Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, master journalist, dies aged 85 | OneFootball

From the historic magazine El Gráfico, over 30 years (8 as director), his pen left behind unforgettable texts forever. A career he completed with radio, TV, and notable writings in Infobae. Without a doubt, one of the greats of Argentine sports journalism has passed away.

The great and renowned journalist Ernesto Cherquis Bialo wrote the final period of his life page today at 21:56. He was 85 years old and suffered from leukemia.

Last year, he had to be hospitalized at the German Hospital in Buenos Aires due to this illness. The severity of his condition prompted public requests for blood donors and generated a wave of support and prayers among colleagues and followers.

But that time, his strength and spirit worked a miracle. He himself recounted the words the doctor treating him said: “‘I don’t have good news. The bone marrow isn’t working. Do what you have to do. Say goodbye to those you need to say goodbye to, sign the papers you need to sign.’”

However, Cherquis himself managed to pull through for a few more months. And on that occasion, he recounted what ultimately got the better of him: “I had a chill that turned into a bronchospasm, which transformed into pneumonia and ended with bilateral pneumonia. The bilateral pneumonia caused a complete lack of defenses, and the lack of defenses made my bone marrow stop working. And when my bone marrow stopped working, the body reacted with leukemia.” This time, the miracle did not happen. And it’s time to say goodbye.

Journalism

March 1963. A young Ernesto Cherquis Bialo arrives at Azopardo 579 (corner of Mexico, almost San Telmo), the polished bronze plaque indicated Editorial Atlántida, and as soon as he enters, at the entrance counter, Ranea, the doorman, always attentive and dressed in his gray flannel uniform, indicated: “Take the elevator to the third floor and wait in the hall; Mr. Fontanarrosa will send for you.” Carlos Fontanarrosa directed El Gráfico, the main sports magazine not only in the country but on the continent. The written medium in which any sports journalist dreamed of seeing their byline.

“Fontanarrosa made me feel so comfortable in that first interview, treated so warmly that it dismantled my formal speech of future commitment. In person, he was as pleasant as on TV when he hosted Polémica en el Fútbol on Channel 13,” Cherquis recalled in one of his memorable Sunday notes in Infobae. “The chat lasted a few minutes. Just enough to know that the magazine sold 78,000 copies of the historic 165,000, that they needed to recover them, that it was in a process of change open to new ideas, that it wasn’t made for friends nor much less for enemies, that heroes and villains had to coexist on its pages, and most importantly, the Law 1, so to speak, was respect for its readers. Impossible not to understand it forever.”

Piri García, the magazine’s coordinator, laid out the situation: “You’re on trial for 28 days; if you do well, you’ll stay as a collaborator – the last union category – and you’ll earn 1,500 pesos (a little less than 10 dollars of the time) per note.” And he added: “The same we’ll pay you if you stay to correct on Sundays (referring to style or data correction on all authors’ texts) or if you have to come at dawn to check the proofs,” the last review with the pages laid out on transparent sheets that allowed visualization of titles, texts, photographs, and illustrations before sending all the material to print.

More Porteño than Uruguayan

Tango enthusiast (a regular for years at Viejo Almacén or Caño 14), soccer fan (a San Lorenzo fanatic), and of course, a boxing lover (Luna Park was his second home, and Tito Lectoure’s office, a great friend, was always open for him), he was as much a Porteño as the Obelisk, except on his ID. His parents – Polish and Russian immigrants – arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, where Ernesto was born on September 30, 1940. The Montevidean Yi street would become a memory when the family decided to move to Buenos Aires, where they lived in several tenements (Corrientes and Yatay, and later Potosí and Rawson), studied, and simultaneously joined the Club Desarrollo as a boxer; there he trained with the great Luis Ángel Firpo, already retired.

After a brief stint as an intern at Clarín in 1962, a year later he arrived at El Gráfico for that initial interview with Fontanarrosa. Through its pages, the magazine founded by Constancio C. Vigil in 1919 would transform over the years into the authentic official history of sports. With a lineage of historic pens that marked sports narrative, starting with soccer, motorsports, and boxing, the three most popular disciplines, until the mid-70s, when the Vilas boom added tennis frequently to its covers. In fact, until the 80s when television imposed its power every Sunday, appearing on the cover of El Gráfico meant making it. A dream, a goal, an achievement in itself.

He covered numerous events. But above all, the signature of Cherquis Bialo is synonymous with boxing. In 1968, the popular Peñaflor wine began sponsoring boxing broadcasts on Radio Splendid. “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he liked to say in Marlon Brando mode from The Godfather. For that reason, until his definitive return to the magazine, for years he signed as Robinson (the pseudonym he used due to his admiration for Ray Sugar Robinson) since the magazine demanded exclusivity.

Consulted by El País of Uruguay, he summarized Argentine boxing this way: “Carlos Monzón was the greatest world champion Argentina ever had, clearly. Ringo Bonavena was a titan in an era of enormous world champions like there are no longer in the heavyweight division. Víctor Galíndez was great, with an unforgettable epic against Richie Kates in South Africa. Santos Laciar, Horacio Accavallo were great too, as was Uby Sacco, although he lasted as long as a matchstick light because his life wasn’t easy. Boxing was the number two sport, in competition with motorsports. And the covers of El Gráfico reflected that.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.