Boxing Writer Jack Walsh Dies at 76

By: (AP) Boxing writer Jack Welsh, who covered decades of fights for a variety of publications, has died in Las Vegas. He was 76.

Welsh apparently died of natural causes, authorities said. The Clark County coroner's office was attempting to contact family members Wednesday.

Friends were unable to reach Welsh on Sunday after a Saturday night boxing match at Caesars Palace. They alerted Las Vegas police, who entered Welsh's apartment Monday and found his body.

Welsh wrote for newspapers including the Evansville (Ind.) Courier and the now-defunct Philadelphia Journal. In recent years, he worked as a freelance journalist, covering boxing and football for magazines and Internet Web sites.

"Jack was one of the legendary characters ever to grace Las Vegas," sports talk show host Larry Grossman, a longtime friend, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"I look along press row now, and you can't distinguish one guy from another, but Jack was simply unique," Grossman said. "He's one of the last of a breed."

Welsh was a former public relations official at River Downs racetrack in Cincinnati, and a friend of former major league pitcher Dean Chance, who called Welsh a great storyteller.

"The things I'll always remember are the crazy stories and how everyone always had a smile on their face when he was around," Chance told the Review-Journal.