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HANK KAPLAN - RIP

Sadly Boxing Historian Hank Kaplan Passed away recently. Hank was part of Chris Dundee's management team of Muhammad Ali at the 5th street gym back in the sixties. He also worked with greats such as Sonny Liston. Hank was the most approachable guy in boxing and was adored buy boxers and fans alike. Luckily for me I bought some Muhammad Ali posters from hank kaplan many years ago and they were the start of my boxing collection.

My friend Harry Zambelli told me when he introduced my to Hank that if he ever invites you to go for an ice cream make sure you go! Anyway, a year later Hank comes into Graziano's looking around for someone. I say Hello and he says he was looking for me and wanted to know if I wanted to come for an ice cream. So, I accompany him outside. There standing waiting was FIVE world
champions! He introduces me as his good friend Dave from england. We all sat there like little kids listening to Hank's stories from the early days. A thing we always did with Hank.

Hank was also responsible for Ali's first ever studio photo. He told us the story of how Muhamamd turned up with his shorts in a brown bag all scrunched up and how he spent about an hour trying to get the creases out!

One year Hank was telling a few of us a story about how his wife was throwing out some old clothes of his. Like a typical jewish woman she was checking the pockets of anything she was throwing out. Anyway she picks up an old sports coat and finds a handful of papers. Hank says straight away he remembers about them. Soon after Muhammad won the title against liston they were staying in a motel. He explains it was only a cheap motel as there was not the money on those days even for the heavyweight champ! It was the early hours of the morning and a group of local kids had gathered outside the motel screaming for the champ and making a lot of noise. Muhammad wants to go outside and Angelo is having none of it! You need to get some sleep. So Angelo tells hank to go and get some paper, Muhammad can sign some autographs and take them outside to the kids so they go away. Hank goes down to the hotel desk and can only get headed paper which he takes back up to the room. Muhammad signs lots of sigs all over the paper. So what do we do now? Angelo tells him to go and get some scissors and cut em up to take out.

So, Hank goes back downstairs. Hank and the porter go to the managers office to try and find some scissors. Hank starts cutting them up. As he is finishing he can here a large comotion from outside. He goes outside and there is Muhammad screaming and playin and shadow boxing with the kids! He laughed. That was typical Muhammad. He just put the autographs in his pocket and spent the next hour trying to get the champ back inside to his
room! The autographs stayed in his pocket for all those years.

This was a typical Hank story, one of many. But Hank gave me one of those autographs nicely framed with one of the original studio photographs. This autograph is one of the earliest Muhammad Ali autographs known, as it was just after he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad ali. I paid no money for this. It was a gift. But for the story behind it, it is the one item that I would never ever sell !!