Shea did not notice Gabriel’s metamorphosis from ring
fighter to street fighter because the boxer continued to work out at the
Matador Gym and listened to O’Shea’s advice. But Sean Curtin knew
that something was wrong even before Gabriel started bringing his
hoodlum friends to the gym.
Curtin used to work with gangsters in a Big Brothers–type pro-
gram. He could sniff out a gang banger. They were a different mold
from other teens. Curtin observed Gabriel riding in cars around the
neighborhood with some of the known thugs, and then he fingered
the criminals when they accompanied Gabriel to the gym as much
by their gang colors and appearance as by their surly demeanor.
Although O’Shea suspected nothing, Curtin noticed that Gabriel’s
ring work was off. The trainer used to spar with the boxers, some-
times slipping a hard counterjab to the chin to let them know he
was there—that a harder, more precise shot was in store for them if
they lost their concentration in the ring. After Gabriel started hang-
ing out with the Gents, Curtin was tattooing him with more hard
rights than usual.
He also came down harder on Gabriel than he had in the past. His
facial expressions became sterner, and he developed a catch in his
voice. But Curtin was not about to tell Gabriel how to live his life. He
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 29

West Side 29

wasn’t his father; he had met Gabriel’s father and knew Jesus was a
stand-up guy. The boy was grounded enough, the trainer thought, to
outgrow those bastards and focus on his boxing. Hopefully the gang
was a phase. Gabriel was well aware, he assumed, that he had a future
in this sport as a professional.

September 25, 1990, was a particularly nippy Tuesday, though the

skies were cloudless and bright. Good September weather for
Chicago. The dry cold made the skin crackle, as the weather had been
warm and sunny just three weeks earlier. The sun made Chicago
Avenue appear misleadingly warm, and students bided their time in the
classrooms until the final bell and freedom.
Wells High School had just let out for the day, and the seventeen-
year-old boxer was making his way down Chicago Avenue toward
Harrison Street to hang out with the gang. He was in fine spirits
because of the clear weather. Some days he took the bus to and from
school, but today looked too nice. He watched the shadows cast by
neighboring buildings from his desk in English class and couldn’t wait
to go outside. Shadows meant that there was sunlight somewhere in
the city. Gabriel figured he’d get some fresh air and stretch his legs
after school.
He carried his schoolbooks home with the intent of doing home-
work that night. Despite his growing involvement with the Harrison
Gents, Gabriel maintained decent grades at Wells. The A’s slipped to
B’s, and the B’s to C’s, but he wasn’t failing any classes. A C student was
like a Rhodes scholar in a street gang.
His plan was to sit around with his boys, shoot the shit, and head
over to the Matador Gym at 4:00 P.M. and get in a good hour and a half
workout before returning home for supper. On the way, Gabriel ran
into fellow gang members Bubba and Saito. They were dressed in
heavy black hooded sweatshirts and wore thick down coats and baggy
black pants. Gabriel wore a hooded sweatshirt, a denim jacket, and his
only pair of sneakers. Bubba and Saito had their hoods pulled up over
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 30

30 Standing Eight

their heads and low enough over their eyes that Gabriel didn’t see
them coming; they saw him first.
“Yo, Boxer, come over here,” Saito called.
Gabriel walked over to the two boys and they exchanged secret
handshakes. The duo seemed a little quieter than normal, a little too
reserved. Saito carried an old black umbrella, the kind available for a
few dollars at the local bodegas. “What you got that here for?” Gabriel
asked, as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“Check it out,” Saito replied. He pulled the polyester fabric open to
reveal the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun. The twin barrels looked like
two black eyes peering from within. Gabriel was surprised but not
shocked. He had seen his share of guns, even though he’d never fired
one. Both Bubba and Saito acted hard, like having that weapon made
them invincible. They started talking tough, about how they were
going to knock off Edmar’s Grocery Store on Chicago Avenue.
“Man, they got a shitload of money in there,” Bubba said. “We hit
that and we’ll be set.” Gabriel asked how they planned to do the
robbery. Bubba explained that they had stolen a van earlier and he’d
be the getaway man. He’d be sitting in front of the store with the en-
gine running. Saito would be the gunman and make whoever was be-
hind the courtesy desk empty the safe into a paper sack. The two did-
n’t mention that they were apprehensive about pulling the caper off in
broad daylight. They wanted a third man to stand sentry while Saito
did the talking. Gabriel seemed like a perfect choice. He was strong
and both gangsters knew the kid had balls. If some customer tried to be
John Wayne, the boxer could kick his ass and Saito wouldn’t have to
discharge his weapon.
“This is gonna be easy,” Saito said. “We’ll be in and out. You should
come along, Boxer. All’s you got to do is watch my back, make sure
fools don’t start trippin’. And then we’ll be rich, ese. We’ll be set up.”
Since joining the gang, Gabriel had shoplifted sodas and chips and
he smoked marijuana, like the other members. This, however, seemed
way different. Saito was talking about a truly violent crime. Armed
robbery was nothing to sneeze at. All three teens knew Harrison Gents
who’d been sent up for the same crime. But Saito made it sound easy.
He spoke with such confidence that Gabriel figured this was the sort of
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 31

West Side 31

thing he should be begging for a piece of. He thought he must be

pretty cool if these guys were asking him to help. “Let’s do this thing,
Boxer,” Bubba said firmly. “Let’s get ours.”
The adrenaline pumped through the boxer and caused his heart to
pound and his chest to hurt. Gabriel was daunted by what he was
thinking of doing, but hell, it would only take a matter of minutes. And
these guys whom he revered would think he’s the baddest. When it was
all over, they’d probably tell everyone about how tough Sandoval was.
How brave. So Gabriel agreed to go along, his apprehension out-
weighed by the excitement of the plan.
Bubba and Saito led the boxer to a delivery van they’d stolen earlier
that day. Inside were spare clothes to put on after the holdup and a
payload full of fresh bread. The inside smelled pleasant, like a bakery.
The target, Edmar’s, was a sprawling storefront with a slew of floor-
to-ceiling windows facing Chicago Avenue, and it was relatively quiet
at that time of day. There was no view, though, as advertisements for
cheap produce and discounted meat were plastered all over the glass.
Bubba and Saito had cased the joint earlier. The store’s courtesy desk
was closest to the front door, making it the closest target because the
store’s registers were off to the side and set some 20 feet back from
the door. Saito’s plan was to stick up the person at the courtesy desk
and demand that they empty the safe under the counter. If the em-
ployee didn’t know the combination, then he or she was to empty the
register behind the desk. Saito figured if he spoke harshly enough and
threatened to use the gun, there shouldn’t be a problem. If he needed
to use the gun, he could (and would). But he really hoped it wouldn’t
get to that point.
As the three drove to the store, Bubba and Saito briefed the boxer on
what he was to do. Eyes. That’s what Saito needed. Keep an eye on
everyone in that store. There was probably a button someone would
press to automatically call the cops, but they wouldn’t be in there long
enough for the Chicago Police Department to mobilize. Make sure no
one snuck up from behind or, worse, pulled their own piece.
They arrived at the grocery store in the stolen delivery van. Bubba
left the engine running. They all had the hoods of their sweatshirts
pulled up over their heads. “You ready, Boxer?” Saito asked, shooting
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 32

32 Standing Eight

a menacing look at Gabriel, as if to say, “You better not fail me!”

