Tales from the 5th st.gym

I trained at the 5th St. Gym when all this happened, so its especially nostalgic.

Here's the book review in today's N.Y. Times:

By GORDON MARINO
Published: April 16, 2010
Over the years, various gyms have emerged as the Sorbonne of the sweet science. In the 1930s and ’40s, there were Stillman’s and Gleason’s in New York, and much later the Kronk in Detroit. But during the late ’50s and early ’60s, the Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach became one of the grand hubs of pugilism. It was out of that cocoon of combat that the young Cassius Clay was transmogrified into Muhammad Ali.

The gym was founded by two Italian-*Americans from South Philadelphia, Chris and Angelo Dundee (born Mirena). The brothers had teamed up in New York and then moved their boxing operation south in the early ’50s. Chris, the elder of the two, was a brilliant businessman who many insist would have out- hustled Don King in King’s heyday. (Chris Dundee died in 1998.) Angelo, maestro to Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, the older George Foreman and a dozen other world champions, was one of the premier trainers of the 20th century.

Why Miami? It was a booming vacation spot and open territory. There, Chris and Angelo developed a large stable of fighters and kept their boxers active by promoting weekly shows at the Miami Beach Auditorium. Even before Ali came to this boxing mecca, the champions Willie Pastrano, Luis Rodríguez, Florentino Fernández, Ralph Dupas and others were honing their skills with the Dundees. The gym was a magnet for gifted Cuban émigrés. And then the comet that was Cassius Clay appeared in the fall of 1960. Soon everyone was making a pilgrimage to the boxing den by the beach.

Dr. Ferdie Pacheco slipped into this world in the early ’60s when Chris Dundee asked him to look after the medical needs of a few of his boxers, including Clay. Within a short time, the “Fight Doctor” was a fixture at the gym and a quiet presence in the corner with Angelo.

Pacheco’s new book, “Tales From the 5th St. Gym,” features a number of contributors; trainers, boxers, promoters, writers, family members — all have a say. One of the finest sections comes from the Miami Herald sports columnist Edwin Pope. Commenting on Chris Dundee and the zaniness of the gym, Pope writes:

“Chris’s entire coterie, from Mumblin’ Sam all the way up to Budd Schulberg and Howard Cosell, accepted crazy as the norm. They were not violent people, but they lived on a special planet that consisted mostly of people doing violent things to each other.”

Some of the anecdotes about Ali have been rehearsed before, but good tales do not suffer much from being retold. I like the one in which the former heavyweight champion Ingemar Johansson asks for a speedy sparring partner to prepare for a rematch with Floyd Patterson. Chris Dundee sends over a kid who is a novice professional but who will, within only a few years, stop the seemingly indomitable Sonny Liston. Johans son cannot land a glove on him. He writes a note to Chris, saying he wants no part of Cassius Clay: “I asked for speed, not lightning.”

In the end, the Ali who looms up from Pacheco’s long-term memories is a brilliant, courageous, assiduous athlete who adores people but is easily manipulated and exploited by the Nation of Islam. While the vignettes about Ali are the main event, the remembrances of Chris Dundee’s deal-making and of the travails of lesser-known boxing divinities are delicious.

The structure of this collection creaks like an old gym floor. Pacheco will start out with a story, follow it up with a chapter by a Fifth Street confrere, and then chime in with commentary on that chapter. Still, the combination of tenderness and candor, especially concerning the conflicts over the sad last lap of Ali’s career (Pacheco wanted the champ to quit after his third fight with Joe Frazier), makes up for the problems with the book’s *organization.

It could be that some of the author’s tales are a mite tall, but they serve to make the reader feel party to a warm and vibrant conversation among old friends about the sweat factory their lives used to swirl around. Some of the photographs are taken from family albums, and enhance the sense of intimacy. By the last page, it is easy to understand why the wrecking ball that went through the gym in 1993 also went through the hearts of Ferdie Pacheco and his boxing brethren.

 

payback's gonna be a *****! Gp

 

Chris was a very shrewd tough businessman -- much less accessible than Angelo.

 

Wish I'd had the presence-of-mind, bb, to ask Chris about Overlin, at the time.