BRIDGEPORT — When a would-be thief slipped into a Bridgeport garage, he might as well have hopped into a boxing ring — with a champion fighter waiting for him.
The garage behind the house in the 3600 block of South Emerald Avenue belonged to Frankie “Time Bomb” Scalise, the pro boxer and two-time Golden Gloves winner who on Friday night met the would-be burglar with a straight right hand that knocked him down.
Burglary over.
“When you know you’re in danger, you ain’t waiting,” Scalise, 38, said of the unexpected weekend bout.
On the night of the incident, Scalise and his wife, Shawna, had returned to Bridgeport after dinner at Armand’s Victory Tap.
Rolling down the alley around midnight, he tapped the garage door opener. Though he usually backs his car into the garage, on Friday some leftover food from the restaurant spilled in the backseat and Scalise decided to pull forward into the garage.
The couple didn't see the burglar roll under the garage door behind them.
“We’re getting out, and we’re both talking about the food getting spilled and then I hit the garage door and we’re walking out the side door,” he said, “and all of a sudden, as we’re walking to the house, I’m like, ‘Man, that garage door is taking an awfully long time to go down.’”
Through the glass doors of his garage, Scalise saw the door was up. His wife walked toward the house, and he walked to the garage.
“As soon as I open the door, I see a guy standing there staring out my glass looking at her going in the house, you know?” Scalise said. “Right away, I was scared, but then I just went into attack mode, so I cracked him real quick in the mouth.”
The man fell to the ground. Scalise followed the stiff, straight punch with a series of kicks to keep the trespasser on the ground.
Scalise called for his wife to call police, but she didn’t hear him. Luckily, two Chicago police officers rolling down the alley heard some commotion and stopped.
“They called an ambulance for the guy, because he needed an ambulance,” Scalise said. “He was out of commission.”
The boxer did not want to press charges against the intruder, a 28-year-old St. Charles man who ended up at Mercy Hospital with a bloodied head. Police arrested the man for trespassing.
The man was "highly intoxicated," according to Chicago police.
Scalise got his start boxing at Bridgeport's Old Neighborhood Italian American Club, coming up under the tutelage of late neighborhood fighter, Tony "The Rock" LaRosa, who'd drag him to Sheridan Park in Little Italy for training sessions. Scalise won the coveted Golden Gloves tournament twice and turned pro in 1998. He later opened Bridgeport Boxing Club.
The Bridgeport pugilist has a message for neighborhood folks who park in their garages.
“They’ve got to have their heads up on what’s in that garage with them,” Scalise said. “Easily, somebody can walk in there, and they shut that door, and then you got another problem on your hands.”
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