BRANDYWINE HUNDRED — Ray Finocchiaro spent more than 40 years in journalism in Delaware. For most of those years, he told the stories of the Philadelphia Phillies and their confreres at the sports complex, the 76ers and Flyers. He also chronicled the University of Delaware.
But before that, the north Wilmington native got his professional start at the Delmarva Dialog, which celebrates the 60th anniversary of its birth in September 2025. Finocchiaro is one of seven original staff members. He still lives in north Wilmington, where he is a member of St. Helena’s Parish.
His time at the Delmarva Dialog was short-lived, just five months. That was something diocesan leaders knew when he was hired after graduating from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Finocchiaro had been a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Rutgers, and he was to report for a stint in the Army at the end of 1965.
“They knew I was leaving in January,” Finocchiaro said. “I don’t remember how I got the job at all or who I interviewed with. It must have been someone at the diocese.”
Perhaps it was one of his teachers at Salesianum School who recommended him to the diocese, he said. He went to Salesianum after graduating from St. Helena’s School in Bellefonte, where one of his classmates was Joe Biden.
Finocchiaro, 82, said he wasn’t an athlete, but Biden was the quarterback of the football team. When Biden was elected to the United States Senate, his former classmate was tapped to write an article about his athletic career, which continued at Archmere Academy and the University of Delaware.
About a month ago, Finocchiaro recalled, he was leaving the dentist’s office, and the former president was standing outside when he left. Biden greeted his former classmate by name.
Finocchiaro said he was hired to cover entertainment, and he laid out those pages.
“I can’t remember what writing I did as far as covering stories,” he said, although his first byline in the paper was a profile of Salesianum running back Bill Bartholomew, who was headed to Notre Dame.
One of the things that stands out in his mind was production night.
“We would put the thing together, and we would go up to Philadelphia to the printer, I think on a Thursday night,” he said. “After that, we would get a steak dinner. John would take everybody to this place.”
John O’Connor was the first editor of the Delmarva Dialog. He had come to the First State from California. His tenure ended after about 18 months.
During his time in the Army, Finocchiaro was stationed at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he worked in a historical unit. He helped write a medical history of World War II. When he left the service, he knew he was going to work for the Morning News and Evening Journal, the predecessors of today’s News Journal.
“I ended up in sports by accident. That’s what they had open that day,” he said.
The sports editor, Al Cartwright, told him he would not be allowed to cover Salesianum. Instead, he was the beat writer for some championship contenders, although it meant strange working hours.
“Everybody who hasn’t been a sportswriter envies that. I tell everybody, ‘When the game ends and you leave, that’s when I start,’” he said.
He was in the press box at Veterans Stadium in 1993 when the Phillies played the San Diego Padres in a doubleheader that was delayed by rain and ended at 4:41 a.m. There was no steak dinner waiting after that one.
