One of a kind

Bert Sugar, boxing columnist and raconteur with few peers, died over the weekend.

There have been several obits now, but here's one of the best descriptions. (From NYT)

Garrulous, opinionated, an eager conversationalist who was known to talk with just about anybody, he was an accomplished raconteur with a bottomless sack of anecdotes and an incorrigible penchant for wisecracks and bad jokes. You could pick him out in a crowded room by his voice — a distinctively upbeat growl — or by the omnipresent wide-brimmed fedora on his head and the fat cigar in his mouth.

Mr. Sugar, who was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, was not simply a character, however. He wrote about the sport with swagger and panache, a prose style that carried the weight of expertise and that simply assumed the authority to bellow and bleat: 

Somewhere, he's commenting on an angel's left hook, a fine hand-rolled leaning from the corner of his mouth.