Tales from the 5th Street Gym

Tales from the 5th Street Gym
Author: Ferdie Pacheco
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2010-03-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813037409

In its forty-year existence, the 5th Street Gym housed the training grounds for three of the greatest fighters the sport has ever known--Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Sugar Ray Leonard--and became the locus for a grand total of fourteen world champions. The site was also a magnet for a wide range of international celebrities including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Sylvester Stallone, who were all absorbed into the gym's legend. The 5th Street Gym's beginnings trace back to 1950, when Chris Dundee, along with his brother Angelo, began promoting big-time boxing at Miami Beach. Tales from the 5th Street Gym includes a wealth of never-before-seen photographs and is the first to chronicle the fascinating history of the 5th Street Gym from one of its insiders--Dr. Ferdie Pacheco--with crucial contributions from Tom Archdeacon, Angelo Dundee, Suzanne Dundee Bonner, Enrique Encinosa, Howard Kleinberg, Ramiro Ortiz, Edwin Pope, Bob Sheridan, and Budd Schulberg. Discover the secret history of one of boxing's most hallowed grounds, as Pacheco recalls the rise, heyday, and fall of the "sweet science" at Miami Beach.

Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers
Author: Randy Roberts
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 046509323X

An “engrossing and important book" (Wall Street Journal) that brings to life the fateful friendship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam, saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation’s message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay’s career. Clay began living a double life—a patriotic “good negro” in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences. Based on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm’s personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.

Ingemar Johansson

Ingemar Johansson
Author: Ken Brooks
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2015-12-11
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1476620237

Ingemar Johansson's right hand--dubbed "The Hammer of Thor"--was the most fearsome in boxing, and Johansson's three fights with Floyd Patterson rank among the sport's classic rivalries. Yet most fans know little about the Swedish playboy who won the world heavyweight championship with a shocking third round knockout of Patterson and held it for six days short of a year (1959-1960). During his reign, the raffish "Ingo" hit fashionable nightspots on two continents, romanced Elizabeth Taylor, and refused to kowtow to the mobsters who controlled boxing. This first-ever biography of Johansson chronicles his fistic triumphs as a Goteborg teen prodigy, his humiliating disqualification for "cowardice" at the 1952 Olympics, his storybook romances with Birgit Lundgren and Edna Alsterlund and his post-career life and tragic early dementia.

Muhammad Ali in Africana Cultural Memory

Muhammad Ali in Africana Cultural Memory
Author: James L. Conyers, Jr.
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2022-01-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1785277219

One critical priority of the discipline of Africana studies is applied memory, specifically, how the record of the culture’s survival and agency reveals usable and reproducible knowledge and behavior. In terms of how Muhammad Ali, as an historical actor, has left an heroic legacy that bequeaths to us a sort of inheritance, the critical task at hand is to systematically explore this historical actor’s life, feats, philosophy, grit, worldview, and even his folkloric antihero to decipher his Africana cultural memory value. At the core of this edited collection is a commitment to enhance the cultural storytelling about Muhammad Ali and to critically itemize the lessons we garner from his life as allegory. The ancestral life is one that is remembered and recalled. The contributors’ research uncovers Ali’s local, national, and global encounters that are legacy worldviews. These perspectives give us direction for mining the critical depth of Ali’s encounters which map his memory in terms of culturally sustaining confidence, self-esteem, reinvention, immortalization, and empathy. These are the fertile seeds of Africana cultural memory which bloom into powerful markers and monuments of an epic life of hyperheroic activity relevant to cultural memory, sports, history, politics, health, and aesthetics.

Oh, Florida!

Oh, Florida!
Author: Craig Pittman
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2016-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250071208

A fun- and fact-filled investigation into why the Sunshine State is the weirdest but also the most influential state in the Union.

Globalizing Boxing

Globalizing Boxing
Author: Kath Woodward
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2014-02-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1849667993

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Boxing is a traditional sport in many ways, characterized by continuities in the form of practices and regulations and heavy with legends and heroes reflecting its traditional/historical values. Associations with class, hegemonic masculinity and racialized inclusions/exclusions, however, sit alongside developments such as women's boxing and involvement in Mixed Martial Arts. This book will be the first to use boxing as a vehicle for exploring social, cultural and political change in a global context. It will consider to what degree and in what ways boxing reflects social transformations, and whether and how it contributes to those transformations. In exploring the relationship it will provide new ways of thinking critically about the everyday.

