A time to think of ‘Mud’

By Bob Keisser

Notes on a scorecard:

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then I hope Allan Malamud is smiling in some heavenly deli, surrounded by pastrami, plasma big screens and a room full of friends who are laughing in-between snorts about Barry Bonds and O.J. Simpson …

Malamud was the much-beloved sports columnist at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner who passed away 11 years and two months ago. More relevant, today would have been his 65th birthday, and he would have celebrated by trying to hit the pick six at Hollypark or reveling in the continued hysteria of an odd college football season …

Harold Alfond, 93, U.S., businessman, philanthropist, Nov. 16

Harold Alfond, 93, founder of Dexter Shoe Co., who focused on philanthropy after selling the company in 1993 for $400 million, died Nov. 16, 2007, of complications from cancer.

Alfond was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia who was born and raised in Swampscott, Mass. He founded Dexter Shoe in 1958 and pioneered the outlet concept, selling imperfect and discontinued products at 80 stores.

The company maintained a U.S. manufacturing presence after many other U.S. firms, but eventually moved all of its manufacturing overseas.

After selling out to giant Berkshire Hathaway in 1993, Alfond stepped up charitable giving, primarily to educational institutions and for college scholarships in Maine and New England.

In 2005, the most recent year for which records are available, the Harold Alfond Foundation gave $100,000 to the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine. It donated more than $25 million total, primarily to educational institutions in Maine and New England. Among the largest donations of the year was $2 million to Maine General Health Cancer Center.

Alfond became a minority partner in the Boston Red Sox in 1978.

He was married to Dorothy “Bibby” Levine, who died in 2006, for 63 years. They had four children, 13 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.