He died on March 28, 1953, in Lomita, California, practically destitute.

He was sixty-five years old, or sixty-six, depending on which birth year you accept.

The Associated Press had already, in 1950, voted him the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century.

He owned almost nothing.

The medals were gone.

His scores were out of the record book.

And the question of whether the disqualification had been justified — whether the rules had even been followed — would not be seriously reconsidered for another twenty years.

Why The Fight Didn’t End With Him