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Boxer Tommy Sullivan and his sainted ma, Mary.
Two early victims of Charlestown gangsters.
Tommy Sullivan was a Southie kid, a tough puncher who later went to work
as a longshoreman in the Town, living with his mother on East Fifth
Street. One night, he made the mistake of getting into a barroom brawl
with Edward “Punchy” McLaughlin, the Charlestown hoodlum. It’s always a
mistake to beat up a killer in a bar – in later decades it would cost
Tommy King and Herbert Smith their lives (they floored, respectively,
Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi). In his book, Joe Barboza describes
McLaughlin’s revenge (although he gets Tommy’s name wrong, as “Rocky.”)
Read Barboza’s account on what happened on Dec. 23, 1957.
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