Inducted on June 15, 1969
- Buff/Lesky enlisted into the United States Navy prior to World War I. When that war arrived, he waived the family exemption (those with wife and children were exempted from being drafted into the United States military), and joined the Navy for a second time. After his professional boxing career, he enlisted for a third time in the Navy, becoming a gunner’s mate on the U. S. S. Wyoming by 1928.
- According to the August 7, 1928 Daily News Searchlight newspaper of navy town Bremerton, WA, Buff was recently in town. The paper noted that he was once known as “Gunner’s Mate Spike Lisky.” Buff was then serving aboard the U. S. S. California. It was said at the time that he was the only United States Navy sailor to have become a world champion.
- Newspapers of Oct. 26, 1929 reported that he had escaped from a Los Angeles jail.
- Grandfather of modern-day boxing announcers Michael and Bruce Buffer. He married Elizabeth Lisky with whom he had three children: Jimmy, Johnny and Theresa. There were other grandchildren: Walter Palac, Cheryl Palac, and their cousins Jimmy, Mark and Jeannie Lisky.
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