Gabriel just nodded. “All right. Let’s go!” Saito opened the sliding
door from the inside and emerged from the van with the sawed-off
shotgun—N.W.A.’s weapon of choice—tucked inside the umbrella.
Gabriel followed him out and slammed the door closed. His blood
was pumping loud enough that he could hear it flowing in his ears.
Shock was beginning to set in.
They walked rapidly into the store and made a beeline for the store’s
courtesy desk. A middle-aged woman stood there by herself. Saito
pulled the gun out from the umbrella and pointed it at the lady’s head.
Her eyes widened and she began to breathe rapidly.
“Empty the fucking safe,” Saito said in a level but forceful voice. She
complied immediately, sticking stacks of money in a paper sack. Saito
kept his eyes trained on her, assuming that the boxer was doing his job
and watching his back. But Gabriel was somewhere else. He didn’t
panic, though he didn’t exactly go to great lengths to watch the cus-
tomers and employees, either. He stood there like a deer in headlights,
too dazed to move.
The scene was surreal to him. Customers were going about their
shopping, and the people at the checkout counter as well as the shop-
pers in the aisles seemingly had no idea what was going on. Everyone
was calm and unsuspecting in the store’s interior while Saito had a
loaded sawed-off shotgun aimed at some poor woman’s head. She fin-
ished loading the bag and placed it on the counter, too afraid to speak.
Saito grabbed the loot, took five steps to his right, and was halfway to
the getaway van. Gabriel gathered himself and trotted after the gun-
man. Saito threw open the sliding side door and jumped as far in as he
could. Gabriel didn’t have a chance to slide the door shut before Bubba
threw it in gear and tore out of there.
The streets were starting to fill with rush hour traffic. Bubba made
a couple of crafty turns, used the side streets like secret passageways,
and maneuvered the stolen van onto a crowded Chicago thorough-
fare. In the far distance, the three could hear police sirens, but they
were faint and getting fainter. They’d made it. Bubba and Saito
whooped it up in the van when they were sure the sirens weren’t
0306814544-01.qxd 2/22/06 8:23 AM Page 33

West Side 33

headed in their direction. The boxer forced a smile. He tried to act

just as euphoric as his partners in crime even though inside, his con-
science was already hard at work. He could still see the lady’s eyes and
the fear on her face. The poor thing was absolutely terrified, and she
wouldn’t recover from that double-barrel shotgun in her mug any-
time soon.
They parked in a vacant lot miles from the crime scene and counted
their score: $3,600. The money was divided up on the spot: Bubba
thought it best to split it right away in case the authorities came look-
ing for it. Each participant received $1,200.
Gabriel told the guys he needed to get to the gym or the trainers
might suspect something. The guys agreed and he was dropped off
about a block away. The boxer walked in meekly with his head low-
ered. He went into the locker room and changed, stowed his gym
bag—now $1,200 more valuable—and then emerged and jumped in
the practice ring, where Curtin stood waiting.
He trained that day, dutifully obeying his coach but not punching
very hard. Nor were his movements particularly sharp. Curtin knew
something was wrong immediately, though he said nothing. Gabriel
could come to him if he needed to talk. And indeed he did, though not
for another week and a half, and not until he had spent the robbery
money on clothes and boxing equipment.
Both the trainer and the boxer were changing in the locker room
after their workout one day. All of a sudden, Gabriel plopped down
onto the bench and stared vacantly at the floor. Curtin finally spoke up.
“What’s wrong with you, kid?” the trainer asked. Gabriel continued
to stare down while he wrestled with his secret. His conscience was
killing him. Feelings of guilt and remorse pushed out all other
thoughts. He needed to tell someone.
“I can’t believe what I did last week,” he finally said. Curtin sat down
on the bench next to his boxer and leaned his head in close.
“What did you do, Gabriel?” Curtin queried softly but firmly.
“I helped rob Edmar’s.”
The trainer put a foot up on the bench and grabbed his knee. He
let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. Sean Curtin had been
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 These—namely, the cylinder, the condenser, and the air-pump—
were the three principal parts in the invention, as it first presented
itself to the mind of Watt—and even before it was reduced to a
model, or submitted to experiment. But, in addition to these, other
two improvements offered themselves in the very first stage of its
progress.
In the atmospheric engine, the piston was maintained steam-tight
in the cylinder by supplying a stream of cold water above it, by
which the small interstices between the piston and cylinder would be
stopped. It is evident that the effect of this water as the piston
descended would be to cool the cylinder, besides which any portion
of it which might pass between the piston and cylinder and which
would pass below the piston, would boil the moment it would fall
into the cylinder, which itself would be maintained at the boiling
temperature. This water, therefore, would produce steam, the
pressure of which would resist the descent of the piston.
Watt perceived, that even though this inconvenience were
removed by the use of oil or tallow upon the piston, still, that as the
piston would descend in the cylinder, the cold atmosphere would
follow it; and would, to a certain extent, lower the temperature of
the cylinder. On the next ascent of the piston, this temperature
would have to be again raised to 212° by the steam coming from the
boiler, and would entail upon the machine a proportionate waste of
power.
If the atmosphere of the engine-house could be kept heated to
the temperature of boiling water, this inconvenience would be
removed. The piston would then be pressed down by air as hot as
the steam to be subsequently introduced into it. On further
consideration, however, it occurred to Watt that it would be still
more advantageous if the cylinder itself could be [Pg124] worked in an
atmosphere of steam, having only the same pressure as the
atmosphere. Such steam would press the piston down as effectually
as the air would; and it would have the further advantage over air,
that if any portion of it leaked through between the piston and
cylinder, it would be condensed, which could not be the case with
atmospheric air. He therefore determined on surrounding the
cylinder by an external casing, the space between which and the
cylinder he proposed to be filled with steam supplied from the boiler.
The cylinder would thus be enclosed in an atmosphere of its own,
independent of the external air, and the vessel so enclosing it would
only require to be a little larger than the cylinder, and to have a close
cover at the top, the centre of which might be perforated with a hole
to admit the rod of the piston to pass through, the rod being made
smooth, and so fitted to the perforation that no steam should escape
between them. This method would be attended also with the
advantage of keeping the cylinder and piston always heated, not
only inside but outside; and Watt saw that it would be further
advantageous to employ the pressure of steam to drive the piston in
its descent instead of the atmosphere, as its intensity or force would
be much more manageable; for, by increasing or diminishing the
heat of the steam in which the cylinder was enclosed, its pressure
might be regulated at pleasure, and it might be made to urge the
piston with any force that might be required. The power of the
engine would therefore be completely under control, and
independent of all variations in the pressure of the atmosphere.

