O'Hara got it done even when he was flustered.

On July 9, 1976, O'Hara was at Fenway when general manager Dick O'Connell announced that Red Sox owner Thomas A. Yawkey had died. O'Hara's freelancer that day was Kevin Dupont, who went on to become a longtime hockey writer for the Boston Globe and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Clutching handwritten notes, O'Hara grabbed the telephone and began to dictate a story to the office. Suddenly, he stopped, Dupont remembered.

"What?" O'Hara yelled into the phone.

The editor wanted him to attribute the news to a source. O'Hara responded sharply, Dupont recalled:

"What? According to whom? According ... to ... whom? Are you kidding? ... According to Dave O'Hara of the AP. The (expletive) man is dead!"

Direct and correct. That was O'Hara.