MARKSON, HARRY SIGNED BOXING HALL OF FAME FIRST DAY ENVELOPE (1992)

HISTORY:  When Harry Markson was made director of boxing in 1948 by James Norris, the late financier who controlled the promotional organization known as the International Boxing Club, the sport had a strong underworld influence. As Mr. Norris explained the appointment, ''There's got to be somebody around here with clean hands.'' Boxing's buccaneering image flourished at the Garden, then at Eighth Avenue and 49th Street, almost from the time the sport became synonymous with the famous arena. But in the haze of clouds of cigar smoke, Mr. Markson was a calm pipe smoker. He joined the Garden as a boxing publicist in 1933 under Mike Jacobs, a promoter who made Joe Louis more or less the arena's house fighter.. As a publicist and then the boxing director, Mr. Markson was involved in more than 2,000 bouts. Perhaps his most famous was the 1971 extravaganza in the present Garden that pitted Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier, both undefeated, for the heavyweight championship. The ringside celeb