(70.)

This was a step which totally changed the character of the machine,
and which rendered it a STEAM ENGINE instead of an ATMOSPHERIC
ENGINE. Not only was the vacuum below the piston now produced by
the property of steam, in virtue of which it is reconverted into water
by cold; but the pressure which urged the piston into this vacuum
was due to the elasticity of steam.
The external cylinder, within which the working cylinder was
enclosed, was called THE JACKET, and is still very generally used.
 Fig. 20.

(71.)

The first experiment in which Watt attempted to [Pg125] realise, on a

small scale, his conceptions, was made in the following manner. The
cylinder of the engine was represented by a brass syringe A B (fig.
20.) an inch and a third in diameter, and ten inches in length, to
which a top and a bottom of tin plate was fitted. Steam was
conveyed by a pipe, S, from a small boiler into the lower end of this
syringe, a communication being made with the upper end of the
syringe by a branch pipe D. For the greater convenience of the
experiment, it was found desirable to invert the position of the
cylinder, so that the steam should press the piston P upwards instead
of downwards. The piston-rod R therefore was presented
downwards. An eduction pipe E was also inserted in the top of the
cylinder, which was carried to the condenser. The piston-rod was
made hollow, or rather a hole was drilled longitudinally through it,
and a valve was fitted at its lower end, to carry off the water
produced by the steam, which [Pg126] would be condensed in the
cylinder in the commencement of the process. The condenser used
in this experiment operated without injection, the steam being
condensed by the contact of cold surfaces. It consisted of two thin
pipes F, G of tin, ten or twelve inches in length, and the sixth of an
inch in diameter, standing beside each other perpendicularly, and
communicating at the top with the eduction pipe, which was
provided with a valve opening upwards. At the bottom these two
pipes communicated with another tube I of about an inch in
diameter, by a horizontal pipe, having in it a valve, M, opening
towards I, fitted with a piston K, which served the office of the air-
pump, being worked by the hand. This piston, K, had valves in it
opening upwards. These condensing pipes and air-pump were
immersed in a small cistern, filled with cold water. The steam was
conveyed by the steam-pipe S to the bottom of the cylinder, a
communication between the top and bottom of the cylinder being
occasionally opened by a cock, C, placed in the branch pipe. The
eduction pipe leading to the condenser also had a cock, L, by which
the communication between the top of the cylinder and the
condenser might be opened and closed at pleasure. In the
commencement of the operation, the cock N admitting steam from
the boiler, and the cock L opening a communication between the
cylinder and the condenser, and the cock C opening a communication
between the top and bottom of the cylinder, being all open, steam
rushed from the boiler, passing through all the pipes, and filling the
cylinder. A current of mixed air and steam was thus produced
through the eduction pipe E, through the condensing pipes F and G,
and through the air-pump I, which issued from the valve H in the
eduction pipe, and from the valve in the air-pump piston, all of
which opened upwards. The steam also in the cylinder passed
through the hole drilled in the piston-rod, and escaped, mixed with
air, through the valve in the lower end of that rod. This process was
continued until all the air in the cylinder, pipes, and condenser, was
blown out, and all these spaces filled with pure steam. The cocks L,
C, and N, were then closed, and the atmospheric pressure closed the
valve H and the valves in the air-pump piston. The cold surfaces
condensing the steam in [Pg127] the pipes F and G, and in the lower
part of the air-pump, a vacuum was produced in these spaces. The
cock C being now closed, and the cocks L and N being open, the
steam in the upper part of the cylinder rushed through the pipe E
into the condenser, where it was reduced to water, so that a vacuum
was left in the upper part of the cylinder. The steam from the boiler
passing below the piston, pressed it upwards with such force, that it
lifted a weight of eighteen pounds hung from the end of the piston-
rod. When the piston reached the top of the cylinder, the cocks L
and N were closed, and the cock C opened. All communication
between the cylinder and the boiler, as well as between the cylinder
and the condenser, were now cut off, and the steam in the cylinder
circulated freely above and below the piston, by means of the open
tube D. The piston, being subject to equal forces upwards and
downwards, would therefore descend by its own weight, and would
reach the bottom of the cylinder. The air-pump piston meanwhile
being drawn up, the air and the condensed steam in the tubes F and
G were drawn into the air-pump I, through the open horizontal tube
at the bottom. Its return was stopped by the valve M. By another
stroke of the air-pump, this water and air were drawn out through
valves in the piston, which opened upwards. The cock C was now
closed, and the cocks L and N opened, preparatory to another stroke
of the piston. The steam in the upper part of the cylinder rushed, as
before, into the tubes F and G, and was condensed by their cold
surfaces, while steam from the boiler coming through the pipe S,
pressed the piston upwards. The piston again ascended with the
same force as before, and in the same manner the process was
continually repeated.

(72.)
The quantity of steam expended in this experimental model in the
production of a given number of strokes of the piston was inferred
from the quantity of water evaporated in the boiler; and on
comparing this with the magnitude of the cylinder and the weight
raised by the pressure of the steam, the contrivance was proved to
affect the economy of steam, as far as the imperfect conditions of
such a model could have permitted. A larger model was next
constructed, having an outer cylinder, or steam case, surrounding
the working cylinder, and [Pg128] the experiments made with it fully
realised Watt's expectations, and left no doubt of the great
advantages which would attend his invention. The weights raised by
the piston proved that the vacuum in the cylinder produced by the
condensation was almost perfect; and he found that when he used
water in the boiler which by long boiling had been well cleared of air,
the weight raised was not much less than the whole amount of the
pressure of the steam upon the piston. In this larger model, the
cylinder was placed in the usual position, with a working lever and
other apparatus similar to that employed in the Atmospheric Engine.

