Baltimore City Paper’s “1999 Best of Baltimore”
“…Our spiritual inspiration, el luchador supremo, is our cover model, Sammy Ross–4 feet and 100 pounds of everything that’s right about this town. We went looking for a small person to wear a wrestling suit and we found an honest-to-God vaudevillian. Ross sings, dances, emcees, and plays accordion and piano. He has trod the boards at Radio City Music Hall and the London Palladium; he has worked with Jackie Gleason, the Three Stooges, and Charlton Heston. He lives in a modest dwelling in Pikesville, among regular schlubs like you and us. He has, as far as we know, never set foot inside the Hard Rock Café.
And so it is that Sammy Ross leads the rest of us, in our finery, into the ring. He is the Best of Baltimore. We fight on, in his service. Is that positive enough for ya?” — Introduction to Best of Baltimore 1999
Photo by Carlos Batts
Sammy Ross also appeared on the cover of Love Nut’s “Bastards of Melody” CD, put out in 1995 by Joe Goldsborough’s Merkin Records.
Sammy Ross died Dec. 11, 2010 from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87.
I have that LOVE NUT CD – but I had no idea about Sammy Ross! Did we go to that City Paper “Best of Baltimore” party?
I am pretty sure we went to that party, but it was in the pre-digital camera era. Otherwise we’d have loads of dwarf pics!