Jockey Fleming - Montreal legend

Jockey Fleming

   It's Jockey "King of the Moochers" Fleming - real name Moses Rutenberg - sitting next to his buddy Al Sobel in Dominion Square downtown.

Oblay in 1976

   Born in 1898, Jockey Fleming (fake first name, fake last name) was a local hustler who became a fixture at the Mount Royal Hotel on Peel and then was banned from that lobby so he spent his days hovering around Peel and St. Catherine, hawking hockey tickets, buttonholing strangers and getting people to buy him lunch.
   Fleming boxed and beat Kid Baker on the undercard of a 1919 bout . Baker was also known as Eddie Baker, and was later known for being the top Montreal drug and gambling guy until his death in 1945. Harry Davis took over that role thereafter.
   Fleming was also known enough in 1921 to be a feature on a fundraiser for war veteran George Frame where he apparently sang his classic "How I became a baum," described by Le Devoir as "one of his masterpieces."
   This hustler's quips, jokes, patter was old of the old Yiddish variety and made him a favourite of sports writers such as Dink Carroll who could barely get through a column without needling Fleming for his pride in never having a job or not being the best dressed man.

Sobel and Fleming in 1970

   We are not sure when Fleming died, but he was already 70 when these photos were taken.
   In 1969 Don Bell wrote a hilarious profile on Fleming's alleged feud with the similar Kid Oblay, which resulted as a chapter of Bell's award-winning book about Montreal.
  Oblay, real named Laz Goldberg was busted for dealing drugs and intimidated witnesses in 1925 and sentenced to three years and then was busted for selling narcotics in 1932.
   He told Nick Auf der Maur and les Nerenberg in a 1975 CBC TV show called Quelque Show, that he fell off an army truck and was declared disabled to fight in World War II.
He makes a brief appearance in a 1976 documentary about Montreal can be seen here.