Remembering George Kimball

Image credit: Boston Herald

The most renowned fight scribes earn that status, their staying power a product of dedication to the sport and the written word and the desire and ability to reach readers over the generations.

The boxing world lost one of its more renowned scribes this week. George Kimball passed away from cancer at the age of 67, dying after a battle that dated back to 2005.

"Many people engage in a flurry of activity when they’re in their sixties to make up for time lost when they were young," writes Thomas Hauser, memorializing Kimball for The Sweet Science. "George was determined to make up for time that he knew he would lose at the end.

"Over the next six years, George was living, not dying. He was as content and productive as most people are at any time in their lives.

"He added to his legacy as a writer by authoring Four Kings (the definitive work on the round-robin fights among Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran). That was followed by Manly Art (a collection of George’s own columns about the sweet science). He also edited two anthologies with John Schulian (At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing and The Fighter Still Remains: A Celebration of Boxing in Poetry and Song)."

Hauser's memorial includes an article he wrote about Kimball in 2004. It can be found here.

Kimball's longtime newspaper, Boston Herald, ran this memorial. Here's an excerpt:

"The Herald meant more to him than he ever let on, especially to his employers and superiors. George was a columnist here from 1980 to 2005, a quarter of a century. Here is where he made the transition from Angry Young to Grand Old. Here is where he got to have the most fun there is, being a big-city tabloid sports columnist. Here is where he found professional true love No. 2: boxing writing.

"He expressed his gratitude by trying to make reading as enjoyable as he found writing. A series of shared misadventures — too long for newspaper space allows me to state — illustrates that one of George’s dominant personality traits was a love of mischief. That’s a very good attribute for sportswriters, and a better one for their readers."

At the Boston Globe, columnist Bob Ryan penned this tribute to Kimball. Among the highlights:

"Long before he began treating Boston readers to his musings, he was a published novelist and contributor to many diverse "literary" publications having nothing to do with sports.

"You can look all this stuff up.

"But the reason why so many of us will miss George Kimball is, shall we say, his off-the-field self. If one were to conduct a poll of local writers, broadcasters, team officials and even players who have worked in Boston during the last 35 years or so, the question being, "Who is the most absolutely memorable personality you have encountered in the writing business?" the runaway winner --- perhaps even the unanimous choice --- would have to be George Kimball.

"That is, unless you know of some other bearded, one-eyed, chain-smoking, beer drinking, pot-bellied (I say this lovingly) vegetarian writer friend of Hunter S. Thompson who never saw a party he didn't like."

Rest in peace, George.