TSS Writers Fernandez, Hauser, and the late George Kimball debut on IBHOF Ballot

On Monday of this week, voting members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, which includes an international panel of boxing historians, received the ballot for the 2020 election cycle. The candidates that pass an initial screening are sorted into five categories: modern era boxers, old-time boxers, observers, non-participants, and pioneers, the latter of which now appears on the ballot only every five years.

There are 25 names in the “observer” category. New this year are three members of the TSS family: Bernard Fernandez, Thomas Hauser, and the late George Kimball (whose name was accorded a permanent place on our “editorial staff” roster).

Fernandez

Bernard Fernandez, whose work appears exclusively at The Sweet Science, covered the boxing beat for four decades, primarily for the Philadelphia Daily News where he spent 28 years before retiring in 2012.

A former five-term President of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Fernandez, a New Orleans native, was the 1998 recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism. In honor of his service with the organization, the BWAA’s annual writing awards would be re-named the Bernie Awards. He is a member of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame.

Hauser

The versatile Thomas Hauser, who has written both fiction and non-fiction, burst on the boxing scene in 1986 with “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing.” Five years later, Hauser came with “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times.” The biography, in the genre of an oral history, was nominated for the National Book Award and won the William Hill Award, a prestigious award in the United Kingdom.

“The Black Lights,” originally published by McGraw Hill, would be reissued in paperback by the University of Arkansas Press which has released at least one book by Hauser each year since 2000. A multi-award winner by the Boxing Writers Association of America, mostly in the Investigative Reporting category, Hauser, akin to Bernard Fernandez, is a past winner of the Nat Fleischer Award.

A frequent TSS contributor, Hauser’s next submission for this web site will give readers a unique post-fight perspective on Saturday’s Golovkin-Derevyanchenko match at Madison Square Garden.

Kimball

George Kimball, who died in 2011 at age 67 after a long battle with esophogeal cancer, wrote his first story for The Sweet Science in 2004, a year before retiring from the Boston Herald after a 25-year run. At the Herald, Kimball (pictured with Muhammad Ali) covered all major sports around the world including, by his estimate, approximately 350 world title fights.

As former TSS editor-in-chief Michael Woods noted, Kimball was very productive in the last years of his life, “saving his best for the championship rounds.” The author, co-author or editor of eight books, Kimball’s masterwork was “Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing,” published in 2008. Kimball also collaborated with John Schulian on two anthologies. (Both Kimball and Schulian were Nat Fleischer Award winners.)

Kimball, who spent his final years living in New York City, numbered Budd Schulberg and Pete Hamill among his closest friends. A two-fisted drinker in his younger days until he quit cold turkey, Kimball was also one of the great characters in the fightwriting fraternity. All of his former colleagues have great Kimball anecdotes to share.

Note: Beginning this year, a fighter is eligible for induction into the IBHOF after being retired for only three years; previously it was five. Also, this is the first year that female boxers are eligible. There are two categories for the women, “pioneer” and “modern.”

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel  

To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE