RIP Gerry Fraley

He was one of a kind and one of the best

Brilliant, dedicated and gruff: Dallas Morning News sports reporter Gerry Fraley dies at 64, leaving legacy of unrivaled work ethic

 

In 1996, when The News sent him to Pittsburgh in advance of the Cowboys-Steelers Super Bowl, he displayed his lightning wit and grasp of the local scene in a news conference exchange with Bill Cowher.

Fraley: "People say you are the perfect Steelers coach, a Pittsburgh guy with that blue-collar ethic . . . "

Cowher: "Who says that?"

Fraley: "A couple guys down at Froggy's."

 

One of the first writers I met on the road when I started covering the Dodgers in 1981. He was covering the Braves and I think it was his first year, too. So sorry to get this news. RIP, Gerry.

 

MLB.com obit in case you can't work around the Dallas paywall.

Longtime Rangers writer Fraley passes away

 

More good stuff as T.R. Sullivan honors the glory days of newspapers, too ...

Fraley was the fiercest of competitors, but any journalist who went up against him for an extended period of time, who studied his work and learned from it, ended up being a much better reporter for the experience.

Blood may have boiled, wounds may have been inflicted and indelible scars left behind, but journalism is a rough business not for the faint of heart. This goes back to the years before the internet when reporters walked barefoot outside to the sidewalk at 4 a.m. to check the rival newspaper and see what the competitor was reporting.

Fraley lived for that world. He was a member of a rugged, fiercely competitive fraternity that measured success by good, accurate reporting, not from accolades from the faux literary crowd. The best stories were written in 60 minutes or less on pressure-pounding deadlines, and never recognized in the annual dubious anthologies of what passed for great sports writing.

 

When you have a president and a commissioner speak about you, you did good.

And amazing to think that the AJC, in the Braves' worst years of the 80s, had Gerry Fraley AND Chris Mortensen as their beat writers.

 

I hate that. Fraley is an all-time great. RIP

 

I have to believe Fraley and Stanke are sharing a few beers about now

 

The thing I liked most about Gerry's writing is he wasn't afraid to rip somebody who deserved ripping. In the DFW media market, outside of Dale Hansen, that is unheard of.

 

I've read Gerry's stories for years – decades – and they always were good. It's a loss for all of us that he died so relatively young, and wow the tributes rolling in show how much a bulldog reporter such as Gerry was always admired by his peers.

Never met him. Always wanted to, though. We had some distant family connections.