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Bert Sugar Dead

March 26, 2012 by · Comments Off on Bert Sugar Dead 

Bert Sugar Dead, Boxing suffered a great loss Sunday when the sport’s legendary journalist and historian Bert Sugar died at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco of a heart attack following a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He was 74.

Only a few close friends knew that Sugar was battling cancer. And he wanted it that way. The telephone message on his home office phone in Chappaqua still has Sugar’s voice saying that he was in training for a comeback.

“He was ageless,” said promoter Lou DiBella. “Bert was an older guy, but he was young at heart, young in spirit. He was always (up for) a good time. He was a guy who was omnipresent. I called him to see how he’s doing around a month ago. He was positive. I’d known he wasn’t feeling well. I could tell he wasn’t well.”

With his ever-present fedora and cigar, Sugar became the indelible face of boxing for the past four decades, though several of the 80 books that he wrote were devoted to baseball. He also had stints as the publisher and editor of Boxing Illustrated magazine and The Ring magazine and was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005.

“Clearly Bert was unique and created his niche in boxing,” said Steve Farhood, Showtime boxing analyst and long-time friend of Sugar. “He had an exceptional mind with exceptional recall. He loved boxing and the opportunity that boxing gave him to be Bert Sugar. In time he became more of a character and face of boxing than some of the boxers themselves.”

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