William B. McCloskey, who wrote extensively about oceans and commercial fishing, died of Alzheimer's disease complications Wednesday at Eileen Elder Care in Perry Hall.

The longtime Roland Park resident was 88.

Knowledgeable about opera, he was a frequent panelist on Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. On what was called the “Texaco Opera Quiz,” he answered obscure questions about opera.

Born in Halethorpe, he was the son of William B. McCloskey, a W.R. Grace executive and his wife, Evelyn Kamburger.

He was a 1946 Catonsville High School graduate, and spent a year in the merchant marine aboard a ship in the Middle East.

After study at Carnegie Technical Schools — now Carnegie Mellon University — he received a bachelor's degree from Columbia University.

He was later commissioned an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and served in Alaska aboard the cutter Sweetbrier.

“He fell in love with Alaska and he returned there after his time in the Coast Guard,” said his wife, the former Ann Lyell. “He worked on boats shoveling ice and did the dirty work to see how it went.

“He took notes on a spiral notebook he put in the back of his pants,” she said. “He got a book contract and wrote the book [“Highliners”] when he returned to Baltimore.”

Mr. McCloskey was a beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun in the 1950s, then became the head of publicity for Black & Decker tool manufacturers.

He then joined the U.S. Information Agency and was posted to India. Family members said he tapped that experience for his first novel, “The Mallore Affair,” published in 1966.

“He was a polymath. He was extraordinary. He was good at lots and lots of different things, and was an adventurer in the most unassuming sort of way,” said a neighbor, Joan Griffith. “He was friendly and I knew him from the Roland Park pool. He loved to shoot hoops.”

In the 1960s, after a period when he wrote news for the Martin-Marietta Co. regarding space exploration ventures, he joined the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County. There, he wrote news releases that explained the work at the lab in language that could be understood by non-scientists.

He was active in the civil rights movement in Baltimore in the 1960s, participating in protests at Five Oaks Swimming Club in Catonsville and at segregated Baltimore restaurants.

Mr. McCloskey's supervisors at the physics lab allowed him to take extended leaves to study commercial fishing.

He was also an expert on Hindu and Buddhist Asian cultures. He was a meticulous note taker and photographer, and many of his images are housed at the Archives Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

He wrote, as a freelancer, for the Smithsonian, Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, Town & Country, Story, Opera News, Oceans magazine, Peabody News, National and International Wildlife, National Fisherman, Pacific Fishing, Fishing News International and Audubon magazine.

“Bill was one of a kind,” said Barbara Holdridge, founder of Stemmer House publishing and a co-founder of Caedmon Audio, which specializes in audiobooks. “He was immensely talented, both in writing and in the study of music.

“He was also a gourmet who had an appreciation for excellent food,” said Ms. Holdridge. “He was full of life and had a joie de vivre that was incredible.”

Mr. McCloskey published six books: four fiction works and two nonfiction. He completed a trilogy of novels, “Highliners,” “Breakers” and “Raiders,” describing fishing for king crab, salmon and other sea life in Alaskan waters.

His novels center around a character, Hank Crawford, a fisherman. Set in 1963 to 1984, they observe the beginnings of the king crab industry in Alaska.

He also wrote “Fish Decks, Seafarers of the North Atlantic” and “Their Fathers' Work: Casting Nets with World's Fishermen.”

In a autobiographical sketch he prepared, Mr. McCloskey said he had been a crew member on fishing boats in numerous venues throughout the world.

After months spent on boats in Alaska, he fished for cod out of New England; for shrimp and turbot on the Grand Banks; and for cod and other fish in Newfoundland.

He said he had guest-worked aboard fishing boats in Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Norway and Australia.

His fishery experiences, he said, “have also included accompanying sealers out of Canada-Newfoundland and whalers out of Japan while working all associated jobs — but the killing.”

As he traveled the world, he also indulged his love of music by visiting opera houses. For more than two decades Mr. McCloskey write an opera column for The Peabody News.

Locally, he enjoyed visits to the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

He was a member of the old Baltimore Opera Company.

He was also a member of the 14 West Hamilton Street Club, the Hopkins Club and the National Press Club.

A visitation will be held beginning at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, 6500 York Road in Rodgers Forge.

In addition to his wife of 60 years, a retired medical social worker, survivors include a son, William B. “Wynn” McCloskey III of Houston, Texas; and a grandson. A daughter, Dr. Karin McCloskey, died in 2007.

jacques.kelly@baltsun.com