We would meet periodically for lunch, and every time it was all I could do not to come across like I was hosting “The Chris Farley Show,” that old “Saturday Night Live” standby in which Farley would gush at, say, Paul McCartney, hitting him with hard-nosed questions like “Remember when you were with the Beatles? That was AWESOME!” 

And every time, George Kalinsky would smile and say something to the effect of this: “I was just a guy with a camera.” 

If you’ve cared at all about sports in New York City the past 55 years or so, you knew Kalinsky. You knew him as the ubiquitous figure who was everywhere with his camera, at every important moment, mostly at Madison Square Garden but not limited to there. You knew him by his distinctive credit line: “From the lens of George Kalinsky.” 

Mostly, you knew him because of his extraordinary gallery of work. He was an artist with his camera, quite often a magician. He would smile at this, shake his head.