(73.)

It was in the beginning of the year 1765, Watt being then in the
twenty-ninth year of his age, that he arrived at these great
discoveries. The experimental models just described, by which his
invention was first reduced to a rude practical test, were fitted up at
a place called Delft House, in Glasgow. It will doubtless, at the first
view, be a matter of surprise that improvements of such obvious
importance in the economy of steam power, and capable of being
verified by tests so simple, were not immediately adopted wherever
atmospheric engines were used. At the time, however, referred to,
Watt was an obscure artisan, in a provincial town, not then arrived
at the celebrity to which it has since attained, and the facilities by
which inventions and improvements became public were much less
than they have since become. It should also be considered that all
great and sudden advances in the useful arts are necessarily
opposed by the existing interests with which their effects are in
conflict. From these causes of opposition, accompanied with the
usual influence of prejudice and envy, Watt was not exempt, and
was not therefore likely suddenly to revolutionise the arts and
manufactures of the country by displacing the moving powers
employed in them, and substituting an engine, the efficacy and
power of which depended mainly on physical principles, then
altogether new and but imperfectly understood.
Not having the command of capital, and finding it impracticable to
inspire those who had, with the same confidence in the advantages
of his invention which he himself felt, he was [Pg129] unable to take
any step towards the construction of engines on a large scale. Soon
after this, he gave up his shop in Glasgow, and devoted himself to
the business of a Civil Engineer. In this capacity he was engaged to
make a survey of the river Clyde, and furnished an elaborate and
valuable Report upon its projected improvements. He was also
engaged in making a plan of the canal, by which the produce of the
Monkland Colliery was intended to be carried to Glasgow, and in
superintending the execution of that work. Besides these, several
other engineering enterprises occupied his attention, among which
may be mentioned, the navigable canal across the isthmus of Crinan,
afterwards completed by Rennie; improvements proposed in the
ports of Ayr, Glasgow, and Greenock; the construction of the bridges
at Hamilton, and at Rutherglen; and the survey of the country
through which the celebrated Caledonian canal was intended to be
carried.
"If, forgetful of my duties as the organ of this academy," says M.
Arago (whose eloquent observations on the delays of this great
invention, addressed to the assembled members of the National
Institute of France, we cannot forbear to quote), "I could think of
making you smile, rather than expressing useful truths, I would find
here matter for a ludicrous contrast. I would call to your recollection
the authors, who at our weekly sittings demand with all their might
and main (à cor et à cris) an opportunity to communicate some little
remark—some small reflection—some trifling note, conceived and
written the night before; I would represent them to you cursing their
fate, when according to your rules, the reading of their
communication is postponed to the next meeting, although during
this cruel week, they are assured that their important
communication is deposited in our archives in a sealed packet. On
the other hand, I would point out to you the creator of a machine,
destined to form an epoch in the annals of the world, undergoing
patiently and without murmur, the stupid contempt of capitalists,—
conscious of his exalted genius, yet stooping for eight years to the
common labour of laying down plans, taking levels, and all the
tedious calculations connected with the routine of common
engineering. While in this conduct you cannot fail to recognise the
serenity, [Pg130] the moderation, and the true modesty of his
character, yet such indifference, however noble may have been its
causes, has something in it not altogether blameless. It is not
without reason that society visits with severe reprobation those who
withdraw gold from circulation and hoard it in their coffers. Is he less
culpable who deprives his country, his fellow citizens, his age, of
treasures a thousand times more precious than the produce of the
mine; who keeps to himself his immortal inventions, sources of the
most noble and purest enjoyment of the mind, who abstains from
conferring upon labour those powers, by which would be multiplied
in an infinite proportion the products of industry, and by which, with
advantage to civilisation and human nature, he would smooth away
the inequalities of the conditions of man."[19]

(74.)

Although Watt was thus attracted by pursuits foreign to his recent

investigations respecting the improvement of steam power, he never
lost sight of that object. It was not until the year 1768, three years
after his great discoveries, that any step was taken to enable him to
carry them into effect on a large scale. At that time his friends
brought him into communication with Dr. Roebuck, the proprietor of
the Carron Iron Works, who rented extensive coal works at Kinneal
from the Duchess of Hamilton. Watt was first employed by Roebuck
as a civil engineer; but when he made known to him the
improvements he had projected in the steam engine, Roebuck
proposed to take out a patent for an engine on the principle of the
model which had been fitted up at Delft House, and to join Watt in a
partnership, for the construction of such engines. Sensible of the
advantages to be derived from the influence of Roebuck, and from
his command of capital, Watt agreed to cede to him two thirds of
the advantages to be derived from the invention. A patent was
accordingly taken out on the fifth of January, 1769, nearly four years
after the invention had been completed; and an experimental engine
on a large scale was constructed by him, and fitted up at Kinneal
House. In the first trial this machine more than fulfilled Watt's
anticipations. Its [Pg131] success was complete. In the practical details
of its construction, however, some difficulties were still encountered,
the greatest of which consisted in packing the piston, so as to be
steam-tight. The principle of the new engine did not admit of water
being kept upon the piston, to prevent leakage, as in the old
engines; he was therefore obliged to have his cylinders much more
accurately bored, and more truly cylindrical, and to try a great
variety of soft substances for packing the piston, which would make
it steam-tight without great friction, and maintain it so in a situation
perfectly dry, and at the temperature of boiling water.
While Watt was endeavouring to overcome these and other
difficulties, in the construction of the machine, his partner, Dr.
Roebuck, became embarrassed, by the failure of his undertaking in
the Borrowstowness coal and salt works; and he was unable to
supply the means of prosecuting with the necessary vigour the
projected manufacture of the new engines.
The important results of Watt's labours having happily at this time
become more publicly known, Mr. Matthew Boulton, whose
establishment at Soho, near Birmingham, was at that time the most
complete manufactory for metal-work in England, and conducted
with unexampled enterprise and spirit, proposed to purchase Dr.
Roebuck's interest in the patent. This arrangement was effected in
the year 1773, and in the following year Mr. Watt removed to Soho,
where a portion of the establishment was allotted to him, for the
erection of a foundery, and other works necessary to realise his
inventions on a grand scale.
The patent which had been granted in 1769 was limited to a
period of fourteen years, and would consequently expire about the
year 1783. From the small progress which had hitherto been made
in the construction of engines upon the new principle, and from the
many difficulties still to be encountered, and the large expenditure of
capital which must obviously be incurred before any return could be
obtained, it was apparent that unless an extension of the patent
right could be obtained, Boulton and Watt could never expect any
advantage adequate to the risk of their great [Pg132] enterprise. In the
year 1774 an application was accordingly made to parliament for an
extension of the patent, which was supported by the testimony of
Dr. Roebuck, Mr. Boulton, and others, as to the merits and probable
utility of the invention. An Act was accordingly passed, in 1775,
extending the term of the patent until the year 1800.

