TheSweetScience.com Boxing Archive Classic

Michael Katz  ...  View the archives of Michael Katz ...

Michael Katz has boxing and New York in his blood. He was born in the Bronx, went to high school in Brooklyn, college in Manhattan (CCNY, did not graduate after six years full-time day session, a world record for over a decade). He started writing for New York Times in 1960 and was with the newspaper in one capacity or another for a quarter-century – including six years in Paris as European Sports Correspondent, Sports Editor of NY Times International Edition and Sports Editor of International Herald Tribune (1966-72). He returned to The Times main newsroom in New York City in 1972. Katz left the Times in 1985 to go to the NY Daily News after Vic Ziegel, an old CCNY buddy, was named sports editor. He left the News in 2000 to go to houseofboxing.com, and when the house came down he went to max. And now, serendipity, Katz graces our starry ranks. Michael Katz is widowed, has one daughter (Moorea, named for island upon which she was conceived), a 24-year-old UNLV grad (she moved to Vegas three and a half years ago to keep an eye on her dad), and a couple of dogs, Kimball (yes, named for beloved George of The Sweet Science) and Colada (whom Katz affectionately calls Barfie).

Pat Putnam  ...  View the archives of Pat Putnam ...

Pat Putnam has been covering boxing since 1960, since the day The Miami Herald executive sports editor Bob Elliott tapped him on the shoulder and said: "You are my new boxing writer." The next day Putnam showed up at Chris and Angelo Dundee's 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach, which a few months later would become the home base of a fellow named Cassius Marcellus Clay. "Five days a week for the next seven years it was Sweet Science 101," says Putnam. In 1968, Putnam moved north to Sports Illustrated, where he would cover boxing, as well as many other sports including those at six Olympics, for the next 27 years. In 1982, he won the Nat Fleischer Award "For Excellence In Boxing Journalism." After retiring in 1995, Putnam has done free-lance work for The Observer of London, Showtime, HBO, The New York Times, the Japanese boxing magazine Number, the Variety magazine Vlife, and America Presents, where, he says: "I made a star of Fred Sternburg."