Oceanside author is honorer and honoree

Oceanside resident and author Ron Ross is having one of his books, “Bummy Davis vs. Murder, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Mafia and an Ill-Fated Prize Fighter,” auctioned for a movie. But that’s not why he was excited.

Ross, 79, spent seven years researching the book and another two writing it. It tells the story of maligned Jewish boxer Al “Bummy” Davis — a stand-up man who was lambasted by the press because of his brothers’ mob connections. Davis actually helped bring about the downfall of Murder, Inc., a Jewish mob that became the assassination arm of larger organized crime syndicates, before he was shot to death outside a friend’s bar in 1945 after chasing out four men who came in to rob it.

Because of Ross’s book, Davis’s image was rehabilitated. People came to know him for who he was, not who the drama-loving sports press of the 1930s made him out to be. And because of that, Ross was able to present Davis’s family with an award when he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame last week.

That was why he was excited.

“This is much more important to me than if the book becomes a film,” Ross said. “And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I can’t begin to tell you the feeling. It’s tremendous.”

Ross was friends with Davis’s original trainer, Vic Zimet, who introduced him to people all over Brownsville, Brooklyn (Davis’s neighborhood), who knew him. Zimet introduced Ross to the children of the Murder, Inc. members who Davis stood up to. He brought Ross into Davis’s world and made him see what kind of man Davis really was.

“That’s when I really got to know the inside of what Bummy was all about,” said Ross. “It was such a revelation. And I’m so thrilled that this has come to pass now.”

Dan Park, a sportswriter for the New York Daily Mirror — and one of the most influential sports writers of the time — didn’t like Bummy’s brother, Willy, and decided that he didn’t like Bummy, either, Ross explained. Park started bashing Bummy in his articles, and soon, more press jumped on the bandwagon.