Classic West Coast Boxing Photo

This photo is owned by my friend Frank Baltazar Sr. My late trainer Mel Epstein is at the lower far right sitting down holding his hat. My thanks to Frank for sharing this photo.

"Names not in order and some might be misspelled. Can't identify everybody...1970. George Parnassus, Enrique Bolanos, Willie Kechum, Don Fraser, Mickey Davis, Suey Welch, Teddy Bentham, Mel Epstein, Duke Holloway, Allan Malamud, Jack Root, Mushy Callahan, Frankie Van, Tommy Farmer, Pete Rokas, Dutch Myer."   -Frank Baltazar Sr.

Classic Photos: Mel Epstein & Mike Nixon

Mike Nixon & Mel Epstein

I got te above photo of my old trainer, Mel Epstein,  from my friend Frank Baltazar.  The photo looks to be in the early to mid 1970's before I began training with Mel. He was the closest thing I had to a grandfather. Mel passed away in 1980. Still miss the old guy.

The photo/newspaper clipping of Mel & Mike was given to by Mel back in 1975.

A Mel Epstein Memory: The Bastid Swivel

By Randy De La O

About the word "Bastid". When I first started training with Mel, he had a speed bag but no swivel. He had to keep borrowing a bag from someone. I had a swivel at home so i told Mel I would bring it in so he wouldn't have to borrow from anyone. He said okay so I did.

When it came time to hit the bag Mel started to screw the swivel in. It wouldn't go in right and Mel was starting to get impatient, as only he could. Finally, he looks at me and says "This is a bastid swivel" I thought "bastid?" What's a bastid? So I said "what?" Thinking I heard wrong. What's a bastid Mel?" he looks at me as if I was an idiot. He says "A bastid!". Again I said "What's a bastid? You don't know what a f**king bastid is? His eyes going back and forth in exasperation and despair. I was starting to feel stupid, not knowing what a bastid was. Again, a little irritated with him now but still feeling stupid I said "I never heard of it before". Astonished he said "You never heard of a bastid? Where did you grow up, under a rock" A bastid, a motherless child!!" Then the light bulb goes on. Oh, you mean a bastard?" Again looking at me like I was Gomer Pyle "That's what I said "bastid!". I decided right then and there to let it go. After that I learned to pay attention to his speaking idiosyncrasies. He never said Champion either, he said Champeen.

Mel Epstein, a great mind of "Old School"

Mel Epstein & Systolic breathing . . . By Rick Farris


Like the "old school trainer" fraternity in which he was vested member, Mel Epstein, knew the tricks of the boxing trade. How to get an edge.
Having an edge can make a big difference, and Mel was concerned about my deep breathing, my oxygen consumption during a bout.

Mel was not a "certified" anything, like the so-called educated gurus who charge champs six figures today.
Actual experience was Mel's guide, advice from the likes of Dempsey's trainer, Teddy Hayes, and Ray Arcel back in the Benny Leonard days.
He also got some advice from another valued source, his mother.

"Mrs. Epstein, of the Boston Epsteins," Mel would kid, was an opera singer when Mel was a young lad.
She learned to breathe as a singer breathes, pulling oxygen deep into the body, beneath the lungs into the upper stomach.
"It's called systolic breathing, and that is what I'm going to teach you," Mel promised.
He continued, "My mother taught me, and I saw Dempsey practicing it but they didn't call it systolic breathing. That was my mother's term, and my mother was educated, you know, she came from a good family."
Mel was right, I began to breathe different and it also aided my runs with Bob Seagren.

Mel did some boxing, and has the nose to prove he was probably best suited in management, training and promotion - and he did it all!
Today a college degree and good line of bullshit will land documented smoke blower a spot on some champ's ship of fools. A "Physical trainer."
Mel is rolling in his grave, and he's laughing.

Just last week I saw a "physical advisor" on TV who is going to mentor a world champ on the "bodies rhythm".
He will try to show the athlete how to take deep breath, using a computor screen, high tech graffics and statistics.
The physical advisor will need the finest in high tech equipment attempting to demostrate his theory.
All Mel needed was a good story about his mother and a quick demonstration. Everyday he'd remind me as I walked along side him.
We'd be walking down Wilshire Blvd., near Vermont, Mel would bark . . . "Breathe deep, into your stomach. Systolic breathing."
I'd begin to breath to his staisfaction and then he would bark, "Toes in! Walk with your toes pointed inward, punchers are pigeon-toed!"

That's what he'd tell me as we walked . . . "Breathe, toes in!"
Mel Epstein, he was really something. Bless his soul.

-Rick Farris

Mel Epstein and Young Firpo

Thanks to John Bardelli, I finally have a photo of Mel Epstein to share with you. Mel was my manager/trainer when I was boxing. This photo is from Mel's earlier years, along with his most famous and successful fighter Young Firpo. I am also sharing the letter that John sent me. For those of you that don't know, John Bardelli is the son of  Young Firpo nee Guido Gardelli.

Mel Epstein and Young Firpo

Dear Randy:

Thanks for your letter. We don't know for sure where this photo was taken but think it might have been taken in Kellogg, Idaho. These were amongst some of "the better days" which existed between Firp and Mel even though they carried on with correspondence through the exchange of letters well into the 1960s. I wish I could pinpoint what fight Firp had just been in ... it appears that they are both in a good and jovial mood ... leading me to believe that Firp crushed someone although there is evidence on his face that he caught some shots as well.

