Jay Greenberg … a man with friends in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey and Toronto, not to mention every NHL rink and big-league stadia, passed away on Thursday at age 71.

Former Toronto Sun reporter Jay Greenberg passed away at his home in New Jersey on Thursday after battling complications from West Nile Virus. He was 71.

He spent five decades a sportswriter, columnist and author and his byline appeared in The Kansas City Star, Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Daily News, Sports Illustrated, Toronto Sun, New York Post, The Hockey News and many other publications.

In 2013, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, receiving the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, for his excellence in hockey writing.

Greenberg was also the proud author/co-author of four books: NHL, the World of Professional Hockey (1981); Full Spectrum: the Complete History of The Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Club (1996); Gordie Howe's Son: A Hall of Fame Life in the Shadow of Mr. Hockey (2014), and The Philadelphia Flyers at 50: the Story of the Iconic Hockey Club and its Top 50 Heroes, Wins & Events (2016). His last book--anautobiography of Mike Keenan--will be published in 2022. It will be co-authored by Scott Morrison.

Our sympathies to Jay’s wife, Mona, daughters Elizabeth and Stephanie and his sister Gail Cohen.

As a tribute to Jay, we thought we’d re-publish this article about him that we ran just over two months ago:

June 9, 2021

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

A few days after Joe Carter sent the SkyDome, the city, the province and the country into a state of euphoria not seen since the phone rang inside the Jay Greenberg house in Mississauga.

What now?

Someone offering to clean the air ducts?

Yet, another needy charity?

The office calling with another assignment?

Oh, no ... it was your average call at the Greenberg household: World Series MVP Paul Molitor was calling to thank Jay for a story he’d written about Molitor and his daughter Blaire.

Jay called me the next day to tell me of the Molitor call and the “thank you.” And Jay asked if I’d had many calls at home. I answered “Oh yes, but no one ever called to say thanks.” Over the years the likes of Jerry White, Andre Dawson, Jeff Reardon, Jimmy Key, Pat Borders and Larry Hisle would pass me in a hall or at the batting cage and say “hey ... thanks for the story.”

A phone call at home? No chance. Because the player would not find Greenberg’s phone number on the travel itinerary, he would have to search for it and do some research. Then, he’d have to find the time to make the call.

We’ll get to the reason why Molitor — an off-season resident of Mississauga and smarter than the average bear — called Greenberg in a moment, but we’re like a lot of people who love and know Jay Greenberg of late.

Jay is in Manalapan, NJ suffering from West Nile virus. With more people getting vaccinated and clearing their two-week-post-vaccine-period, visitors have come from Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh and New York to see their pal.

Veteran NHL broadcaster, Mike Emrick is sending Jay DAILY short videos, that are full of historical tidbits and “on this day” type facts of 3-to-4 minutes.

Jay took time to send a “Thanks guys” message fo Scotty Morrison, Jim O’Leary and Wayne Parrish, who had shipped him a Roberto Clemente jersey.

Jay’s No. 1 sports movie is Slapshot, which was robbed in the Oscar nominations A) because it’s about hockey and B) the film’s of fictional setting of Charlestown is based on Jay’s actual hometown of Johnstown, Penn., where the movie was filmed. One of Jay’s friends asked one of the film’s stars to record and send him a message, semi-in-character, with a line Jay is chuckling over more than two months later:

“Buddy, I admire your dedication to your craft, and always going after the story, but why’d you have to go to the West Nile? There’s no hockey there!”

* * *

One night in 1992 the boss sent Jay to Ivor Wynne Stadium to cover a Hamilton Tiger-Cats CFL game with football scribe Frank Zicarelli. Now, Jay grew up in Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Missouri, watched the Mizzou Tigers, worked for the The Kansas City Star, Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Bulletin before coming to Toronto. He had seen a thing or two in his travels.

But nothing like when he heard Ti-Cat fans chant:

Oskee Wee Wee

Oskee Waa Waa

Holy Mackinaw

Tigers ... Eat ‘em RAW!!

“What was that Frank?” Jay asked, after he stopped laughing.

Zicarelli described Greenberg as “bemused, bewildered, befuddled, dumbfounded ... he had no clue what was happening.” Greenberg gave his patented laugh, like he had been jabbed in the side with a pen. Boom. Jay had his column.

Once the Queen’s Golden Gaels (where my father played and coached) was playing the Guelph Gryphons in the Yates Cup at the SkyDome. I took my son upstairs to the press box at half time. Jay was covering the game and asked me about the schools. I explained how one Queen’s player arrived a day late because he had to deliver a baby since he was in pre-med. He asked about the Guelph school and I said, “It used to be an agricultural school.” Next day he had a piece with zinger after zinger about the doctors beating the farmers. There may have been a few cancellations that day.