(75.)

The following abstract of this Act may not be uninteresting at this

time, when the anticipations expressed in it have been so
successfully and extensively realised:—
"An Act for vesting in James Watt, engineer, his executors,
administrators, and assigns, the sole use and property of certain
steam engines, commonly called fire engines, of his invention,
throughout his majesty's dominions, for a limited time:
"And whereas the said James Watt hath employed many years,
and a considerable part of his fortune, in making experiments upon
steam engines, commonly called fire engines, with a view to improve
those very useful machines, by which several very considerable
advantages over the common steam engines are acquired; but upon
account of the many difficulties which always arise in the execution
of such large and complex machines, and of the long time requisite
to make the necessary trials, he could not complete his intention
before the end of the year 1774, when he finished some large
engines as specimens of his construction, which have succeeded, so
as to demonstrate the utility of the said invention:
"And whereas, in order to manufacture these engines with the
necessary accuracy, and so that they may be sold at moderate
prices, a considerable sum of money must be previously expended in
erecting mills and other apparatus; and as several years and
repeated proofs will be required before any considerable part of the
public can be fully convinced of the utility of the invention, and of
their interest to adopt the same, the whole term granted by the said
letters patent may probably elapse before the said James Watt can
receive an advantage adequate to his labour and invention:
"And whereas, by furnishing mechanical power at much less
expense, and in more convenient forms, than has hitherto been
done, his engines may be of great utility, in facilitating [Pg133] the
operations in many great works and manufactures of this kingdom;
yet it will not be in the power of the said James Watt to carry his
invention into that complete execution which he wishes, and so as to
render the same of the highest utility to the public of which it is
capable, unless the term granted by the said letters patent be
prolonged, and his property in the said invention secured for such
time as may enable him to obtain an adequate recompense for his
labour, time, and expense:
"To the end, therefore, that the said James Watt may be enabled
and encouraged to prosecute and complete his said invention, so
that the public may reap all the advantages to be derived therefrom
in their fullest extent: it is enacted,
"That from and after the passing of this Act, the sole privilege and
advantage of making, constructing, and selling the said engines
hereinbefore particularly described, within the kingdom of Great
Britain, and his majesty's colonies and plantations abroad, shall be,
and are hereby declared to be, vested in the said James Watt, his
executors, administrators, and assigns, for and during the term of
twenty-five years," &c. &c.

(76.)

Thus protected and supported, Watt now directed the whole vigour
of his mind to perfect the practical details of his invention, and the
result was, the construction on a large scale of the engine which has
since been called his Single acting Steam Engine.
It is necessary to recollect, that notwithstanding the extensive and
various application of steam power in the arts and manufactures, at
the time to which our narrative has now reached, the steam engine
had never been employed for any other purpose save that of raising
water by working pumps. The motion, therefore, which was required
was merely an upward force, such as was necessary to elevate the
piston of a pump, loaded with the column of water which it raised.
The following then is a description of the improved engine of Watt,
by which such work was proposed to be performed:—
Fig. 21.
 In the cylinder represented at C (fig. 21.), the piston P moves
steam-tight. It is closed at the top, and the piston [Pg134] rod, being
accurately turned, runs in a steam-tight collar, B, furnished with a
stuffing-box, and is constantly lubricated with melted tallow. A
funnel is screwed into the top of the cylinder, through which, by
opening a stop-cock, melted [Pg135] tallow is permitted from time to
time to fall upon the piston within the cylinder, so as to lubricate it,
and keep it steam-tight. Two boxes, A A, called the upper and lower
steam boxes, contain valves by which steam from the boiler may be
admitted and withdrawn. These steam boxes are connected by a
tube of communication T, and they communicate with the cylinder at
the top and bottom by short tubes represented in the figure. The
upper steam box A contains one valve, by which a communication
with the boiler may be opened or closed at pleasure. The lower valve
box contains two valves. The lower valve I communicates with the
tube T′, leading to the condenser D, which being opened or closed, a
communication is made or cut off at pleasure, between the cylinder
C and the condenser D. A second valve, or upper valve H, which is
represented closed in the figure, may be opened so as to make a
free communication between the cylinder C and the tube T, and by
that means between the cylinder C, below the piston and the space
above the piston. The condenser D is submerged in a cistern of cold
water. At the side there enters it a tube, E, governed by a cock,
which being opened or closed to any required extent, a jet of cold
water may be allowed to play in the condenser, and may be
regulated or stopped, at pleasure. This jet, when playing, throws the
water upwards in the condenser towards the mouth of the tube T′,
as water issues from the rose of a watering pot. The tube S proceeds
from the boiler, and terminates in the steam box A, so that the
steam supplied from the boiler constantly fills that box. The valve G
is governed by levers, whose pivots are attached to the framing of
the engine, and is opened or closed at pleasure, by raising or
lowering the lever G′. The valve G, when open, will therefore allow
steam to pass from the boiler through the short tube to the top of
the piston, and this steam will also fill the tube T. If the lower valve
H be closed, its circulation beyond that point will be stopped; but if
the valve H be open, the valve I being closed, then the steam will
circulate equally in the cylinder, above and below the piston. If the
valve I be open, then steam will rush through the tube T′ into the
condenser; but this escape of the steam will be [Pg136] stopped, if the
valve I be closed. The valve H is worked by the lever H′, and the
valve I by the lever I′.
The valve G is called the upper steam valve, H the lower steam
valve, I the exhausting valve, and E the condensing valve.
From the bottom of the condenser D proceeds a tube leading to
the air-pump, which is also submerged in the cistern of cold water.
In this tube is a valve M, which opens outwards from the condenser
towards the air-pump. In the piston of the air-pump N is a valve
which opens upwards. The piston-rod Q of the air-pump is attached
to a beam of wood called a plug frame, which is connected with the
working beam by a flexible chain playing on the small arch-head
immediately over the air-pump. From the top of the air-pump barrel
above the piston proceeds a pipe or passage leading to a small
cistern, B, called the hot well. The pipe which leads to this well, is
supplied with a valve, K, which opens outwards from the air pump
barrel towards the well. From the nature of its construction, the
valve M admits the flow of water from the condenser towards the
air-pump, but prevents its return; and, in like manner, the valve K
admits the flow of water from the upper part of the air-pump barrel
into the hot well B, but obstructs its return.
Let us now consider how these valves should be worked in order
to move the piston upwards and downwards with the necessary
force. It is in the first place necessary that all the air which fills the
cylinder, the tubes and the condenser shall be expelled. To
accomplish this it is only necessary to open at once the three valves
G, H, and I. The steam then rushing from the boiler through the
steam-pipe S, and the open valve G will pass into the cylinder above
the piston, will fill the tube T, pass through the lower steam valve H,
will fill the cylinder C below the piston, and will pass through the
open valve I into the condenser. If the valve E be closed so that no
jet shall play in the condenser, the steam rushing into it will be
partially condensed by the cold surfaces to which it will be exposed;
but if the boiler supply it through the pipe S in sufficient abundance,
it will rush with violence through the cylinder and all the passages,
and its pressure in the [Pg137] condenser D, combined with that of the
heated air with which it is mixed, will open the valve M, and it will
rush through mixed with the air into the air-pump barrel N. It will
press the valves in the air-pump piston upwards, and, opening them,
will rush through, and will collect in the air-pump barrel above the
piston. It will then, by its pressure, open the valve K, and will escape
into the cistern B.
Throughout this process the steam, which mixed with the air fills
the cylinder, condenser and air-pumps will be only partially
condensed in the last two, and it will escape mixed with air through
the valve K, and this process will continue until all the atmospheric
air which at first filled the cylinder, tubes, condenser and air-pump
barrel shall be expelled through the valve K, and these various
spaces shall be filled with pure steam. When that has happened let
us suppose all the valves closed. In closing the valve I the flow of
steam to the condenser will be stopped, and the steam contained in
it will speedily be condensed by the cold surface of the condenser, so
that a vacuum will be produced in the condenser, the condensed
steam falling in the form of water to the bottom. In like manner, and
for like reasons, a vacuum will be produced in the air-pump. The
valve M, and the valves in the air-pump piston will be closed by their
own weight.
By this process, which is called blowing through, the atmospheric
air, and other permanent gases, which filled the cylinder, tubes,
condenser and air-pump are expelled, and these spaces will be a
vacuum. The engine is then prepared to be started, which is effected
in the following manner:—The upper steam valve G is opened, and
steam allowed to flow from the boiler through the passage leading
to the top of the cylinder. This steam cannot pass to the bottom of
the cylinder, since the lower steam valve H is closed. The space in
the cylinder below the piston being therefore a vacuum, and the
steam pressing above it the piston will be pressed downwards with a
corresponding force. When it has arrived at the bottom of the
cylinder the steam valve G must be closed, and at the same time the
valve H opened. The valve I leading to the condenser being also
closed, the steam [Pg138] which fills the cylinder above the piston is
now admitted to circulate through the open valve H below the
piston, so that the piston is pressed equally upwards and downwards
by steam, and there is no force to resist its movement save its
friction with the cylinder. The weight of the pump rods on the
opposite end of the beam being more than equivalent to overcome
this the piston is drawn to the top of the cylinder, and pushes before
it the steam which is drawn through the tube T, and the open valve
H, and passes into the cylinder C below the piston.

