The Official Pete Sanstol Web Site
Adventures Beyond the Ring

Pete with Puerto Rican Lightweight Pedro Montanez
and Heavyweight Jarl Johnsen (R)
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After Pete Sanstol's ultimate triumph over the former undisputed Bantamweight World Champion Panama Al Brown September 13, he closed out his boxing career. It was over. Or was it?

Montreal promoters tried to convince him to return to the ring, particularly after that phenomenally courageous and epic World Ttitle fight he had with future undisputed Bantamweight World Champion Sixto Escobar on August 7, 1935. That fight had made Pete perhaps even more popular than ever in Canada. He briefly considered a return. According to the October 4, 1935, edition of Montreal's The Gazette newspaper, "There is a strong possibility that Pete Sanstol of Norway, and Frankie Martin, bantamweight champion of Canada, will meet in Montreal in the near future in a ten-round boxing battle. The Canadian Arena Company...is understood to be negotiating with Sanstol and Martin for a battle at the Forum in December." The Montreal Daily Herald reported much the same on October 15.

No, Pete decided. It was indeed over. He could end his career on a high note with his victory over Al Brown. Anything more would be anti-climatic. It was time to move on. (The Ring would later declare Pete Sanstol the "All-Time Greatest Bantamweight of Norway." October 1974 issue, p. 46.)

Is it coincidental that soon after Pete finally retired from the ring, Montreal's status as the world bantamweight capital ended? Its rise to world capital status had begun soon after Pete moved there in 1930. The August 6, 1930, The Gazette depicted Pete's first fight with Joe Scalfaro as a bout that promised to "draw fistic attention of eastern America towards Montreal."

According to the December 1953 issue of The Ring magazine, the "Golden Age of Professional Bantamweight Boxing" saw its last day end on September 24, 1940, when Cleveland's Georgie Pace and Brooklyn's Lou Salica held a title bout in New York City.

That chronic gash over Pete's right eye would heal completely. And he would always go for long walks to exercise "that foot," to the point where his later family would not know of how it had haunted him during his boxing days. Before too long he would have no noticeable wounds, scars or marks from his 15 years in the ring except for a very noticeably broken nose. "Need I tell you how I got it?" he later quipped.
 

It is unclear at present what Pete did during his early months of retirement.

Was he now rudderless? As a youngster Pete seemingly had no direction in life. When he discovered boxing, and how good at it he was, he had found a path. Boxing provided direction; it provided goals. But now his boxing days were over. What now? What to do? Where to go?

Pete had realized by late 1935 that he could not live by fighting professionally any longer. Although his savings seemed to be rather good, he knew it was limited - especially when he'd go to Dublin for a trip, or make return trips to the United States. Meanwhile, although he was skeptical of women, he did have a few girlfriends here and there, from time-to-time.

He began another search for something to hold on to, but he seemed unable to settle in one place too long. For example, he wrote in his journal about how wonderful he had it with his apartment in Wergelandsveien in Oslo; but then suddenly he got the urge to move on. So he sold the apartment. Besides, although he enjoyed working with fellow newspapermen and being in the center of attention, he was "never able to walk [down the streets] in peace" because of his popularity. It was again time to move on some more.

By the Summer of 1936, Pete was back in Berlin. He had been invited to participate in the Summer Olympics as an interpreter -- primarily for Norwegian athletes, as Pete fluently spoke Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, German, English and even Yiddish. He met many of the Olympic athletes, including Jesse Owens -- some of whom, including Owens, autographed Pete's leather-bound Olympic souvenir book that survives to this day. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Berlin that year, Konrad Zuse had just invented and built the very first binary, programmable computer -- which would evolve into the MacIntoshs and PCs of today.

By March 1937 Pete was living back in New York City. (According to his surviving journal, he was still there by Christmas 1939.)  In the Spring of 1937, Pete used his American connections to arrange for his good friend, race car driver Eugen Bjørnstad of Norway, to come to New York City to participate in the Vanderbilt Cup on Roosevelt Raceway, Long Island, to raise funds for charity. Mr. Bjørnstad was a very ambitious man himself, and had earned the nickname of "The Scandinavian King of Speed" for racing cars. He retired in 1937. (We learned this information in an April 20, 2000, e-mail from Morten Larsen, who was a good friend of Mr. Bjørnstad. Mr. Larsen was given all of Mr. Bjørnstad's memorabilia and other possessions, and plans to write a book on Mr. Bjørnstad.)

Pete had learned some lessons from boxing that he wanted to share with others, particularly youngsters. Not merely the technicalities, but lessons more philosophical. How "going the distance" taught one to complete difficult or tiresome tasks in life. How to try your best in life. How "fair play" in the ring extended into how you conducted your life and, as a result, how your reputation was looked upon by others. How to try to live a "clean life" -- physically and morally. How to try to be the gentleman in life, knowing that sometimes you may fail, but to get back up and keep on punching to the end.

Around this time he was the featured speaker during "Boys Week" at the Kingston High School (date and exact location unknown, but probably New York). His topic for the seventh and eighth graders was "Fit or Counterfeit?" According to a contemporary news clipping:

Pete Sanstol of Oslo, Norway, has closed a long bantamweight ring record with the ready applause of sports writers in all parts of the world. During his flashing career in the ring he was described as "The Blonde Dynamo," the gentleman boxer. A clean living, fast fighting Norseman, Sanstol reached great heights of popularity in his own native Norway, in Germany, France, Canada, and on his few visits to this country he made a splendid impression.

