First off, I'll confess that I didn't know Bert Sugar well. We talked a few times at boxing events and I had him on the radio program once or twice, but I'm not going to pretend that we were close friends and regale your with my reminisces of one of the great sports characters of the past generation or so.
It would be great to be able to do that, but I'm going to instead refer you to my friend Wallace Matthews, who did know Bert very well and wrote a terrific column about him, which you can read right here.
Nevertheless, like Wally, I will miss Bert, because he was one of those truly interesting people who could make any subject interesting for you. He was a boxing writer and historian, first and foremost, but he also was a huge baseball fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of the sport and more than a dozen books on the subject in his vast bibliography. He also was one of those distinctive characters who bring a smile to your face whenever you think of them.