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.
[In this book], Ferdie Pacheco chronicles his life, from, his childhood days spent growing up in the Spanish section of Tampa, Florida, to working as Muhammad Ali's cornerman and physician. ..."--Back cover.
In this narrated cookbook, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco memorialize their passion for the Columbia, the nation’s largest Spanish restaurant and Florida’s oldest restaurant. This special 115th anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook features a touching foreword by Andrea Gonzmart Williams, granddaughter of Adela. Adela’s affair with food is a family legacy that began in the early twentieth century, when her grandfather Casimiro Hernandez emigrated from Cuba to Tampa. In 1905, Casimiro purchased a small corner café, where he started selling soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Out of gratitude to his new country, he named his small café Columbia, after the personification of America in the popular song “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” Prophetically, he added this motto to his sign: “The Gem of All Spanish Restaurants.” Casimiro became known for dishes that the Columbia still serves today—Spanish bean soup, his hearty creation that combines sausage, garbanzo beans, and potatoes in a beef stock; arroz con pollo, a classic chicken and rice dish; an authentic Cuban sandwich; and the “1905” Salad®, dressed with the family’s special blend of fresh garlic, oregano, wine vinegar, lemon juice, and Spanish olive oil. This anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook is a history of the elegant family restaurant, which now boasts multiple locations across Florida, and a delicious cookbook of 178 recipes that make them famous. It is also the biography of Adela, the heart of the Columbia, with commentary by Ferdie Pacheco—Muhammad Ali’s “Fight Doctor,” Ybor City’s famous raconteur, and Adela’s childhood friend. Adela and Ferdie have since passed, but this book remains a testament to their love of good food and their joy in sharing the aroma, the seasonings, and the glamour of the Columbia.
Boxing's colourful history is filled with chapters of high drama and simmering controversy. Many boxing fans are familiar with the outcome of the most memorable bouts, but few know the secrets surrounding them. In The 12 Greatest Rounds of Boxing: The Untold Stories, Ferdie Pacheco, MD - longtime physician and cornerman for Muhammad Ali and television analyst known worldwide as the Fight Doctor - not only selects the dozen best rounds ever fought, but reveals what went on behind the scenes, from chicanery and Mob influence to romantic liaisons and wild high-jinx. Drawing on his unique insider's perspective, Pacheco answers whether Mahammad Ali's phantom punch in 1965 really did knock out Sonny Liston, or was Sonny simply too scared to get off the canvas? With World War II looming, was German heavyweight champion Max Schmeling warned by Adolf Hitler to beat Joe Louis, or else? Did Jack Dempsey have something illegal in his glove when he battered gigantic Jess Willard into bloody submission in 1919? All these fascinating untold stories offer an intimate glimpse of boxing's inimitable characters and the often bizarre world they inhabit. Illustrated throughout with stunning photographs
From reviews of Ybor City Chronicles: "[Ybor City Chronicles] reads like oral history, behind which one senses a practiced storyteller--a big, hearty, entertaining fellow who can talk about himself for hours, and does. . . . He can make you laugh out loud in a room alone."-- Washington Post "Dr. Pacheco is enthralled by the memory of a neighborhood of family and friends inextricably tied together by custom, values, and concerns. It is these traits that make his anecdotes worth relating."-- New York Times Book Review "Ferdie Pacheco is an artist. His oils are lush and rich, full of the color and life of his times. They are vibrant and alive--almost as if Grandma Moses were to eat a plate of boliche and swallow three cups of café solo before sitting down to paint. . . . [And] he is a storyteller. . . . Ybor City Chronicles is a moment lifted out of the past. . . . It is told with style and gusto and more than a little love, [and] we owe a debt of thanks to Ferdie Pacheco."-- Tampa Tribune Ferdie Pacheco has done it again. In Ybor City Chronicles (UPF, 1994) he brought to life the immigrant utopia that was Tampa's Ybor City in his childhood. In The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook (UPF, 1995), he and coauthor Adela Hernandez Gonzmart created something more than a cookbook, highlighting the recipes, history, and personalities behind of one of America's most famous Spanish restaurants. Now, in Pacheco's Art of Ybor City, the Renaissance man and bon vivant best known as Muhammad Ali's "Fight Doctor"--a man who has also worn the hats of family physician, Emmy award-winning boxing commentator, historian, playwright, screenplay writer, and author of five books--here offers 33 of the paintings that have established his reputation as an artist. In these full-color reproductions we see the Ybor City of the 1930s and '40s that inspired Pacheco from the beginning. With the same flare and storyteller's gift evident in Ybor City Chronicles and The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook, he narrates the unpredictable course of his development as an artist and tells the story behind each painting in this collection. In the bright muralist-style colors that have become his stock-in-trade, Pacheco renders a storehouse of memories too vivid ever to grow dull. So long as he has hold of us, there is no Ybor City more real than this one--with its cigar factories, palm trees, bolita gangsters, trolley cars, clubs and diners and cafés, and the Spaniards, Cubans, Sicilians, and oddball personalities who walk its red-bricked streets. Picture book, memoir, history lesson, and portrait of the artist, Pacheco's Art of Ybor City is four books in one. Together they do what only art can: they turn memory, love, and nostalgia into a city you can visit. Ferdie Pacheco is the author of Ybor City Chronicles (UPF, 1994), The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook (with Adela Hernandez Gonzmart, UPF, 1995), Muhammad Ali: A View from the Corner, Fight Doctor, and Renegade Lightning. His art has been featured in Harper's Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, and many others. Exhibits of his award-winning paintings have appeared in New York, London, Paris, Marseilles, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa, and Miami, where he now lives with his wife, Luisita Sevilla.
