Boxing writer George Kimball was a "G"

pong · Dec 7, 2011

One night, when he was 21 and partying in Beacon Hill, he was struck on the side of the face with a beer bottle. That's how George got his glass eye.
It became his favorite prop. "You'd be amazed," he said, "by how many people ask you to keep an eye on their drink."
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One year he was at Kansas University on an ROTC scholarship, the next at a community college outside of Boston, then back to Kansas, then to jail after an arrest in 1965 at an anti-war demonstration for carrying a "**** the Draft" sign.
In spring 1970, George announced that he would run as the Youth International Party candidate against the incumbent, Rex Johnson, a Republican who had run unopposed for years and who had arrested him back in '65.He wore a tin badge and carried a rusty old six-shooter. He declared that the only laws he'd enforce regarding the "drug problem" would be "fraud, truth in packaging, and price-fixing conspiracy statutes against unscrupulous dealers." He announced he'd appoint African-Americans to half the deputyships and said that the state attorney general "harbored a predilection for engaging in unusual activity with livestock

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His leg caught between the fire ladder and the wall. He knew right away it was broken. He dangled from the fire escape like a batexcept bats can let go. He tried calling for help but his voice was too weak from the cancer treatments; he could barely whisper. Also, he wanted that ****ing cigarette. A security guard, ducking out for his own smoke, found him, and it took another 20 minutes before the paramedics could get George on his feet. They wanted him to go to the hospital for X-rays but George talked them out of it. His wife was a doctor, he explained, and with all the chemo, he had more than enough painkillers at home.

He went back to his seat to watch the last two fights. Afterward, he hobbled to a drug store and bought a knee brace, an ice pack, a large quantity of bandages, and a lighter to replace the Zippo he lost in the fall. Two days later George would go to a hospital to set his broken leg. But that night, he went home. His wife Marge cleaned the scrapes on George's arms, and he took a big hit of OxyContin. Then he filed his story on the fight.
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His reputation preceded him and he played on it, unnerving the management of the local teams, particularly the Red Sox, because he was getting stoned with players like Bernie Carbo, Fergie Jenkins, and Bill Lee. Bob Sales, the editor of the Phoenix in the late '70s, remembers coming into his office to find George passed out on one couch and Lee on another.
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http://deadspin.com/5863743/
My favourite boxing writer

PityTheFool · Dec 7, 2011

Four Kings was a wonderful read.

antcull · Dec 7, 2011

Nice stories, cheers :good

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Boxing writer George Kimball was a "G"

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Boxing writer George Kimball was a "G"

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