Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Bob Dolgan
Plain Dealer Reporter
One of the shining moments of Hal Lebovitz's remarkable sportswriting career came in September 1964, when the news broke that the Indians might be moving from Cleveland to Seattle.
Lebovitz, then sports editor of The Plain Dealer, was incensed that anyone would have the effrontery to deprive Cleveland of its oldest sports institution.
He angrily placed the photos of the baseball team's board of directors across the top of Page One of the Sports section. "Pictured here are the 18 deep-rooted Clevelanders who will hold in their hands the baseball future of their city," the accompanying story said.
Lebovitz treated the directors as though they were about to commit a crime. "How could they possibly think of raping their own city of major league ball," he wrote.
It was a master stroke. Stripped of their cloak of anonymity, the directors soon pulled back.
Encouraged by a ticket-pledging campaign by the Growth Board, which was well-publicized by Lebovitz, they voted to keep the team in town.
Lebovitz, 89, died of cancer in University Hospitals Tuesday morning.
He is survived by his wife, the former Marge Glassman. They were married 67 years. He always referred to her as "my bride" in columns. His son, Neil, and daughter, Lynn, also survive.
Marathon man
He was one of the most influential sportswriters in Cleveland history, a fixture on the local sports scene for more than 60 years. Starting in the 1940s, he wrote for the old Cleveland News, The Plain Dealer and - for the last 21 years - the Lake County News Herald.
His News Herald work, including a popular Sunday sports notes column, was also published locally in the Morning Journal in Lorain. And until recently, he appeared regularly on local cable television to voice his opinions on the local sports scene.
Lebovitz worked for The Plain Dealer for 25 years and was sports editor from 1964 to 1981, succeeding the legendary Gordon Cobbledick.
Lebovitz's most famous column was "Never Cut a Boy," which was reprinted annually for many years after its first appearance in 1964. The piece reprimanded high school coaches who cut youngsters from their teams. It was supposedly inspired by the experience of his son, Neil, who several years earlier was cut from the Cleveland Heights football team after one calisthenics drill and was never given a chance to play again.
Lebovitz, a lifelong Clevelander, wrote in a conversational, often emotional style. Other writers may have been more elegant, but few had more to say.
He once described his philosophy of writing: "Every time I put a piece of paper in the typewriter, I remind myself to write for the reader, the man in the street. I ask myself what he wants to read. The simplest kind of writing is the best."
Hard worker
He strove for clarity, mumbling to himself at the typewriter as he searched for words that would make his stories and columns easy to read.
Some critics patronized his work, but he probably won more writing awards - 35 - than any sportswriter in Cleveland journalism. Cobbledick praised him as the hardest-working sportswriter he ever met.
To Lebovitz, the key to writing was the story, not how it was told. He was extremely competitive and hated to be beaten. His pursuit of news earned him the nickname "Scoop," pinned on him by envious rivals in his baseball-writing days.
He was inducted into the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000, one of 11 halls of fame in which he was enshrined. His stories appeared 18 times in a E.S. Dutton Co. book, "Best Sports Stories of the Year."
Deli stories
He may not have strived for literature, but his pieces on the gang at the Deli, featuring the all-knowing Maven and Ta-Ta-Ta (who constantly hummed popular tunes) were pure entertainment.
Always on the lookout for the unusual story, he wrote of the time his son asked him to cease and desist coaching him from the stands when he was playing Little League ball. A former baseball umpire, he once went behind the plate to call an Indians spring training game, and wrote about that.
In 1957, he started the "Ask Hal, the Referee" column, in which he answered readers' questions, and continued it for the rest of his career. His stories appeared in The Sporting News, Sport Magazine, Colliers and the Saturday Evening Post.
Lebovitz attended Glenville High School, graduated from Western Reserve University with a chemistry degree in 1938 and got a master's degree from Western Reserve in 1944. He was on the basketball team in college.
Started game
He is credited with inventing the game of Four Corners - in which four players hand-bounce a volleyball on the sidewalk, with each player protecting his block of concrete - while working as playground director at Stanard School during his days at Western Reserve. He was a longtime basketball and football referee and baseball umpire. He taught science and math at Euclid Central High, where he was also head coach in basketball and football.
In the 1940s, with many sportswriters away during World War II, Lebovitz began giving sports items about various school teams to the Press and the News, Cleveland's other daily newspapers. Herman Goldstein, News sports editor, gave him a full-time job with the paper at $75 a week, roughly doubling his teacher's pay of $2,100 a year.
In 1948, Lebovitz ghosted "Pitchin' Man," an autobiography of Indians hurler Leroy "Satchel" Paige, which quoted his famed rules of living, such as, "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you."
In 1950 he became the Indians beat writer for the News, a post he held until 1960. He covered the beat with energy and thoroughness during one of the most successful periods in Indians history, including the 1954 run to the pennant, when the Indians set an American League record of 111 victories in a 154-game season.
Lebovitz originated the term, "Don't Knock the Rock," in reference to Indians idol Rocky Colavito. When Luke Easter hit a long drive into the upper deck of the right field seats, Lebovitz got a tape and measured it at 477 feet, the longest hit in Stadium history.
He was not afraid to tell stories on himself. When he wrote something critical about Indians outfielder Dale Mitchell, he reported that Mitchell asked him, "Hal, do you have a brother?" When Lebovitz replied that he did, Mitchell said, "Well, he can go to hell too."
Never missed a day
When the News folded in 1960, The Plain Dealer hired Lebovitz the next day, making him the first News alumnus to join this newspaper. When Cobbledick retired in 1964, Lebovitz was named sports editor.
His father was not impressed. According to Lebovitz, he continually begged him to give up the unimportant job of sportswriting and become a doctor. "I'll pay your way through medical school," his father said when Lebovitz was already in his 40s. But Lebovitz loved sports too much to leave.
When the running craze began in the late 1960s, Lebovitz quickly became a devoted disciple and wrote numerous columns on the subject. He ran seven miles in 70 minutes to celebrate his 65th birthday. The running reshaped his appearance, giving him a lean look under a shock of white hair. He ran well into his 80s.
When the NBA's Cincinnati Royals played 10 games a season in Cleveland for several years, Lebovitz christened them the Ohio Royals. The strong publicity he gave the basketball team led to the birth of the Cavaliers in 1970.
He was best known for his long Sunday columns on Page 2, in which he would expound on all topics, telling stories and giving opinions under the title "Hal Asks." Despite his penchant for writing long, he would tell staffers, "Write it tight and bright."
He scooped the nation with his story of Browns running back Jim Brown's retirement to become a movie star in 1965. When Browns owner Art Modell fired the great coach Paul Brown during a newspaper strike in 1963, Lebovitz rounded up the top Cleveland sportswriters and put out a magazine discussing the move.
Lebovitz had a close relationship with Modell, whom he never criticized until the franchise was transferred to Baltimore in 1995. Lebovitz labeled them the Baltimore (Ugh) Ravens for several years.
Lebovitz joined the News-Herald in 1984. He worked almost to the end, continuing his popular Sunday notes columns until two weeks ago. He was a weekly guest on Les Levine's talk show on Adelphia TV, making his last appearance three weeks back. In 2004, Gray Publishing Co. brought out a book of Lebovitz columns, called, "Best of Hal."
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