Jay was only here two years, but his sense of humour touched us all. And the thing was if you travelled -- whether it was Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden or the Spectrum -- you ran into Jay writing columns for the New York Post.

I had read him for years when the Montreal Expos went into Philadelphia and in magazines. I finally had the gumption to tell him he was “the best American at writing hockey based in the United States.” (Hall of Famer Michael Farber was in Montreal.)

Once after a game as he drove me to my New Jersey hotel and we stopped to eat, I asked Jay his secret about writing hockey so well. He said that after a home game his nightly routine at the Spectrum went like this, since he wrote for an afternoon paper

He was always the last writer to leave the clubhouse, sometimes after the last player left. He then went home and ate. Next, he watched a replay of the game. And then he wrote.

Jay, left, presented, Larry Brooks, the writer honoree at the Hockey Hall of Fame luncheon, in 2018.

* * *

The last time we saw each other was when I picked Jay up at Union Station and then we went to new X Hotel for lunch. I joked with Jay that I didn’t know he had been hired by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to scout out the hotel to see if it was suitable to be used as the bubble hotel. He was returning from cottage country after interviewing Mike Keenan, the successful NHL coach. And Jay was flying home out of Toronto Island.

He was a hockey scribe most of the time: covering the Kansas City Scouts, the Philadelphia Flyers for 14 seasons, before joining Sports Illustrated in 1989. After Toronto, he wrote for 17 years for the New York Post.

In 1996, Jay wrote a 378-page coffee table book titled “Full Spectrum: The Complete History of the Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Club” for the Flyers’ 30th anniversary season. He would hand you the book and say “it’s a light read.” He was hired by Mark Howe to write an autobiography titled “Gordie Howe’s Son.” In 2013, Greenberg was named a lifetime member of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association and awarded the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award at Hockey Hall of Fame ceremonies in Toronto.

When he left the Post, he continued to write for hockeybuzz.com and princetontigersfootball.com covering every football game.

* * *

Jay was minding his own business, sitting on the family’s back deck one night in late July (2020), when he was bitten by a mosquito. On Aug. 11, he was taken by ambulance to the Emergency Room after a few days of symptoms that doctors thought may have been COVID -- high temp, flu-like muscle aches, etc.

Jay tested negative for COVID-19, but results came back positive for West Nile, both in blood and spinal fluid. As a result of the virus, he developed encephalitis. Jay spent 104 days in three hospitals, including four weeks in Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. He has been home since Nov. 23.

Jay has been on a ventilator for four months and is now able to breathe on his own for up to 10 hours at a time. He still has his sense of humour. He still frets over his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, while his wife Saint Mona and daughters Liz and Stephanie fret over Jay.

* * *

Oh yeah, about that call ... what was it prompted Molitor to call Jay? Well, it went like this ...

The best present Blaire Molitor receives today on her ninth birthday will have neither “Blue Jays’’ nor “World Champions’’ on it. Blaire’s greatest gift, bestowed upon her at birth, is a Most Valuable Paternal influence in her life.

Blaire’s dad obviously hits a lot better than .500 at home. Five hours after his 16-season baseball dream had culminated, Paul Molitor told his daughter just how unimportant a world championship, a World Series MVP award and the cheers of millions ultimately will prove to be.

“We had a little talk about perspective,’’ said Molitor. “I thought it was important with all the attention coming the team’s way and my way that she remember how this fits into the total scheme of things and not get too full of herself.

“(Yesterday), I had fun with this. It was fantastic out there on the streets. People were chanting almost all the way right up into the stadium. I’ve seen other parades on TV, (but they didn’t) compare to what took place out there. It was wonderful.

“But I also know how fleeting these things are. It’s just so overwhelming for someone to see the adulation that comes to an athlete. I think things can get a little distorted.

“This parade, as nice as it is, can get confusing for a kid when she goes to school and they know who her dad is. I kind of reminded her that it’s not what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside.’’

Wow. Joe Carter hit a momentous home run and Paul Molitor ran home with a cosmic lesson in life for his daughter. No wonder bluebirds ate out of this man’s hands all season.

Saint Paul, from St. Paul, began this season bearing a cross. He wrapped it up as practically a Toronto religion.

Shame on me. Here’s Molitor trying to impress upon Blaire to keep her head on straight, and another idol- worshipping sports columnist is informing her that dad walks on water. I proceed in good conscience only because I have full confidence that at some point Molitor had the fine sense to tell the kid not to believe everything she reads in the paper.

There were only 350 ball scribes covering the Joe Carter walk-off homer. All -- except Jay -- wished they had written the Molitor story.

As Molitor said, “Thanks Jay.”