When the piston has thus arrived once more at the top of the
cylinder, let the valve H be closed, and at the same time the valves G
and I opened, and the condensing cock E also opened, so as to
admit the jet to play in the condenser. The steam which fills the
cylinder C below the piston, will now rush through the open valve I
into the condenser which has been hitherto a vacuum, and there
encountering the jet, will be instantly converted into water, and a
mixture of condensed steam and injected water will collect in the
bottom of the condenser. At the same time, the steam proceeding
from the boiler by the steam pipe S to the upper steam box A, will
pass through the open steam valve G to the top of the piston, but
cannot pass below it because of the lower steam valve H being
closed. The piston, thus acted upon above by the pressure of the
steam, and the space in the cylinder below it being a vacuum, its
downward motion is resisted by no force but the friction, and it is
therefore driven to the bottom of the cylinder. During its descent the
valves G, I, and E remained open. At the moment it arrives at the
bottom of the cylinder, all these three valves are closed, and the
valve H opened. The steam which fills the cylinder above the piston
is now permitted to circulate below it, by the open valve H, and the
piston being consequently pressed equally upwards and downwards
will be drawn upwards as before by the preponderance of the pump
rods at the opposite end of the beam. The weight of these rods
must also be sufficiently great to draw the air-pump piston N
upwards. As this piston rises in the air-pump, it leaves a vacuum
below it into which the water and air collected in the condenser will
be drawn through the valve M, which opens outwards. When the
[Pg139] air-pump piston has arrived at the top of the barrel, which it