Having retired from the ring with a big array of medals and awards he has now climbed into the business ring. He has just arrived in the United States from Oslo... [H]e is the personal representative of many men in sports including world famed auto racers. He is now in close touch with many Norwegian officials and moves to promote commerce and the traffic between Norway and the United States.

From a humble background Sanstol has fought his way to the top. He speaks English readily and also German and French. He can produce commendable art and is adept with the violin. He illustrates what can be accomplished by training and control.... Having travelled in so many lands and a central figure in many adventures, his talks will be most absorbing.

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Meanwhile, Lew Burston, the New York manager who had discovered Pete in Paris back in 1926, was still around and discovering boxing talent, such as Pedro Montanez. (Click here to see a picture of them together in 1936.) Pete and Lew still socialized; sometimes Pete would go to Lew's for dinner. Burston at one time or another had managed world champions Marcel Thil, Randy Turpin, Marcel Cerdan, and Dick Tiger. He also managed Danny Frush, Edouard Mascart, Renes DeVos, and Al (Bummy) Davis, among many others. He would become remembered for a comment he made in 1951 after Turpin took the middleweight crown from Sugar Ray Robinson: "Sugar Ray had Paris in his legs," referring to a high-living tour of France Robinson had taken. While Joe Louis was world champion, Burston was the European representative of Jacobs' Twentieth Century Sporting Club. He also held the same positions with the International Boxing Club and Madison Square Garden. In the 1950s he was president of the New York Boxing Managers Guild. His sister, Mathilda (Mattie) Ross, wife of Arthur Leonard Ross, died in New York November 2, 1966. On January 15, 1968, he and three others were named in a federal grand jury indictment on charges of paying $150 in bribes to Internal Revenue Service employees for departing aliens. The accusations so troubled him that he suffered a heart attack soon after. He died at age 74 March 19, 1969, at Le Roy Hospital. Survivors included a daughter, Ms. Hazel Jerome of Manhattan, and two grandchildren. Funeral services were held at the Riverside, Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street. Here are some other links to Lew Burston some of you may find of interest:
http://www.gamemasteronline.com/Archive/SweetScience/BummyDavis.shtml
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/ade0012.html
http://www.jewsinsports.org/boxing.asp?ID=78
http://pub97.ezboard.com/fcyberboxingzonefrm3.showMessage?topicID=213.topic
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/W10x-ad.htm
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Around this time Pete also had invested time and money in a restaurant/bar, which slowly became a losing proposition. "Papa Lancaster comes to my mind," Pete wrote June 23, 1939, in his journal, "as does my father. He had often said that it would be to my own best if I got some kind of work, something safe. And this I think is right today. Now I sit here, looking at the ruins. In front of me rolls a life full of struggle and hard work. I have tried and tried, over and over again, but it will not work with my attitude. I know that now." The primary consequence of the restaurant's failure was that Pete became almost broke. He got out of the restaurant business. Yet he kept on punching.

By 1939 he had become a boxing promoter. His promotional debut was held in Montreal, the former city of his greatest triumphs as a boxer, and where he was still remembered as one of the greatest boxers who had ever fought there. His promotional debut was a dismal failure. The Great Depression was still on, the fighters on the bill were not as popular as Pete and others of his day had been, and he had the misfortune of scheduling his card on a night that offered many other more popular alternatives: a benefit hockey game, and the opening of the National Hockey League season. It also followed one of the biggest wrestling shows of the year. As the November 4, 1939, edition of the Montreal Daily Herald recalled in an article under the headline "TAKES FINANCIAL SOCK":

No boxing promoter in Montreal in recent years has ever made any money on his opening show and it was not the least surprising that Pete Sanstol went for quite a sizable amount when he made his debut as a member of the promoting fraternity...."

We have learned from our Norwegian friend, Morten Larsen, who has been reading Pete's journal (a copy of which we sent to him), that there was always something worrying Pete; there was always some plan that had gone wrong. But he would make new plans, and forge ahead. Morten reported to us that, after reading this journal, Pete always had the ability to say: "Oh, well, the way things developed was terrible, but in due time it will turn out to be to my best." He also had a habit of saying "Life goes on" and "I am sure it will work out for the best." However, Morten says that Pete "seems to have written the diary with the possibility in mind that someone might get a look into the book, thus avoiding all sensitive material."

Pete also repeatedly kept asking himself "What is the meaning of life?" and "Who am I really?" He wrote constantly to Mr. Marcello Haugen, a famous clairvoyant of the time. According to Morten, by the mid-thirties Pete started to believe his life on this planet was destined for something. He believed in psychics. His journal is replete with strange, future predictions a psychic had given to him.

In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Funk and Wagnall's published a book entitled You Americans: Fifteen Foreign Press Correspondents Report Their Impressions of the United States and Its People. Pete contributed a chapter entitled "From Boxing Ring to Press Box." Click here to read it. Meanwhile he was also writing articles for Norwegian publications. For example, he wrote an article about meeting the famous Norwegian ice-skater Sonja Henie. He also met and interviewed the "Brown Bomber," Joe Louis.

It is not certain where he went or what he did from 1939 to 1942.

However, we do know where Pete Sanstol was and what he was doing at 230 Second Avenue in New York City on April 3, 1942, 8:30 in the morning. He was reporting for induction into the United States Army.