James Julius Taussig was born May 16, 1890, in San Francisco. He passed away July 10, 1966…after seventy-six colorful years in and outside the squared circle.
His obituary said: beloved husband, brother, uncle, native son, member of the South of Market Boys.
That’s the short version with a punch.
The real one was longer…more exciting.
Everybody called him Moose.
Nobody seems to have called him anything else.
He didn’t grandstand nor seek the spotlight, and perhaps he never had to.
What he had was quieter and, in the long run, more useful—people just trusted him.
In boxing, a world where everybody’s angling for something, that kind of man stands out.
Slowly, without making a production of it, Moose ended up at the center of San Francisco’s fight scene.
He and William “Paddy” Ryan established the Taussig & Ryan’s Gymnasium on Leavenworth Street, inside the Cadillac Hotel in the Tenderloin.
It was a place to train for fighters
from all over—local kids, drifters, men chasing a payday or just someone trying their luck in fisticuffs.
Moose didn’t turn anyone who wanted to try the Manly Art.
Come in ready to work and you were welcome.
He had a keen eye for talent, ability and desire… no question.
Irish himself, he felt a natural pull toward men who shared that background.
He helped “Pop” Foster when his Belfast protegé was coming up…a teenage kid named Jimmy McLarnin get his feet wet in the fight game. McLarnin went on to become a Hall of Famer. Moose spotted it early, pushed him in the right direction, and gave him the nickname that stuck: “Baby Face.”
It can be told again: Jimmy McLarnin was just sixteen years old when he arrived in San Francisco in 1924 with his manager, Pop Foster, searching for fights and an opportunity to make a name for himself. One of the first men to size him up was boxing trainer and promoter James Julius “Moose” Taussig of Taussig & Ryan’s Gym. Looking at the slight 108-pound teenager with his youthful features, Taussig reportedly remarked, “No wonder you can’t get him a fight. He’s got a baby face.” The nickname stuck. Within a few short years, “Baby Face” Jimmy McLarnin had become one of boxing’s biggest stars, forever linking Moose Taussig to one of the sport’s most famous nicknames.
He didn’t save his attention for one group.
Filipino fighters were coming into San Francisco in growing numbers.
Japanese professionals and amateurs alike. Italians too. They arrived young, often broke, without connections. Moose made sure his gym was open to all.
The first and second generation of Filipino fighters entered his training camp and later made their names in America like Eddie Duarte, Macario Villon, Speedy Dado, Pablo Dano, Small Montana, and his wards Baby Tiger Flowers and Battling Bulahan.
Willie Meehan was part of that circle too. The San Francisco heavyweight fought Jack Dempsey five times and beat him twice. That’s the kind of record that gets forgotten. It shouldn’t. Moose’s connection to Dempsey went past business. Real loyalty. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.
Promoting was another thing he did well. Cards at the Civic Center first. Then Honolulu, where the local scene had deep roots. Then Japan, working with Yujiro Watanabe— the father of Western Boxing in Japan—to bring fights to audiences that hadn’t seen much international boxing.
The bar gig came later. Mid-1930s, Third Street in San Francisco. He was already called Frisco Kid, so he named it after himself, or after his nickname anyway.
The Moose Taussig Bar wasn’t fancy. ‘‘Twas simply a room where regulars commiserated… and where the conversation ran long.
On one wall, a mural of a moose—large, unhurried, looking out over the room.
The place and its patrons knew whose it was.
The inimitable reporter and friend of Moose, i.e. Eddie Muller of the SF Examiner, once revealed Taussig had a prankster’s streak. A taste for the harmless bit…The one the Filipino fighters told for years involved garlic. Moose had a theory that doubled up as a prescription—delivered with great confidence—that eating plenty of garlic before going to the movies would sharpen your eyesight. The jest was sold and bought so well that a theater manager eventually came looking for him. The smell was emptying the house. (Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3, S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past)
He probably didn’t stop laughing about it for a week.
Under the joke was something light-hearted and encouraging… A way of putting young fighters at ease. Of letting them know somebody in this city gave a damn in a game that uses people up and moves on, that mattered.
His Hawaiian connections held through the years. San Francisco stayed his foundation—the Tenderloin blocks, the South of Market crowd, streets he knew from the heart.
But the reach was wider. Manila. Tokyo. Honolulu. Fighters from across the Pacific moved through his world as naturally as anyone from the Mission or the Richmond. In his era, that was not how things usually worked.
He died in 1966. At a solemn ceremony, his family gathered. That was that.
Thereafter, he gave the gym on Leavenworth to fighters nobody believed in, and opened one corner of the Tenderloin to Filipino kids—new to the country, new to the city—who had nowhere else to go.
McLarnin with his Hall of Fame plaque and the nickname Moose gave him. The Dempsey friendship. The Honolulu cards. The Tokyo connections made years before anyone thought to make them.
The bar on Third Street, the mural on the wall, the garlic story still getting laughs long after he was gone.
Moose built something. He didn’t need anyone to notice — just kept the door open, dealt straight, and let people find their way through.
Some men leave a name and a reputation.
Moose left us a vibrant boxing community.
Sources, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
- Top Photo of Moose Taussig: Source: THE HAWAII HOCHI, HONOLULU, T. H., page three, July 23, 1932
- Source: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1939. HAWAII HOCHI. HONOLULU. I. H, PAGE THREE
- Photo of Moose Taussig and his Protégés Source: The Nippu Jiji, February 10, 1933
- Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3, S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past
- Photo of the interior of Moose Taussig’s Bar. Photo by Woods: S.F. Restaurants. Moose Taussig Bar. Third Street. San Francisco. July I935 (SF Examiner: https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/127195/export/iiif_manifest). Fair Use Doctrine (With Gratitude)
- This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.