Bert Sugar, ring historian

Cigar-smoking writer dies at 74

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 oppor - tunity 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.’’

For those who knew Sugar, he was always ready with a quip or a one-liner. His knowledge of boxing history was unparalleled and his recall was instantaneous. His nickname could have been Google. He was that good and that fast coming up with factual historical information on boxing and baseball.

“When you lose a Bert Sugar you lose a piece of boxing history,’’ said Ross Greenburg, former president of HBO Sports, who like many involved in the sport leaned on Sugar for his knowledge of boxing.

“He seemingly went back to Jack Johnson and John L. Sullivan,” Greenburg said. “His passing will leave a large void in the sport. He was everybody’s go-to guy. The sport has so much history and it seems it was all in Bert’s head.’’

Sugar was born in Washington D.C. in 1937. After attending the University of Maryland, Sugar enrolled at Michigan and earned an MBA and law degree. He passed the bar exam, but never practiced law. Instead he became an advertising man for 10 years. He worked at Mccann Erickson and J. Walter Thompson in the 1960s.

Sugar got involved in boxing journalism when he bought Boxing Illustrated in 1969. He edited the magazine until 1973. Then from 1979-83 he was the editor of The Ring magazine.

“As a journalist Bert was a talented writer, but he was a terrible businessman and he knew it,’’ said Farhood, who did boxing ratings for Sugar at Boxing Illustrated. “If he was in charge of a magazine he’d do a great job with the writing, but he did a bad job with the checkbook.’’

The hat – a Panama in the summer and a fedora in the winter – became more than a fashion accessory, it became part of Sugar’s legend.

“I think he showered in that hat,’’ said Ed Schuyler, former Associated Press boxing writer and Hall of Famer. “I’m not sure his wife ever saw him without it.’’

There are many stories about Sugar and his ever-present hat. He didn’t even take it off for the national anthem.

“He’d just push it back on his head a couple of inches,’’ Schuyler said.

Schuyler recalls the time that a fellow writer, Dick Joyce, took Sugar’s hat off and threw it out of the window of a bar on the 20th floor of the New York Athletic Club following a Boxing Writers Association of America dinner.

“That morning Dick called me up saying, ‘I had to do it. I had to do it,’ ’’ Schuyler said. “I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I threw Bert’s hat out the window of the bar.’

“We took up a collection to buy Bert a new hat. I think we collected more money than the hat was worth. But we all figured some sailor found that hat in the river and was wearing it.

“He was a very sweet guy and always there for ever ybody,’’ Greenburg said. “It’s truly a sad day. The heavyweight champion of boxing writers is gone.’’