Thursday, April 28, 2005 | 10:39 a.m.
Jack Welsh ate, drank, slept and lived boxing.
An award-winning, prolific journalist for six decades -- the past 25 years in Las Vegas -- he covered every major fighter here from Muhammad Ali to Oscar De La Hoya and was at ringside for the Antonio Margarito vs. Kermit Cintron bout Saturday night at Caesars Palace.
"More than ever, fellow writers in the press room were yelling out to Jack, seeking to talk with him and, in effect, celebrate him," said longtime Las Vegas sports gaming analyst and radio show host Larry Grossman. "In the past four years I never saw Jack so sought after or so celebrated."
After the fight, Welsh went home to his modest apartment at the Katie Arms on Cambridge Street, turned on his TV set, sat in his livingroom couch and died of an apparent heart attack, friends said. He was 80. His body was found Monday afternoon.
Services are pending. The Clark County Coroner's office late Wednesday declined to release Welsh's date of birth or cause of death pending notification of relatives in Kentucky.
"Jack was a Damon Runyonesque character with great personality who lived for the day," Grossman said. "He also was very knowledgeable and wrote real well about boxing."
So well, he won numerous major awards.
Among them, the United Press International Press Box Award for a feature on Muhammad Ali's training to regain the world heavyweight title from Leon Spinks in 1978 for a Philadelphia newspaper, a 1987 Nevada Press Association award for a story on Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Marvin Hagler for the weekly Gaming Today and a 2002 Boxing Writers Association of America column writing award.
"No one came close to being as prolific a boxing writer as Jack was," said Lee Samuels, publicist for promoter Bob Arum's Top Rank Inc., who first met Welsh in the late 1970s when Samuels was a boxing writer for the old Philadelphia Bulletin.
"He loved the fights, especially the big fights. He also wrote about football and gaming, but his heart was with boxing. Jack was at home on press row."
After the Journal closed, Welsh came to Las Vegas in 1980 and got a job as a staff writer for the Sports Form, a weekly newspaper that became Gaming Today.
At an age when many contemplate retirement, Welsh soon established himself as a top area boxing reporter, often working double shifts to write lengthy, in-depth stories and columns that regularly broke major fighting news.
Welsh, a longtime local correspondent for The Ring magazine, ended his journalism career as an Internet boxing writer, most recently with boxinginlasvegas.com. His most recent column was posted Saturday.
Welsh also appeared regularly as a pugilistic analyst on local radio programs, including Grossman's weekday afternoon show "You Can Bet On It" and on Lee Pete's nightly sports talk show.
Among the other major fights Welsh covered in Las Vegas were Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns, Hagler vs. Hearns, Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield, Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney, Holmes vs. Ali and De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad.
Welsh, a Marine veteran, early in his career worked for the Evansville (Ind.) Courier and the old Indianapolis Times. He covered the Kentucky Derby for the Times from 1960 until it closed in 1966, and for other publications from 1967 to 1973.
Welsh was a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
In recent years, Welsh underwent heart bypass surgery.
Samuels said that during his long friendship with Welsh, he never recalled the venerable scribe talk about retiring.
"He had nothing to retire from," Samuels said, noting that covering boxing was Welsh's life.
A list of survivors was not immediately available.
Welsh's body is yet to be claimed at Garden Memorial mortuary, officials there said Wednesday.
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