will do at the same time that the steam piston arrives at the top of
the cylinder, the water and the chief part of the air or other fluids
which may have been in the condenser will be drawn into the barrel
of the air-pump, and the valve M being closed by its own weight,
assisted by the pressure of these fluids they cannot return into the
condenser. At the moment the steam piston arrives at the top of the
cylinder, the valve H is closed, and the three valves G, I, and E are
opened. The effect of this change is the same as was already
described in the former case, and the piston will in the same manner
and from the same causes be driven downwards. The air-pump
piston will at the same time descend by the force of its own weight,
aided by the weight of the plug-frame attached to its rod. As it
descends, the air below it will be gradually compressed above the
surface of the water in the bottom of the barrel, until its pressure
becomes sufficiently great to open the valves in the air-pump piston.
When this happens, the valves in the air-pump piston, as
represented on a large scale in fig. 22., will be opened, and the air
will pass through them above the piston. When the piston comes in
contact with the water in the bottom of the barrel, this water will
likewise pass through the open valves. When the piston has arrived
at the bottom of the air-pump barrel, the valves in it will be closed
by the pressure of the fluids above them. The next ascent of the
steam piston will draw up the air-pump piston, and with it the fluids
in the pump barrel above it. As the air-pump [Pg140] piston approaches
the top of its barrel, the air and water above it will be drawn through
the valve K into the hot cistern B. The air will escape in bubbles
through the water in that cistern, and the warm water will be
deposited in it.
The magnitude of the
opening in the condensing
valve E, must be regulated by
the quantity of steam
admitted to the cylinder. As
much water ought to be
supplied through the injection
valve as will be sufficient to
condense the steam
contained in the cylinder, and
also to reduce the
temperature of the water
itself, when mixed with the
steam, to a sufficiently low
degree to prevent it from
producing vapour of a
pressure which would Fig. 22.
injuriously affect the working
of the piston. It has been shown, that five and a half cubic inches of
ice-cold water mixed with one cubic inch of water in the state of
steam would produce six and a half cubic inches of water at the
boiling temperature. If then the cylinder contained one cubic inch of
water in the state of steam, and only five and a half cubic inches of
water were admitted through the condensing jet, supposing this
water, when admitted, to be at the temperature of 32°, then the
consequence would be that six and a half cubic inches of water at
the boiling temperature would be produced in the condenser. Steam
would immediately arise from this, and at the same time the
temperature of the remaining water would be lowered by the
amount of the latent heat taken up by the steam so produced. This
vapour would rise through the open exhausting valve I, would fill the
cylinder below the piston, and would impair the efficiency of the
steam above pressing it down. The result of the inquiries of Watt
respecting the pressure of steam at different temperatures, showed,
that to give efficiency to the steam acting upon the piston it would
always be necessary to reduce the temperature of the water in the
condenser to 100°.
Let us then see what quantity of water at the common
temperature would be necessary to produce these effects.
If the latent heat of steam be taken at 1000°, a cubic inch of
water in the state of steam may be considered for the purposes of
this computation, as equivalent to one cubic inch of water at 1212°.
Now the question is, how many cubic inches of water at 60° must be
mixed with this, in order that the [Pg141] mixture may have the
temperature of 100°? This will be easily computed. As the cubic inch
of water at 1212° is to be reduced to 100°, it must be deprived of
1112° of its temperature. On the other hand, as many inches of
water at 60° as are to be added, must be raised in the same mixture
to the temperature of 100°, and therefore each of these must
receive 40° of temperature. The number of cubic inches of water
necessary to be added will therefore be determined by finding how
often 40° are contained in 1112°. If 1112 be divided by 40, the
quotient will be 27·8. Hence it appears, that to reduce the water in
the condenser to the temperature of 100°, supposing the
temperature of the water injected to be 60°, it will be necessary to
supply by the injection cock very nearly twenty-eight times as much
water as passes through the cylinder in the state of steam; and
therefore if it be supposed that all the water evaporated in the boiler
passes through the cylinder, it follows that about twenty-eight times
as much water must be thrown into the condenser as is evaporated
in the boiler.
From these circumstances it will be evident that the cold cistern in
which the condenser and air-pump are submerged, must be supplied
with a considerable quantity of water. Independently of the quantity
drawn from it by the injection valve, as just explained, the water in
the cistern itself must be kept down to a temperature of about 60°.
The interior of the condenser and air-pump being maintained by the
steam condensed in them at a temperature not less than 100°; the
outer surfaces of these vessels consequently impart heat to the
water in the cold cistern, and have therefore a tendency to raise the
temperature of that water. To prevent this, a pump called the cold
pump, represented at L in fig. 21., is provided. By this pump water is
raised from any convenient reservoir, and driven through proper
tubes into the cold cistern. This cold pump is wrought by the engine,
the rod being attached to the beam. Water being, bulk for bulk,
heavier the lower its temperature, it follows that the water supplied
by the cold pump to the cistern will have a tendency to sink to the
bottom, pressing upwards the warmer water contained in it. A
waste-pipe is provided, by which this [Pg142] water is drained off, and
the cistern therefore maintained at the necessary temperature.
From what has been stated, it is also evident that the hot well B,
into which the warm water is thrown by the air-pump, will receive
considerably more water than is necessary to feed the boiler. A
waste-pipe, to carry off this, is also provided; and the quantity
necessary to feed the boiler is pumped up by a small pump, O, the
rod of which is attached to the beam, as represented in fig. 21., and
which is worked by the engine. The water raised by this pump is
conducted to a reservoir from which the boiler is fed, by means
which will be hereafter explained.
We shall now explain the manner in which the machine is made to
open and close the valves at the proper times. By referring to the
explanation already given, it will be perceived that at the moment
the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, the upper steam valve G
must be open, to admit the steam to press it down; while the
exhausting valve I must be opened, to allow the steam to pass to
the condenser; and the condensing valve E must be opened, to let in
the water necessary for the condensation of the steam; and at the
same time the lower steam valve H must be closed, to prevent the
passage of the steam which has been admitted through G. The
valves G, I, and E must be kept open, and the valve H kept closed,
until the piston arrives at the bottom of the cylinder, when it will be
necessary to close all the three valves, G, I, and E, and to open the
valve H, and the same effects must be produced each time the
piston arrives at the top and bottom of the cylinder. All this is
accomplished by a system of levers, which are exhibited in fig. 21.
The pivots on which these levers play are represented on the
framing of the engine, and the arms of the levers G′, H′, and I′,
communicating with the corresponding valves G, H, and I, are
represented opposite a bar attached to the rod of the air-pump,
called the plug frame. This bar carries certain pegs and detents,
which act upon the arms of the several levers in such a manner that,
on the arrival of the beam at the extremities of its play upwards and
downwards, the levers are so struck that the valves are opened and
closed at the proper [Pg143] times. It is needless to explain all the
details of this arrangement. Let it be sufficient, as an example of all,
to explain the method of working the upper steam valve G. When
the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, a pin strikes the arm of
the lever G′, and throws it upwards: this, by means of the system of
levers, pulls the arm of the valve G downwards, by which the upper
steam valve is raised out of its seat, and a passage is opened from
the steam pipe to the cylinder. The valve is maintained in this state
until the piston reaches the bottom of the cylinder, when the arm G′
is pressed downwards, by which the arm G is pressed upwards, and
the valve restored to its seat. By similar methods the levers
governing the other three valves, H, I, and E, are worked.
The valves used in these engines were of the kind
called spindle valves. They consisted of a flat circular
plate of bell metal, A B, fig. 23., with a round spindle
passing perpendicularly through its centre, and
projecting above and below it. This valve, having a
conical form, was fitted very exactly, by grinding into a
corresponding circular conical seat, A B C D, fig. 24.,
Fig. 23. which forms the passage which it is the office of the
valve to open and close. When the valve falls into its
 seat, it fits the aperture like a plug, so
as entirely to stop it. The spindle plays
in sockets or holes, one above and the
other below the aperture which the
valve stops; these holes keep the valve
in its proper position, so as to cause it
to drop exactly into its place.
In the experimental engine made by
Mr. Watt at Kinneal, he used cocks, and
Fig. 24. sometimes sliding covers, like the
regulator described in the old engines;
but these he found very soon to become leaky. He was, therefore,
obliged to change them for the spindle valves just described, which,
being truly [Pg144] ground, and accurately fitted in the first instance,
were not so liable to go out of order. These valves are also called
puppet clacks, or button valves.
In the earlier engines constructed by Watt, the condensation was
produced by the contact of cold surfaces, without injection. The
reason of rejecting the method of condensing by injection was,
doubtless, to avoid the injurious effects of the air, which would
always enter the condenser, in combination with the water of
condensation, and vitiate the vacuum. It was soon found, however,
that a condenser acting by cold surfaces without injection, being
necessarily composed of narrow pipes or passages, was liable to
incrustation from bad water, by which the conducting power of the
material of the condenser was diminished; so that, while its outer
surface was kept cold by the water of the cold cistern, the inner
surface might, nevertheless, be so warm that a very imperfect
condensation would be produced.
SOHO, BIRMINGHAM.
FOOTNOTES:

