The Passing Of Two Seward Park Graduates

left to right: Joe Goldstein, Sal Gerage

An excerpt from Peter Vecsey's column in the nypost

TWO Fridays ago, I reached out to Joe Goldstein. The notable publicist and unofficial NBA encyclopedia had sent me a note a while back on Ossie Schectman, his Boca Raton buddy and earliest (1946-47) Knick. I promised his request would make the column the Sunday after the All-Star Game.
Then I asked Joe for a favor. That's how we do. Sal Gerage's health was plainly failing. I knew he and Joe went way back. Blanks needed to be filled regarding the virtuoso newspaper career of the first editor who took the time to critique my undisciplined copy, didn't mutilate my already-flimsy confidence and pushed me hard to cultivate what he felt was an original style.
It took all of one weekend for Joe to provide the answers. They had graduated from Seward Park High School just after D-Day in June of 1944. Senior year, both had worked as copy boys for afternoon dailies.
Dissuaded by his father from following in his frozen footsteps at the Fulton Fish Market, Sal took a job at the World Telegram in the sports department. Joe was hired by the New York Sun. Six years later, the two papers merged and became the World-Telegram and Sun.
"Sal became known as a wonder boy," e-mailed Joe, who decided around that time to become a press agent, learning the nuances by hanging around Haskell Cohen, the NBA's first PR man.
Meanwhile, Sal became a valued sports desk person, working the midnight-to-eight lobster shift and putting out the first edition.
"When the Journal American ceased publication, Sal became the sports editor of the mixed operation," Joe reported. "This means he was the sports editor of the new, but not-destined-to-survive paper. He was selected over Harold Claussen and Max Kase.
"The World Journal Tribune represented a fusion of seven newspapers - the Journal, the American, the Evening and Morning World, the Sun, Herald and Tribune. With the demise of the World Journal Tribune, Sal went to the Daily News, then owning a daily circulation of two million plus, as Brooklyn editor, which included Queens and Nassau/Suffolk. For a time, he was sports editor."
Last Wednesday, on my way to Phoenix for the All-Star Game, I called Joe in Florida to thank him for the newspaper history lesson and for setting Sal's career straight sequentially.
Two days later, Joe died at age 81 after suffering a stroke and a heart attack. At last count, 44 articles celebrated his flamboyant life and chronicled his colorful client list that featured Smokin' Joe Frazier, who attended Tuesday's standing-room-only service with his son, Marvis.