Bobby Chacon, immortalized in boxing ring and in song, dead at 64
In August 1987, a singer-songwriter of some repute named Warren Zevon released an album called “Sentimental Hygiene.” It was his first studio album in six years.
Bob Dylan, Flea, Don Henley, Brian Setzer, Michael Stipe, Jennifer Warnes and Neil Young played on the record.
The second track on “Sentimental Hygiene” was called “Boom Boom Mancini.” It was about the fighter of the same name. The chorus was as follows:
“Hurry home early — hurry on home; Boom Boom Mancini’s fighting Bobby Chacon.”
Warren Zevon, the singer-songwriter who became famous for “Werewolves of London” — and for pinch-hitting for band leader Paul Shaffer on the “Late Show with David Letterman” — died Sept. 7, 2003. He had a dark side, but that’s not what killed him. Cancer did.
Bobby Chacon, the boxer-brawler who became famous for fighting Rafael “Bazooka” Limon four times, and Cornelius Boza Edwards twice, and a bunch of other tough guys who were skilled with their fists — and for being the antagonist in Warren Zevon’s ode to Ray Mancini — also died on Sept. 7, four days ago.
As fate and the boxing gods would have it, one supposes. Let the ceremonial 10-count begin.
Bobby Chacon, who attended Cal State Northridge and was called “Schoolboy” and sort of looked like the actor-comedian John Leguizamo, also had a dark side, but that’s not what killed him. Fighting Bazooka Limon four times, and Boza Edwards twice, and Ruben Olivares and Arturo Leon and Arturo Frias and Rafael Solis and Ray Mancini, is what killed him.
The headline in The Washington Post said Bobby Chacon, a boxing champion who had endured misfortune, was dead at 64. The obituary said in March 1982, Bobby’s wife, Valorie, had committed suicide by rifle because she could not talk her husband into quitting boxing and moving to Hawaii, where she had found a job.
The next night, Bobby fought Salvador Ugalde.
The next year, he fought a rematch against Boza Edwards at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion. Man, what a fight. Ring magazine called it the Fight of the Year, 1983.
Bobby Chacon endured more misfortune that day. After the second fight with Boza Edwards (their first meeting was at the old Showboat), his face was a mess. It seemed Bobby’s face was always a mess.
But in the 12th round, he had knocked down the relentless Boza. He stepped onto the ropes and thrust his boxing gloves into the air — just as he had upon putting Bazooka Limon down in the dying seconds of their fourth fight with the crowd and ABC’s Keith Jackson going ballistic.
That one was a Fight of the Year, too.
“Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!” chanted the crowd.
When Ferdie Pacheco interviewed him, Bobby Chacon mentioned to the Fight Doctor through slitted eyes that Boza was relentless and hit like a jackhammer, but, “Dammit, I got a lot of guts.”
POLSTER-IZED
Matt Polster, a former soccer standout at Palo Verde High in his second season with the Chicago Fire, recently scored his first Major League Soccer goal.
A midfielder with a defensive bent, Polster is not known for making long runs to the attacking end of the pitch. But on July 31, after giving up an own goal, he redeemed himself by scoring on a diving header from the left side during a 2-2 draw against New York.
On Aug. 20, the 23-year-old dented the onion bag again in the 89th minute, his insurance goal capping a 3-0 Fire call at Montreal.
After starting 27 of 30 games as a Fire rookie in 2015, Polster, who played collegiately at SIU Edwardsville, has started 17 of 26 for Chicago this year. He also was called up to the U.S. men’s national team for friendly matches versus Iceland and Canada.
PLAYING ALL NINE
Thursday’s column about the defensive versatility of Chicago Cubs slugger Kris Bryant (who hit his 37th homer Friday), and the possibility the Bonanza High product could play all nine positions in one game, prompted messages from two readers pointing out that UNLV assistant baseball coach Kevin Higgins once did that with the Las Vegas Stars.
It happened in August 1994 when Russ Nixon was manager and the Stars were in last place. It also happened with an asterisk — Higgins and fellow jack-of-all-baseball-trades Keith Lockhart both played all nine defensive spots in the same game against Tacoma.
The game ended with Lockhart, who was playing shortstop, and Higgins, who was at second, combining for a double play.
CHICO GETS ITS MAN
Nick Green, a former golfer at Valley High who 13 years ago left Las Vegas to play golf at Chico State and basically never left town, has been named men’s golf coach at his alma mater.
After playing for Chico teams that finished second and seventh in the NCAA Division II championships, Green has been an assistant coach and women’s interim head coach before he landed the men’s head coaching job.
Chico State is the second-oldest of the 23 campuses in the California State University system. Notable Chico alumni include former major leaguers Nelson Briles and Clay Dalrymple and Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, of whom you may have heard recently.
ANOTHER TAKE ON TAKING A KNEE
It seems everybody has an opinion about former UNR quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other sporting types refusing to stand for the national anthem.
Brandon Marshall of the Denver Broncos, a Cimarron-Memorial High graduate and Kaepernick’s teammate at UNR, was the latest to take a knee on Thursday night, and the entire Seattle Seahawks roster apparently is planning some sort of demonstration of team unity on Sunday. Leave it to Larry the Cable Guy to express his take with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
“Kaepernick is third string; you’d think he’d be tired of sitting and that you’d have to stand for somethin’ every now and then,” he said, an observation that many found more humorous than his commercial for Prilosec OTC.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.