Blood in My Coffee

Blood in My Coffee
Author: Ferdie Pacheco
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1613213670

Best known as the Fight Doctor, Ferdie Pacheco has lived a dreamer’s life. Instead of finding success in just one career, Pacheco has excelled in numerous fields. He’s been a successful pharmacist, doctor, boxing cornerman, television commentator, screenwriter, author, artist, and more. Now the life of this extraordinary Renaissance man is captured in his one-of-a-kind autobiography, Blood in My Coffee. With wit and candor, Pacheco chronicles his life from his childhood days spent growing up in the Spanish section of Tampa, Florida, to patching up Muhammad Ali while sitting ring-side. Within these pages, Pacheco offers an inside look at the world of boxing, including characters from Miami’s famous Fifth Street Gym, the Ali circus, and working behind the microphone with Marv Albert. He takes off the gloves as he recalls his dealings with the likes of Don King and the Showtime Network. But Blood in My Coffee is more than just a boxing book. It’s Pacheco’s personal journey of realization and growth—from opening a medical office in Miami’s Overtown ghetto to campaigning for better safety regulations in boxing. It’s proof positive that with a little luck and a lot of perseverance, dreams really do come true.

No Way but to Fight

No Way but to Fight
Author: Andrew R. M. Smith
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2020-01-10
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1477319786

Olympic gold medalist. Two-time world heavyweight champion. Hall of Famer. Infomercial and reality TV star. George Foreman’s fighting ability is matched only by his acumen for selling. Yet the complete story of Foreman’s rise from urban poverty to global celebrity has never been told until now. Raised in Houston’s “Bloody Fifth” Ward, battling against scarcity in housing and food, young Foreman fought sometimes for survival and other times just for fun. But when a government program rescued him from poverty and introduced him to the sport of boxing, his life changed forever. In No Way but to Fight, Andrew R. M. Smith traces Foreman’s life and career from the Great Migration to the Great Society, through the Cold War and culture wars, out of urban Houston and onto the world stage where he discovered that fame brought new challenges. Drawing on new interviews with George Foreman and declassified government documents, as well as more than fifty domestic and international newspapers and magazines, Smith brings to life the exhilarating story of a true American icon. No Way but to Fight is an epic worthy of a champion.

Tales from the Syracuse Hardwood

Tales from the Syracuse Hardwood
Author: Bud Poliquin
Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2003
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781582617350

A collection of first-hand accounts, personal recollections, and anecdotes that trace the history of the Syracuse University basketball team.

Tales from the Syracuse Orange Locker Room

Tales from the Syracuse Orange Locker Room
Author: Bud Poliquin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1683580559

Orange is a state of mind for fans of Syracuse University basketball. Think Orange and images of greatness appear, from Vic Hanson in the Roaring ’20s through Carmelo Anthony in the 21st century. Think Orange and the sounds of glory are heard, from old Archbold Gym to the gleaming Carrier Dome. Think Orange and the memories of 1,607 victories are stirred, from SU’s first win in 1901 over Cornell to its 2003 triumph over Kansas that brought home the national championship. Many of the stories that have contributed to the phenomenon known as Orangemen basketball now come to life in Bud Poliquin’s updated edition of Tales from the Syracuse Orange's Locker Room. Dave Bing, Jim Boeheim, Jim Brown (yes, he played hoops, too), Bouie and Louie, Leo Rautins, Pearl Washington, and Derrick Coleman—all of them and numerous other SU legends join Hanson and Anthony in the pages of this anecdotal anthology of Syracuse University basketball, certain to complete the bookshelf of any Orange fan. This book looks at the team’s infamous 27-game losing streak in the early 1960s; Roy’s Runts; the Pearl’s stunning half-court buzzer-beater that knocked off Boston College in 1984; the fabulous Final Four runs of 1975, 1996, 2003, 2013, and 2016; and Anthony’s freshman brilliance that delivered the school’s first-ever NCAA tournament title in 2006.