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The other Saturday night they had outdoor amateur boxing in Fox Park across from the Wildwoods Convention Center.
The show was sponsored by the Wildwood Boxing Club, whose guiding force is Al Mussachio, the pride of South Philly and father of undefeated Wildwood light heavyweight pro Chuck "The Professor" Mussachio.
A week before the event, Al called me up and said he and Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano had decided I should be the ring announcer.
I was naturally flattered and said I’d be happy to take on the job. As soon as I hung up the phone I began to have second thoughts and incipient stage fright. This was in the middle of the ring in front of a live audience, just like Michael Buffer on television. Only Buffer is a smooth-voiced pro with movie-star looks, and I can never tell what my voice is going to do and nobody has ever accused me of looking like any movie star except Trigger.
But you have to keep your word, so I began to prepare. I went around to the Wildwood Boxing Club in the evenings and pumped Al for everything I could find out about how the boxing show was run. Where was the ring going to be? How many steps up to it? How many fights? What kind of microphone? Who was going to tote up the scorecards? (This was really crucial because the last thing I wanted was to miscount and give a decision to the wrong kid. It turned out, thank God, all that would be done by a representative from USA Boxing and I just had to read the results.)
I even came up with a catch-phrase like Buffer’s "Let’s get ready to rumble!" Mine was going to be, "It’s time to War at the Shore!"
So the big night rolled around and I showed up in my ring announcer’s outfit: Dark blue cargo shorts, a black baseball hat with the Nike swoosh in white and a cool black-and-white shirt like Kramer wore on "Seinfeld."
I had the time of my life. The audience was great and really rocked with me and kept me loose the whole night. And the referee, Wendell Douglas from Philly, really carried me, giving me tips on everything. I hadn’t realized how crucial timing is and he kept me in step.
There were a few rough patches Wendell helped smooth over, too. One kid got mad in the middle of the fight because he thought he was being held too much and simply walked out of the ring, cussing everybody in sight.
"How do I call that?" I whispered to Wendell. He huddled briefly with the timekeeper and then handed me a slip of paper that had "disqualified at 2:28 of round two" on it and I was out of the woods.
There aren’t too many knockouts in the amateurs because they wear headgear and use big gloves, but Wendell did stop one fight in the second round and I duly announced, "referee Wendell Douglass calls a halt to the proceedings in round two" and he gave me a thumbs up.
So it was a fun night and the show went off without a hitch thanks mostly to Mussachio, vice president Jean Williams of USA Boxing, who oversaw the fine judges and the super-sharp timekeeper, and to the loud and happy fans. But mostly thanks to a fine group of young boxers who put on such a good show I had to keep reminding myself they were amateurs.
