AMERICA AT LARGE:The cynic might note that the principal reason Sylvester Stallone is to be inducted into the boxing hall of fame is that his presence will swell the ranks of the thousands of free-spending boxing fans who flock to the New York hamlet of Canastota each June

AT A New York bookstore last week I was joined by a veritable Murderers' Row of literary heavyweights – Colum McCann, Pete Hamill, Leonard Gardner, Robert Lipsyte and Mike Lupica – to celebrate the publication of At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, which John Schulian and I co-edited for the Library of America.

Lupica, the New York Daily News columnist, recalled that when Sugar Ray Robinson died back in 1989, it had fallen to his lot to compose a column that would serve as a tribute to the greatest boxer, pound-for-pound, who ever laced on gloves.

Although he was not particularly well-versed in the sweet science, explained Lupica, he was perceived to have an inside track in this instance, since his mother had gone to school with Robinson’s arch-rival Carmen Basilio in her hometown of Canastota – today the site of the International Boxing Hall of Fame but then just another sleepy hamlet in upstate New York. (In fact, Lupica confessed, on his maternal side he was descended from a long line of onion farmers, onion-farming having somewhat famously been Basilio’s vocation before he took up the full-time practice of pugilism.)

“When I reached Basilio I told him who I was and said I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but that Sugar Ray Robinson had passed away,” said Lupica. “So the first thing he said was ‘I won that second fight, you know’.

“That, obviously, wasn’t going to be very useful in an obituary column, so I tried to appeal to his sense of nostalgia about their fights.” (In 1957 and 1958 Basilio and Robinson had engaged in two middleweight classic title fights. Both went the 15-round distance and both resulted in split decisions, with each man winning once.)

“He’s the one who wound up in the hospital after that fight, not me,” Basilio complained to Lupica. “How could they say he won it?”

“Obviously, none of this was going to work very well in a story meant as a tribute on the occasion of Robinson’s death,” said Lupica. “I know old grudges die hard, but in boxing, they die really hard.”

Lupica went on to explain the origins of the Hall of Fame. In 1970, Basilio’s nephew Billy Backus “won the welterweight title, almost by accident, and held it for about 15 minutes”. That isn’t quite what happened, though it’s pretty close. In December Backus fought Jose Napoles in Syracuse in what was supposed to be a tune-up for the Cuban champion. A head butt opened a deep cut over Napoles’ eye and Backus was awarded a TKO victory and with it the title. In the rematch in Los Angeles that June Napoles won on an eighth-round TKO and regained his championship.

“But some enterprising civic booster decided that a tiny town like Canastota having produced two world champions was an achievement worth noting,” said Lupica. “He christened Canastota ‘Titletown, USA’, and they put up signs at the city limits.

“Then, years later, somebody came up with an even more ingenious marketing plan. They decided Titletown would be the perfect home for a Boxing Hall of Fame.”

In a bit more than two decades of existence, the IBHoF has solidified its reputation, and for a few days each June Canastota becomes the epicentre of the boxing universe. Previous inductees and boxing luminaries from all over the world flock there for three days of celebration capped off by the installation of the newest group of inductees.

This year’s festivities, for instance, will be highlighted by the inductions of the Class of 2011, a group that will include Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Kostya Tszyu – and Sylvester Stallone.

The former three were elected by the membership of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA), which passes judgment on prospective inductees in the “modern” category. To be considered, a candidate’s last bout can have been no earlier than 1943, at least five years must have elapsed since his last bout – and, of course, his name must be on the ballot, the dubious composition of which remains in the hands of the Hall of Fame administration.

The automatic election of the top three vote-getters in the modern category has occasionally diluted the product, because in some years there are plainly not three deserving candidates on the ballot. In 2010, for instance, the three “modern” boxers so honoured were Danny “Little Red” Lopez, Jung-Koo Chang and the late Lloyd Marshall. The year before that, Lennox Lewis was joined by Brian Mitchell and Orlando Canizales.

Few would quibble with the qualifications of Tyson, Chavez and Tszyu, but it’s hard to see that their accomplishments won’t be trivialised by the simultaneous installation of Sylvester Stallone. The cynic might note that the principal reason for Stallone’s inclusion is that his presence will further swell the ranks of the thousands of free-spending boxing fans who flock to Canastota each June.

Is the IBHoF inducting the Hollywood actor, or is it inducting his fictional character Rocky Balboa? If it’s the latter, shouldn’t the old comic-strip heavyweight champion Joe Palooka also merit inclusion? The Hall of Fame deftly sidestepped the issue by claiming that Stallone is being honoured for his writing, as the author of the screenplay for the original Rocky film, but that doesn’t hold much water. If that is the case, shouldn’t Leonard Gardner be in for Fat City and Paul Schrader for Raging Bull? And, whatever one’s opinion of Stallone’s 1976 tour de force might be, shouldn’t his authorship of Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V and Rocky Balboa disqualify him from consideration as a serious writer?

Stallone’s impending induction, in any case, seems to be troubling some members of the writers association, who regard their investiture as the electorate as a solemn responsibility.

One final reflection on Lupica’s mother’s old classmate. On the Sunday of induction week up in Canastota a couple of years ago, just after the “Parade of Champions”, the previous inductees and those who were about to be installed were filing past the crowd into the pavilion. As he drew abreast of me, the 83-year-old Basilio slyly winked, and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, reached out with his right hand and furtively goosed the buttocks of a 14-year-old girl in the crowd.

He did it so quickly that he had resumed a posture of nonchalant innocence in the time it took her to whirl around, and the angry glare aimed in my direction suggested she thought I was the one who’d copped the feel.

So I’m here to tell you that Carmen Basilio is not just, as Lupica suggested, a bitter old man. He’s also a dirty old man.