Sudden Death blends the tense, action-driven drama of a thriller with character studies more commonly found in literary works, making the novel uniquely appealing to both male and female readers. Although the novel uses football as its focus, more precisely, it's a study of a modern culture obsessed with sports and celebrity an obsession that ultimately turns deadly. The book expertly weaves together the lives of four characters: Dash Carter, a flamboyant, arrogant young star for the New York Jets; Jill Sedecy, the team's media-relations director; New York Times reporter, Mark Foster, Jill's confidant and a star in his own right; and Tom Michaels, a blue-collar fan who's desperate existence is further complicated by his hatred for Carter. Dash, intoxicated by his own immense popularity and seemingly beyond reproach, rapes Jill, who then hides her terrible secret knowing that if she turns him in, Carter will be suspended, she'll likely lose her job and the Jets' hopes of winning the Super Bowl will be lost. Will justice be served? The answer comes during the team's thrilling conference championship game, where Jill and Mark sense that something dreadful is going to happen.
A novel that commemorates the heroism of the American fighter and bomber pilots of World War II is set in Italy in 1943, when an Italian pilot captures an American P-38 Lightning and uses it to shoot down unsuspecting American bombers.
In 1969, former undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano climbed into the ring to defend his recently won All-Time Heavyweight Championship against a young Muhammad Ali. The result, a thirteen round thriller. The entire bout was scripted by a computer, but the competitors were real, Marciano, forty-five, retired for thirteen years, Ali, twenty-seven, recently stripped of his title for refusing induction into the Armed Services. Who would emerge victorious, who would be forever immortalized as the king of kings, and would the arguments over the result ever end. This book is the final work of one of the few witnesses to a remarkable oddity in sport, the late Ferdie Pacheco, in collaboration with Marciano biographer John Cameron, and is presented just as Ferdie left it before he passed into the Valhalla of boxing to be reunited with the fighters he witnessed, tended to, and befriended during his incredible journey through life.
This book was first published in 1992. The work is a remarkable look at WWII flying in the Mediterranean. The winner of the 1953 Ohiohana book award for Chikara! is at his best in this aviation story. Ferdie Pacheco, M.D., The Flight of the Doctor on TV, presented valuable ideas in the making of this book, which received many laudatory reviews.
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.
In this narrated cookbook, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco memorialize their passion for the Columbia, the nation’s largest Spanish restaurant and Florida’s oldest restaurant. This special 115th anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook features a touching foreword by Andrea Gonzmart Williams, granddaughter of Adela. Adela’s affair with food is a family legacy that began in the early twentieth century, when her grandfather Casimiro Hernandez emigrated from Cuba to Tampa. In 1905, Casimiro purchased a small corner café, where he started selling soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Out of gratitude to his new country, he named his small café Columbia, after the personification of America in the popular song “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” Prophetically, he added this motto to his sign: “The Gem of All Spanish Restaurants.” Casimiro became known for dishes that the Columbia still serves today—Spanish bean soup, his hearty creation that combines sausage, garbanzo beans, and potatoes in a beef stock; arroz con pollo, a classic chicken and rice dish; an authentic Cuban sandwich; and the “1905” Salad®, dressed with the family’s special blend of fresh garlic, oregano, wine vinegar, lemon juice, and Spanish olive oil. This anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook is a history of the elegant family restaurant, which now boasts multiple locations across Florida, and a delicious cookbook of 178 recipes that make them famous. It is also the biography of Adela, the heart of the Columbia, with commentary by Ferdie Pacheco—Muhammad Ali’s “Fight Doctor,” Ybor City’s famous raconteur, and Adela’s childhood friend. Adela and Ferdie have since passed, but this book remains a testament to their love of good food and their joy in sharing the aroma, the seasonings, and the glamour of the Columbia.
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.
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