Kimball found something worth fighting for

Writer and journalist George Kimball hung on long enough for one last American Independence Day. He died a year ago on Friday.

It was his last push for life, the last bit of improvisation for a boxing scribe from the old school who must have endured countless nights of chaos in order to get his copy in on time from white-hot arenas and blood-spattered notebooks.

The first and last time I met him was at a book reading in New York City’s Greenwich Village. He shared the stage with the Ali biographer Thomas Hauser, who was himself showcasing his recently published first-person fictional account of a heavyweight boxer, Waiting For Carver Boyd.

Mr Kimball was in a bad way and yet I wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to introduce myself to him and shake his hand. In spite of the cancer which had wrecked his voice, his desire to discuss the upcoming Kevin McBride fight in Newark outweighed his suffering.

And when it came to his time to read from the collection he edited, At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, he improvised.

He dug out an audio recording of the book from a phone and played it through the venue’s sound system.

Honestly, it made for an awkward scene but he wasn’t going to lose the fight — we were going to hear the words, one way or another.

Say what you want about this beleaguered industry and some of the unfortunate egos that have hampered it at all levels, there has always been a nobility to making deadline and getting the story out.

In anticipation of Mr Kimball’s anniversary, I’ve been reading his 2008 book, Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran, and, The Last Great Era of Boxing, his astonishingly in-depth portrait of an incredible time in sport. Even though he spent his final act writing a US sports column for another paper in our ecosystem, he is too much of an inspiration to ignore.

It seems appropriate on this Fourth of July to pick out a poignant anecdote from the book.

It’s late 1980 and ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler is sipping a pint of ale at a London hotel after finally becoming the WBC middleweight champion of the world with a third round stoppage of Englishman Alan Minter. While the decision to end the fight was definitive — “the ring looked like an abattoir” — the night itself was highly controversial. The bout had attracted as many National Front scumbags as the Wembley Arena could stuff in and it didn’t help that the discount slabs of bottled beer would subsequently provide the hostile crowd of racists with the projectile of choice for those dark days.

Glass and beer exploded in the ring as a petrified Hagler was ushered to safety. Even poor old Harry Carpenter was hit by a bottle, managing to stay professional for his BBC commentary during which he blasted what he described as a “shame and a disgrace to British boxing”.

Safely back at the hotel, Hagler and the travelling party of US journalists, promoters and other assorted members of the boxing fraternity began to finally enjoy their success.

“The morning light was peeking through the windows of the boozy, smoke-filled room when Danny Snyder and Robbie Sims descended the staircase, carrying an American flag they had somehow appropriated. [Legendary promoter Bob] Arum and I decided to reprise a scene from The Deer Hunter and broke into a heartfelt if somewhat drunken a cappella rendition of God Bless America. The entire room, Marvin included, joined in. We didn’t realise it at the time but we were inaugurating a tradition. With Hagler facing just one American-born opponent in a seven-bout stretch that began with Minter, the scene would be repeated in venues around the world, as God Bless America became Marvin Hagler’s post-fight celebratory anthem.”

When it comes to patriotism, the rest of the world recoils in horror after America spreads its wings. But in the right context, even a sickly song like that has its place. Whether it’s a cinematic depiction of the put-upon working class of western Pennsylvania ravaged by war and dying industry or a new world champion who struck a blow against extremism while embarking on seven years of domination as the cornerstone of boxing’s last great era. Independence Day also has its negative connotations but for the prominent anti-war counter cultural activist of the 1960s who wrote until his untimely death, independence was a many-layered gift that many benefited from.

Mr Kimball was there every step of the way and the writing he has left behind will keep that amazing time alive.

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