Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, on hand for the Dodgers’ Old Timers Game festivities, smiles as he talks to current members of the team in the dugout before the baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies, Saturday, May 16, 2015, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File
When you have won two Public School Athletic League City Championships as a baseball coach and eight divisional championships — one Brooklyn title and a Final Four appearance in your rookie season coaching basketball — picking a career highlight just might be a bit difficult.
Not for Gil Fershtman — not at all.
In fact, he even calls it perhaps his greatest accomplishment.
The former Lafayette High basketball coach — he did it from 1961 through 1976 — amassed 204 wins in 279 games for a whopping .731 winning percentage. He was Coach of the Year in 1975-76 when he led the team, then known as the Frenchies, to a 19-1 mark.
As Lafayette’s baseball coach, his 1972 team went 28-2 and won the city championship. Two years later, they went 32-1 with another city title. The ’73 and ’75 teams were Brooklyn champs and the ’76 team won a divisional title.
Not a bad resume for any coach — on any level.
So, when asked about his greatest accomplishment the coach, who turns 90 on July 24th, and is still sharp as a tack, said, “Just seeing the success of so many of my former players; and the good things they’ve accomplished.”
C’mon, coach, enough with the “coach speak.”
Sure, you’re proud of winning two PSAL City baseball championships — one at Shea the other at Yankee Stadium.
But the greatest memory easily rolled off the coach’s tongue.
“Well,” he remembered during a phone chat with the Eagle last week, “In high school we played baseball in what was the Ice Cream League. There was no Little League to speak of back then.”
And Gil Fershtman’s Ice Cream League team, the Scorpios, were playing the Tomahawks for the…
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