[19] Eloge, p. 308.

BIRMINGHAM.
 CHAP. VI.
[Pg145]

TOC INX
CORRESPONDENCE OF WATT WITH SMEATON.—FAILURE OF CONDENSATION BY
SURFACE.—IMPROVEMENTS IN CONSTRUCTION OF PISTON.—METHOD OF
PACKING.—IMPROVEMENTS IN BORING THE CYLINDERS.—DISADVANTAGES OF
THE NEW COMPARED WITH THE OLD ENGINES.—GREATLY INCREASED ECONOMY
OF FUEL.—EXPEDIENTS TO FORCE THE NEW ENGINES INTO USE.—
CORRESPONDENCE WITH SMEATON.—EFFICIENCY OF FUEL IN THE NEW ENGINES.
—DISCOVERY OF THE EXPANSIVE ACTION OF STEAM.—WATT STATES IT IN A
LETTER TO DR. SMALL.—ITS PRINCIPLE EXPLAINED.—MECHANICAL EFFECT
RESULTING FROM IT.—COMPUTED EFFECT OF CUTTING OFF STEAM AT DIFFERENT
PORTIONS OF THE STROKE.—PRODUCES A VARIABLE POWER.—EXPEDIENTS FOR
EQUALISING THE POWER.—LIMITATION OF THE EXPANSIVE PRINCIPLE IN WATT'S
ENGINES.—ITS MORE EXTENSIVE APPLICATION IN THE CORNISH ENGINES.

(77.)

In a letter addressed by Watt to Smeaton, dated April, 1766, Watt

refers to some of these practical difficulties which he had to
encounter. "I have been," says he, "tormented with exceedingly bad
health, resulting from the operation of an anxious mind, the natural
consequence of staking everything [Pg146] upon the cast of a die; for
in that light I look upon every project which has not received the
sanction of repeated success.
"I have made considerable alterations in our engine lately,
particularly in the condenser. That which I used at first was liable to
be impaired, from incrustations from bad water; therefore we have
substituted one which works by an injection. In pursuing this idea I
have tried several kinds, and have at last come to one, which I am
not inclined to alter. It consists of a jack-head pump, shut at bottom,
with a common clack bucket, and a valve in the cover of the pump,
to discharge the air and water. The eduction steam pipe, which
comes from the cylinder, communicates with this pump both above
and below the bucket, and has valves to prevent anything from
going back from the pump to the eduction pipe. The bucket
descends by its own weight, and is raised by the engine when the
great piston descends, being hung to the outer end of the great
lever: the injection is made both into the upper part of this pump
and into the eduction pipe, and operates beyond my ideas in point of
quickness and perfection."
Besides the difficulty arising from incrustation, Watt found the
tubulated condensers, and indeed all other expedients for
condensing by cold surfaces, subject to a fatal objection. They did
not condense instantaneously, and although they were capable of
ultimately effecting the condensation, yet that process was not
completed until a great part of the stroke of the piston was made.
Thus during more or less of the stroke the uncondensed steam
resisted the piston, and robbed the moving power of a part of its
effect. This objection has ever attended condensation by surface.

(78.)

Another source of difficulty arose from the

necessity of constructing the piston and
cylinder with greater precision than had been
usual in the old engines. To fit the cover to the
cylinder so as to be steam-tight; to construct
the piston rod so as to move through it without
allowing the escape of steam, and yet at the
same time without injurious friction; to connect
the piston rod with the piston, so as to drive
the [Pg147] latter through the cylinder with a
perfectly straight and parallel motion; to make
such connection perfectly centrical and firm, Fig. 25.
and yet to allow the piston in its ascent to
come nearly into contact with the cover of the cylinder—were all
difficulties peculiar to the new engine. In the atmospheric engine the
shank of the piston rod was rough and square, and the rod was
secured to the piston by two or four branches or stays, as
represented in fig. 25. It is evident that
such a construction would be inadmissible
in an engine in which the piston in its
ascent must be brought nearly into contact
with the close cover of the cylinder.
Besides this the piston rod of an
atmospheric engine might throughout its
whole length have any form which was
most convenient, and required no other
Fig. 26.
property than the strength necessary to
work the beam. In the new engine, on the
contrary, it was necessary that it should be accurately turned and
finely polished, so as to pass through the hole in the top of the
cylinder, and be maintained in it steam-tight. This was effected by a
contrivance called a stuffing-box B, represented in fig. 26. A hole is
made in the cover of the cylinder very little greater in magnitude
than the diameter of the piston rod. Above this hole is a cup in
which, around the piston, is placed a stuffing of hemp or tow, which
is saturated with oil or melted tallow. This collar of hemp is pressed
down by another piece, also perforated with a hole through which
the piston rod plays, and which is screwed down on the said collar of
hemp.

(79.)

Although the imperfect manner in which the interior of the cylinders

was then formed impaired the efficiency of the [Pg148] new engines,
yet such imperfections were not so injurious as in the old
atmospheric engines. Any imperfection of form of the inner surface
of the cylinder would necessarily cause more or less steam or air to
escape between the piston and cylinder. In the improved engine this
steam passing into the vacuum below the piston would rush into the
condenser, and be there condensed, so that its effect in resisting the
motion of the piston would necessarily be trifling. But on the other
hand, any escape of air between the piston and cylinder of an
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com