Remembering the career of Al Hrabosky
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Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images
Very early one Sunday morning in the very late 1970s, I was behind the wheel of my truck with a couple of friends, parked outside of a country and western bar in Salina, Kansas, preparing for the drive home after a night of beer drinking and line dancing. Suddenly the doors to the bar flew open and a small cowboy burst out. He wasn’t your typical Kansas cowboy, he was Asian, quite possibly Japanese, and appeared to be about 5’6 and maybe 125 pounds. He gave his cowboy hat to a friend and proceeded to warm up with a series of kung fu moves. In those days, nobody called it martial arts. Everybody was kung fu fighting.
MyCentralJersey.com
Steve Kalafer, owner of the Somerset Patriots and chairman of the Flemington Car and Truck Country Family, died from complications of cancer Wednesday morning, the team announced. He was 71.
“We are completely heartbroken by Steve’s passing. Everyone who ever came into contact with him over the years knows just how special a person he was,” said Patrick McVerry, Somerset Patriots president and general manager. “He built his dealerships and this team from the ground up with the customers, employees, his family, and the communities served always as his top priorities. He taught us all the value of doing things the right way, of taking the time to build long lasting relationships, and making a difference wherever you can.
The founder of Flemington Car and Truck Country, and the Somerset Patriots minor league baseball team, was also an Oscar-nominated documentary film producer and a 2020 inductee into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Do today’s listless Yankees need a fiery manager like Billy Martin? Stars from the Bronx Zoo weigh in on poor start
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Today 8:01 AM
Ron Blomberg (left), Billy Martin Jr. (top right) and Sparky Lyle have thoughts on the Yankees being tied for the worst record in the American League after 16 games.
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When Billy Martin managed the Yankees for the first time in the mid-to-late 1970s, he’d often return home from night games to find his teenage son waiting up. Billy Joe Martin, who goes by Billy Jr., always knew that he’d have to wait a few minutes for his late-night quality time with dad to begin how long depended on if the Yankees had lost and how they had lost.
Steve Kalafer, N.J. businessman, owner of Somerset Patriots, dies at 71
Updated 5:16 PM;
Today 4:54 PM
Steve Kalafer, chairman of Flemington Car & Truck Country and owner of the Somerset Patriots, died Wednesday at age 71.
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Kalafer, also known as a philanthropist, was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2020.
He was a member of RWJBarnabas Health’s Board of Trustees and chairman emeritus of the Somerset Health Care Foundation’s Board of Trustees. And he also gave his time to the nonprofit Actors Fund, which gives emergency services to those in the entertainment industry. Kalafer was also a documentary film producer and earned several Oscar nominations.