The Loss of Phil Berger by Michael Katz NEW YORK, March 16 - We buried another this week, Phil Berger, the fight writer who didn't want anyone writing about his fight. His estranged wife, Leslie, who had asked to keep his cancer secret because that's how he wanted it, could only shake her head sadly when the shocked calls came in from people who had no idea why he wasn't at his usual spot, moving like a shadow around ringside. That was Berger. The tough guy who didn't need anyone, the physical fitness freak who drank cranberry juice instead of booze.
Cancer knows no boundries of good sense.
There are so few boxing writers around, guys who choose to cover the sewer of society. Basketball was Berger's favorite sport, but he didn't look the other way. He wrote books about Bob Knight and Mike Tyson. He did not make them heroes. But his toughest work, perhaps, came as one of my linear successors as boxing writer at The New York Times.