Scratching surface of a varied career

BOOK LAUNCH GEORGE KIMBALL'S DOUBLE PUBLICATION:FEW SPORTSWRITERS would have the audacity to release two books at the same time, but then there aren't many sportswriters like George Kimball. At least not anymore.

If Kimball wanted he could release a dozen books at the same time and still that wouldn't scratch the surface of his extraordinarily varied and relevant career. It's not just the number of stories Kimball has to tell about others; it's also the number of stories others have to tell about him.

Kimball has, after all, rampaged with the late Hunter S Thompson, who had enlisted him to write for Rolling Stone, partly because he liked his pungent, Pulitzer Prize-nominated style and also because Thompson wanted the editor, Jan Wenner, to know there was someone out there "as demonstrably f****d up" as himself.

When I first met him at the Athens Olympics four years ago, Kimball was wearing a black leather jacket and several other layers of clothing, despite the 100-degree heat, and was characteristically undaunted by the so-called greatest show on earth.

Keith Duggan, also of this newspaper, writes the introduction to the first of Kimball's books launched in Dublin last night. American at Large, published by Red Rock Press, is a collection of Kimball's best (not that any of them are less than brilliant) weekly columns for The Irish Times.

Appropriately, his close friend George Foreman (who performed the ceremony when Kimball and Marge married a few years back) writes the foreword.

Three years ago, Kimball was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer but has refused to let that slow him down or force him to kick his beloved Lucky Strike.

All royalties from the sale of American at Largego directly to the Children's Medical and Research Foundation of Our Lady's Hospital, Crumlin, and Kimball dedicates his book to his foursome from hell: Finbar Furey, Kevin Haugh, Pat Ruddy and Niall Toibin - the last-named performing launch duties last night.

"May they continue to lead me astray," he says.

His second book released last night is Four Kings, published by Mainstream, and traces the careers of Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy "Hitman" Hearns, "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler and Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran.

Kimball was joined at the launch last night by his wife and one of his two sons, Teddy.

"I'd love to see Four Kings take its place in the pantheon of sports literature," Kimball noted, "but as a sports editor once said to Bob (Waters, one of the ringside press table's most colourful characters), after he'd won some award for his boxing coverage: 'Well, that certainly makes you a tall midget'."