To Oge the icon, one last goodbye
George, Joe and Jim. That may not be as catchy as Willie, Mickey and The Duke. Yet, around Mercer County, New Jersey, it had just as much meaning.
At least to me. George O’Gorman, Joe Logue and Jim Davis were as important a part of the Mercer County sports lexicon for decades as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider were to those “Talkin’ Baseball.”
George, Joe and Jim could be defined by so much more than one sport.
But when spring and summer rolled around each season, that was the best time of year for me because I got to work with all three.
These three iconic Trenton reporters, all at the same newspaper at the same time, working alongside some nobody — a kid from Ocean City and Seton Hall University who was simply in awe as they talked to young athletes — those kids’ eyes as wide as mine.
George was covering Babe Ruth baseball. Joe was covering high school and American Legion ball, and Jim was covering Little League games.
We would cross paths often when I was working down the street, and it would floor me any time one of them complimented me on a story (they were the competition after all).
Shoot, it just floored me that they knew my name!
[When George asked me to join him at The Trentonian 12 years ago, and I got seated right in front of him, it floored me just as much.]
They had an incredible way with people, all people — young, old and in between — which writers/reporters everywhere should want to emulate.
In today’s world, where a general dislike and distrust of the media is in vogue, George, Joe and Jim were a triumvirate who could have changed those sour attitudes.
As George O’Gorman leaves us today (Monday, Aug. 6) with a sureto-be well-attended funeral mass at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church on the way to his final resting place at St. Mary’s Mausoleum, the people will get one last chance to show how much he meant to them.
George will be sorely missed, just like Joe Logue and Jim Davis before him, possibly even moreso because of how hard he worked and all that he did for journalists.
George will join his buddies at that great writers’ table in the sky and squawk at what we could be doing better, while, at the same time, if possible, pointing a way to help us achieve it. George, Joe and Jim. That may not be as lyrical as Willie, Mickey and The Duke, but this trio of Trenton sports reporters was as dominant at what it did everyday in the pages of The Trentonian as the other three, betterknown names were in a sport they all loved.
Each a legend in his own “write,” here in Mercer County and beyond.
At least to me.