Jack Fiske, 88; S.F. Columnist Was West’s ‘Voice of Boxing’

Jack Fiske, 88, who was called the voice of boxing for the West Coast during his more than 40 years covering the sport for the San Francisco Chronicle, died Tuesday in a Redwood City, Calif., hospital after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Fiske, whose twice-weekly Chronicle column was one of the boxing world’s most highly regarded, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., in 2003.

The toothpick-chewing Fisk, who was known for his encyclopedic knowledge of boxing and keen eye for detail, would jot notes at boxing matches on a single sheet of paper, then dictate his reports to the newspaper from a pay phone.

“Jack Fiske was a brilliant writer,” longtime referee Arthur Mercante, now a boxing judge, told the Chronicle on Wednesday. “He said what he wanted to say in no uncertain terms.”

Before joining the Chronicle, Fiske worked on five other newspapers, including the Alameda Times-Star and the Richmond Independent.

Born Jacob Quincy Finkelstein in New York City in 1917, Fiske served as a medic in the Army Air Forces in Australia and New Guinea during World War II. He later attended the University of Alabama, where he managed the school boxing team. One team member was bantamweight George Wallace, the future Alabama governor and presidential candidate, whom Fiske remembered as a fine boxer.