Years later, a fire storm of some sort ensued between them --- Firp, in a rage, took all the collected letters and threw them in the fire destroying great historical letters. Whatever might have happened to the letters Dad wrote Mel --- well, they might still exist as Firp was a prolific writer, I assure you. Whoever might be the recipient of those valuable letters is heir to a real treasure trove. Firp's letters --- and he wrote to many --- including letters to the editor on various subjects, history, environment, politics, religion, mining, prospecting, boxing, --- his own career --- were fact based --- philosophical in nature --- loaded with concepts of spiritual thought --- and above all espoused a deep and abiding belief that God was found in and part of nature.

He introduced his children, Cleo, Fred, and John, as well as his wife and our mother, Mary, to the concept of finding God in, about, through, and as Mother Nature, long before we were introduced to similar concepts through the writings of the Psalms and David, Thoreau, Emerson, Hopkins, Blake, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Mills, Muir, Leopold, Wood, Carson, Frost, Krutch --- and so many others whose pens have captured imagery and imagination blessing my own personal love of literature and hours and days spent with an author as my friend.

But none of these literary giants brought to me the visual blessings of the enlightening all my God given senses --- of seeing the sheer athleticism and grace of Firp surrounded by the grandeur of nature --- whether he was wading a creek, climbing a mountain, brushing a trail, dropping a seasoned tamarack and, thereafter, reverently manhandling the fruits of his labor, --- he always had an aroma about him of the freshness of nature --- whether picked up from turning over fresh soil in the garden with a shovel or the aroma of firs and pines blessing him as he wandered through the woods, those ardent smells are with me this very hour.

Then, too, to visually see the ease employed with the mastery of strength reduced to least movement --- never wasting precious energy while digging ditches with a pick and shovel that would leave an observer or passerby to marvel and literally question whether a machine was tossing dirt from the ditch --- stories that stagger the imagination but which are true and still verifiable because there are still some who relate what they heard and saw, firsthand, of his laboring ethic beyond what he accomplished as a fighter blessed with unparalleled and prodigious strength --- and the reflexes of a tiger.

Sadly, the letters stopped coming and aside from Mel speaking with me and asking me to convey short messages to Dad during a number of telephone conversations I had with him --- as far as I knew they never exchanged words again. Mel, during a number of conversations which I was blessed to have with him before he passed on in 1980, spoke to me of Firp's exploits in, and his identification and affinity with the environment and the wilderness ... mainly, his love of the mountains.

If you detect a particular sadness, herein, --- no, there is no lamenting --- despite the fact that I always considered Firp my best friend --- and the skills he left me with in tackling any problem in life --- were and are prodigious --- to me this very moment --- and the fount from where the solution arises was for him and all his family based on a love of God --- and the fact that we work for God and not ourselves. Amazing saga.

I thank Rick Farris every day of my life for the vision he had concerning Young Firpo's greatness, once validated --- much like your own, Randy, --- a vision instilled by Mel Epstein who not only knew greatness when he saw it --- but lived it --- contributed to it --- and allowed it to become a teacher and motivational tool, in Mel's own right, as he sought to instill, motivate, and pack some of that greatness into others who sought careers as professional fighters --- Rick Farris and Randy De La O, included.

Rick Farris became a believer --- and his vision was thereafter set --- when George Parnasus and Jimmy McLarnin validated all that Mel Epstein had been preaching --- to countless fighters down through the years after Firp's career ended in 1937 --- preaching what so many thought were only the rantings and ravings equivalent to those of a Burgess Meredith as Mickey in Stallone's epic Rocky --- as Meredith sought to motivate Rocky. And, but for that chance meeting between Rick Farris, George Parnasus, and Jimmy McLarnin, --- youth confronting age --- and youth emboldened to ask, "Just how good was this Young Firpo?" --- perhaps, none of this would have come to pass.

In short order, Rick Farris got an earful from Parnasus and McLarnin which, then, in turn, rocked him and gave him a new found respect for Mel Epstein's veracity. In addition, Rick carried with him for the next 35 years the seeds and a spark which would lead him to draw on the sustenance of Mel Epstein having inculcated into him a sense of what greatness was all about, with the end result being was that he was the one individual responsible for the induction of Young Firpo, born Guido Bardelli, into the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

How ironic is it, indeed, that Mickey sought the wisdom and the particular nuances and idiosyncrasies of a fight manager from the genuine Mel Epstein who --- if the truth be known --- trained and managed one greater fighter and character than the fictional Rocky, --- real drama v. fiction and the real drama was stranger and more unique than the what Stallone captured on celluloid. Rocky Balboa was given birth through some small but meaningful contribution from Mel Epstein --- none could have contributed in the manner that Meredith captured the old-time fight trainer-manager. I wish I could have heard what Epstein might have said to Mickey. This is pure genius --- and how did he learn to do this --- YouTube - My favorite Rocky clip And when I see this clip --- I think of Rick and Randy, heirs to an era that they could not fathom at that moment in time.

Thanks for listening to my own personal thoughts.

Sincerely yours,

John A. Bardelli