Bert Sugar

Early life and education

Sugar was born in Washington, D.C., on June 7, 1936. His father was Jewish and he believed that his mother was descended from the Randolph family of Virginia. Sugar graduated from the University of Maryland in 1957 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. He then entered the University of Michigan, where he earned MBA and JD degrees while playing rugby and writing for The Michigan Daily. He passed the bar in Washington, D.C. in 1961, but never practiced law.

Career

After passing the bar, Sugar worked in advertising, including for McCann Erickson. His first sports venture was as editor-publisher of Baseball Monthly magazine in 1962, started with the assistance of Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, whom Sugar met while at the University of Michigan. Sugar bought Boxing Illustrated magazine in 1969 and was editor until 1973. From 1979 to 1983 he was editor and publisher of The Ring magazine.

Sugar wrote more than 80 books, focusing on his favorite sports of boxing and baseball. Among his boxing books are Great Fights, Bert Sugar on Boxing, 100 Years of Boxing, Sting like a Bee (with José Torres), and Boxing's Greatest Fighters. Sugar was ranked as "The Greatest Boxing Writer of the 20th Century" by the International Veterans Boxing Association. He also wrote on other subjects: horse racing, a biography of Harry Houdini, and several books of trivia and statistics. Sugar co-wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pro Wrestling with Lou Albano, published in 1999. In 2009, he published Bert Sugar's Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America's Greatest Game.

Sugar appeared in several films as himself, including Night and the City, The Great White Hype, and Rocky Balboa.

Personal life and death

In 1960, Sugar married Suzanne Davis, a fellow University of Michigan graduate, and they raised a son and a daughter together. Sugar died of a heart attack on March 25, 2012, at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York, aged 75. At the time of his death, he had also been suffering from lung cancer.

References

References

1. Matthews, Wallace. (2012-03-26). "We'll never see another Bert Sugar: Iconic writer always had a cigar in mouth, a fedora on head and a joke on his lips".
2. (25 March 2012). "Iconic Boxing Writer And Historian Bert Sugar Has Died". Newyork.cbslocal.com.
3. Weber, Bruce. (2012-03-27). "Bert Sugar, Boxing Writer and Commentator, Is Dead at 75". [[The New York Times]].
4. Barra, Allen. (2012-03-27). "The Legend of Bert Sugar, Boxing's Larger-Than-Life Chronicler".
5. (2008). "2008 Football Media & Recruiting Guide".
6. Rosoff, Steve. (Summer 1997). "In Search of Bert Sugar".
7. Magno, Paul. (March 26, 2012). "Boxing writer Bert Sugar, 75, dies". msn.foxsports.com.
8. "HBO boxing commentator profile".
9. (1999). "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pro Wrestling". Alpha Books.
10. Nemec, David. (5 May 2009). "Bert Sugar's Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America's Greatest Game". Running Press.
11. (2012-03-26). "Historian, commentator Bert Sugar dies at 74".