Last Friday's item about Joe Gergen retiring from Newsday has inspired many colleagues and readers to share with me fond memories of reading Joe over the past 40 years.
Among them was my former Giants beat competitor/friend, Ralph Vacchiano of the Daily News.
Turns out Ralph's career got its start - sort of - when he twice was recognized as a teenager by Gergen for contributions to one of Joe's most popular features: the "short season" awards that originally were inspired by the baseball strike of 1981.
On June 16, 1988, Vacchiano voted for Jim Rice for the "Miller Lite Award," given to the league's most disappointing performer:
"I thought," Ralph Vacchiano of Oakdale wrote, "I saw a picture of his big bat on a milk carton the other morning."
The next year, Vacchiano voted for Bo Jackson as AL MVP (mini-valuable player):
"Jackson hits baseballs like he hits linebackers," observed Ralph Vacchiano of Oakdale, "but baseballs go farther."
Wrote the grownup Vacchiano: "Neither my jokes nor my writing has gotten any better during the last 20 years."
Why did I share this? Just to illustrate one among countless ways in which Gergen's work touched Long Island sports fans.
Comments (3)
I won one of those Short Season Awards contests also, back in the late 80s. No clue what my choices were, but I remember getting a Brooklyn Dodgers video and one other baseball video as a prize.
Joe Gergen was great, and I hope he will continue to write from time to time for Newsday or somebody else like Stan Issacs has.
i find it interesting that Rice's 1978 baseball card captured the only time he ever smiled on the field ;)