The Scorekeeper. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman
When it came to sports, Ed Hershey really had no competition.
That’s because, as he readily admits, “I wasn’t any good.”
But he never shied away from what he loved most – the games, the action – and more than that, writing about those games.
“I was a nerdy guy, but loved sports,” he told the Eagle. “In fact, I had to go to a Jewish summer camp to find my competition.”
He spent four summers at Camp Harmony – two as a camper, two as a camper waiter.
The kid who grew up on Ocean Parkway on the first-floor of a six-story apartment house between Avenues N and O, may not have found his completion on the ballfield, but he absolutely had no competition reporting on sports.
He lived in walking distance of P.S. 238, attended Seth Low Junior High School and Lafayette High School.
“While others were playing the games,” he said, “I had my head buried in the New York Times on the subway, reading baseball box scores.”
Writing for Ed Hershey was as natural to him as pitching was for another Lafayette High grad – Sandy Koufax.
“I started at the school paper,” he said, “And worked my way to the (now defunct) Journal American.”
At the ripe old age of 15, Edd Hershey was taking scores for the J-A under the tutelage of the legendary high school writer Morey Rokeach.
“Most of what I did in high school, wasn’t in high school,” he reasoned. “I covered the track team for their meets in the 168th Rgt. Armory. I snuck in, met the sports reporters and soon became the Lafayette High correspondent.”
Hershey was actually working — and covering events – in his junior year of high school, for the Journal American.
“One New York Daily had an internship program,” he said, “The World Telegram and Sun. They hired me for $25-a-week in the winter of 1966,” he said. “I was working four-to-five-days-a week.”
Not for long.
Three-and-half months after his hire, the WT&Sun went belly-up.
The…
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