Boxing historian founded magazine
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Hank Kaplan, 88, a Hall of Fame boxing historian who left behind archives that dated to the 1800s, died Friday at his home in Kendall, Fla., after battling cancer for nearly a year, his daughter, Barbara Haar-Kaplan, said.
“Boxing was his life, and my dad kept everything he stored in such pristine condition,” Haar-Kaplan said of his archives, which included books, letters and newspaper clippings.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Kaplan grew up in an orphanage, where he learned the sport of boxing.
After serving in World War II, he moved to Miami in the early 1950s. He worked as a quarantine officer with the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 30 years while maintaining ties to boxing.
Kaplan wrote books about the sport and was founder and editor of World Wide Boxing Digest magazine.
In 2006, Kaplan was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y.
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