For decades, Bill Gallo made his mark as a sports cartoonist and sports columnist for New York’s Daily News, the tabloid newspaper he began working for as a copy boy in 1941. He continued working for the paper until he passed away in 2011.
Following Gallo’s work on the internet and whenever I had opportunities to read the print edition of the paper provided enjoyment and a glimpse of his vast knowledge and keen sense of humor.
In my own work as a sports columnist, I reached out to Gallo a few times to find out some of his views on topics I was planning to write about.
On two occasions, Gallo shared insights via email that I included in columns — one article was a sampling of people’s favorite NFL players and another was about baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki.
“My favorite player (is) Johnny Unitas because he was a talented gambler who had an uncanny sense how the defense was playing him and he took advantage of their lapses. Never saw any other QB do it exactly like him,” Gallo wrote in 2004.
And 15 years before his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Gallo insisted Ichiro would be celebrated there someday.
“Ichiro is one of those fine baseball players that we’ll see last as a star for a long time,” Gallo wrote in March 2010. “As I see it, he’ll be the first Japanese to enter the Cooperstown hall of fame. I think that says it all for the the man.”
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The City of Yonkers (N.Y.) Sports Hall of Fame did a stellar job summing up Gallo’s life and career in a short profile to recognize his 1983 induction into the institution.
Ed Odeven Reporting 