I grew up hearing it. Every kid in New York grows up hearing it. Black Jack Kidd was the flesh and blood embodiment of the impossible dream that was, is and always will be the engine that powers New York City. He was born, fittingly enough, on the Fourth of July, 1902, in Rockaway Beach, Queens, which in those days was a seaside resort popular with New York City’s Irish immigrants. His father, Paddy, ran a saloon there and was also a boxing promoter, loan shark and business partner of Mayor Van Wyck’s bombastic police chief, William “Big Bill” Devery. According to popular legend, which in my experience is as good, if not better, than the truth, Big Bill presided over the single most corrupt police department in the history of New York City. And if you know anything about the history of New York City that’s saying something. One of Paddy Kidd’s joint ventures with Devery was buying up Baltimore’s professional baseball team, moving it to New York City, renaming it the Highlanders and selling it for three hundred thousand dollars in 1915 to a consortium headed by beer brewer Jake Ruppert.
