Roosevelt Loses Sight in Left Eye
Roosevelt was a different sort of president in the White House. He liked to box and had a boxing ring installed in the Red Room. He became friends with John L. Sullivan; the country's first “Heavyweight Champion.”
He studied Jujitsu and said there was nothing more fun than being “thrown over the shoulder of a 300lb Japanese Man.”
During a boxing match sparring with Dan Tyler Moore, Edith's first cousin struck TR causing him to lose much of the sight in his left eye. Dan Tyler was an amateur boxer, an aide to the president and a sparring partner.
It was 1908 and reported to have been Roosevelt’s final bout. Medically the punch caused severe hemorrhaging. It is believed that eventually the retina became detached causing blindness in the eye. He was 50 years old at the time.
Moore didn’t learn what happened until 1917 after reading TR’s account of how he lost the sight in his left eye. Roosevelt didn't mention Moore by name to protect him from any criticism, but Moore realized that only he fit the description in TR’s explanation.
Dan Tyler Moore in 1917