Buck Faast

From The Great Outdoor Fight

1907 Champion. Buck Faast is one of the many mysterious characters to win the Great Outdoor Fight over the years. The first anybody heard of Buck Faast, he had stowed away on a Florida tramp steamer Pendragon headed for Cuba in 1899. Faast waited until the one night the ship was out of sight of land, then hijacked it single-handedly. It is said he crushed the Captain's skull with two bedpans when the old man refused to hand over the keys to the map chest.

Faast forced the crew to steam to Santiago de Cuba, which is where they were headed to begin with. There is no explanation for his act of piracy besides sheer bloody-mindedness. When the Pendragon reached port, Faast told the remaining crewmen to tie the first mate to the smokestack.

"I'm Buck Faast. I just whipped the lot of you, and I'll whip you all again next time I see you." With that, Faast lept into the bay and disappeared. When the survivors made it to the dock, their wild tales were regarded with sympathy. They spent the next seven in a Cuban Sanitarium until rebel activity led to the abandonment of the facility. Their descendents live to this day in Cuba, a curious artifact of history.

He resurfaced three years later in the Atlantic City underground when he attacked a casino with a mob of around fifty. Loot was clearly the main motivator of the crowd, but Faast refused to take any of the money from the registers. He sought out the owner of the establishment and inflicted upon him a punishment with the roulette wheel that eyewitnesses would later describe as "horrific, sickening, hilarious." As suddenly as his star had risen he once more sank into obscurity.

The 1907 Great Outdoor fight saw Faast at the head of a small army of twelve men, but they were a well-picked lot. They were extremely loyal to Faast through the tribulations of the first two days. Despite the fact that Faast only deigned to fight a few army leaders, the Triskadekans, as the group was by then called, remained tight-- so much so indeed that many expected the group had been created with the goal of finishing the fight in a throw. (Note that, even this far into its history, there were no rules that prevented the sort of ending the Jeeps were instituted in 1959 to prevent. Only honor kept the fight clean in the prewar years.)

Fears were allayed, however, when at last the Triskadekans and the remaining competitors engaged in a final brawl. As usual, Faast kept his distance. But when the group had thinned to only five of his soldiers and a nearly equal number of other survivors, Faast produced the broken brandy bottle and brutally slayed one of his soldiers. The remaining four took their knees and allowed themselves to be pummeled rather than suffer under Faast's glass blade. By the time the others realized what had happened, Faast was already slashing his way through the crowd.

Many thought Faast's use of an edged weapon, even a bottle, violated the spirit of the fight. But the fight did not specifically forbid such action, and despite the grumblings among the more conservative in the ruling body, Faast was grudgingly awarded the title. If he was ever seen again, it was not by that name. As far as anyone knew, Faast was gone forever.

There have been many theories surrounding Faast and his army. Some said they were veterans of his Atlantic City raid. Others thought he was the leader of some blood cult. Whatever the truth, not one of the 8 who escaped the fight with their lives would live to see the next Great Outdoor Fight.

Faast's use of the bottle remained controversial. It would not be until 1932 when, after the Herbert "Ruggsy" Simons incident, all objects on the acres were ruled unambiguously fair use.