One of New Jersey s most prominent citizens businessman, philanthropist and movie producer Steve Kalafer died Wednesday. He was 71.
Kalafer, easily recognized in a crowd with his sharp attire, thick-framed glasses and gregarious smile, was the longtime owner and CEO of Flemington Car & Truck Country, which since the the early 1970s grew into a car-dealership empire.
He also was the founding owner of the Somerset Patriots baseball team in Bridgewater, which this year became a Double-A Minor League affiliate of the New York Yankees.
Kalafer served on the RWJBarnabas Health Board of Trustees, was chairman emeritus of Somerset Health Care Foundation and served as a New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance trustee.
Steve Kalafer, N.J. businessman, owner of Somerset Patriots, dies at 71
Updated 5:16 PM;
Today 4:54 PM
Steve Kalafer, chairman of Flemington Car & Truck Country and owner of the Somerset Patriots, died Wednesday at age 71.
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Kalafer, also known as a philanthropist, was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2020.
He was a member of RWJBarnabas Health’s Board of Trustees and chairman emeritus of the Somerset Health Care Foundation’s Board of Trustees. And he also gave his time to the nonprofit Actors Fund, which gives emergency services to those in the entertainment industry. Kalafer was also a documentary film producer and earned several Oscar nominations.
How Somerset Patriots became Yankees’ Double-A affiliate | Q & A with owner Steve Kalafer
Updated Feb 06, 2021;
Posted Feb 06, 2021
Steve Kalafer’s Somerset Patriots are the new Double-A farm club of the Yankees after being a big draw at TD Bank Ballpark for more than two decades as a founding member of the independent Atlantic League.Somerset Patriots
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Minor league baseball is scheduled to begin in early May, and it’s a long time coming because the entire 2020 season was a pandemic casualty. On opening day for the Somerset Patriots, the Yankees’ new Double-A Eastern League affiliate, owner and founder Steve Kalafer will be thinking about his late father. Milton Kalafer, 83 years young when he passed on the Fourth of July 1999, was a Newark Bears bat boy as a kid, a World War II vet and machine-shop owner as an adult, and a Yankees fan for life.
NJBIZ Conversations: Steve Kalafer December 14, 2020
7:18 am
Like nearly everything else, baseball was strange this year. The major leagues managed to get through a shortened season and crown a champion, but minor league baseball was shut down. Around these parts, however, the minor league off-season has been … noteworthy. The big story was the move by the New York Yankees to shift its Double A minor league affiliate from the Trenton Thunder to the Somerset Patriots. The Bridgewater-based Patriots are run by Steve Kalafer, who is also chairman of the Flemington Car and Truck Country auto dealerships. He’s also a lifelong Yankees fan. In the latest edition of NJBIZ Conversations, Editor Jeff Kanige spoke with Kalafer about how the team survived through the summer, the outlook for next season and what the new affiliation will mean for the Patriots and the region’s economy. “We are the hallmark of Somerset County,” he said. “We are in the epicenter of Bridgewater. This