Hall of Famer Bill Gallo is a sports cartoonist with the N.Y. Daily News … pens a Sunday column …dates back a number of decades - recently wrote a piece that got my attention.

Gallo is of WW2 vintage … US Marine Corps … admits to reading the obits to see if anyone he knows is among them - and one day there it was … Murray Rose.

Murray an old friend when an AP reporter and Gallo a young apprentice with the News - and from that recent column, the "names" resurfaced from the back roads of my memories.

No mention of the yesterday fighters, or managers like Irving Cohen who had Graziano, or Al "The Vest’ Weill with Marciano … or D’Amato and Patterson, George "The Emperor" Gainford with Robinson.

Nor did he touch on the grizzled trainers of the past that taught the sweet science to kids out of the amateurs … and refined the skills of contenders and champs alike. Veterans of the game that knew the job, unlike all too many of the today cheerleaders and pool room buddies or whatever.

Not a word about a Charlie Goldman or Whitey Bimstein, Ray Arcel or Nick Bafi - no, this one was not about the past professors of pugilism. Those are for another day.

This one was for Murray Rose - and other select members of a close knit unwritten society of newspaper guys who covered the fight beat during the glory days of "Friday Night Fights."

The meetings were held in the lobby of the old Garden at 50th & 8th  - was more a pre-fight gathering of reporters and friends than a meeting meeting.

And the names: Abraham & Red Smith from the Tribune and Bromberg of the World Telegram. Frank Graham of the Journal American and Cannon & Buck from the NY Post … and big Dan Parker & Jennings of Daily Mirror fame.

Others were Gallo’s past cronies at the Daily News … Powers, Ward, McCulley and Young. He called it a club - a lively, happy society - and said how overjoyed he was to be let in.

Frank Graham was singled out for special praise … for a bit of advice he gave when Gallo was an apprentice … and unexpectedly assigned to cover a semi-final bout when the regular scribe would be late.

Sitting at ring apron and flanked by Rose and Graham … and with knees knocking, he remembers Rose saying "Just do it kid." Do what, he thought … and then Graham leaned his way and whispered to him.

"It’s simple, just watch and take notes … when it’s over, write a letter to a friend and tell him exactly what you saw." He went on to tell Gallo, when finished call the office and dictate what was written in the letter.

That was it, plain and simple … all went well … and regrets never having the chance to thank Graham before he passed on some years back. Gallo closed his column saying that, and Murray’s advice, was the best he had ever gotten in the biz of newspapering.

I enjoyed the read … and the memory of those mentioned - recalled them all at one time or another during them days of my youth, while doing the commuting thing via the NY subway system on a Monday to Friday schedule.

In closing here’s two others that qualified for that club Gallo spoke of … Bill Corum and Westbrook Pegler.

GEL