The legend of Bat Masterson as the heroic sheriff of Dodge City,
Kansas, began in 1881 when an acquaintance duped a "New York""Sun"
reporter into writing Masterson up as a man-killing gunfighter.
That he later moved to New York City to write a widely followed
sports column for eighteen years is one of history's great ironies,
as Robert K. DeArment relates in this engaging new book.
William Barclay "Bat" Masterson spent the first half of his
adult life in the West, planting the seeds for his later legend as
he moved from Texas to Kansas and then Colorado. In Denver his
gambling habit and combative nature drew him to the
still-developing sport of prizefighting. Masterson attended almost
every important match in the United States from the 1880s to 1921,
first as a professional gambler betting on the bouts, and later as
a promoter and referee. Ultimately, Bat stumbled into writing about
the sport.
In "Gunfighter in Gotham, " DeArment tells how Bat Masterson
built a second career from a column in the "New York""Morning
Telegraph." Bat's articles not only covered sports but also
reflected his outspoken opinions on war, crime, politics, and a
changing society. As his renown as a boxing expert grew, his
opinions were picked up by other newspaper editors and reprinted
throughout the country and abroad. He counted President Theodore
Roosevelt among his friends and readers.
This follow-up to DeArment's definitive biography of the Old
West legend narrates the final chapter of Masterson's storied life.
Far removed from the sweeping western plains and dusty cowtown
streets of his younger days, Bat Masterson, in New York City,
became "a ham reporter," as he called himself, "a Broadway
guy."
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