Irish Timescolumnist and award-winning American sportswriter George Kimball died at home in New York on Wednesday evening, aged 67.
Kimball, who spent a quarter of a century as a sports columnist for the Boston Heraldand wrote for such titles as Rolling Stone Magazineand Playboy, died from oesophageal cancer, six years after his diagnosis.
Boxing was his first love and he covered almost 400 world-title fights over a four-decade career. In 1985 he was awarded the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism from the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Kimball leaves an incomparable body of work, added to significantly during his illness when he authored Four Kings, the definitive work on the round-robin fights among Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran (2008), and Manly Art: They can run - but they can't hide(2011).
He also edited another anthology with John Schulian 'The Fighter Still Remains'and published his series of Irish Timescolumns in 'American at Large'.
He is survived by his children Teddy and Darcy, and his wife Marge.
George Kimball will be remembered in tomorrow’s Irish Times.