Don't forget the folks behlnd the bylines.....

I understand as an anniversary piece, there’ll be a story on the folks who worked at the Beacon Journal--back when it was still a force and had a lot of influence in the area.
    And you can just bet the bank on the folks who will be featured--those who had bylines, who put their all into their jobs.
And that’s the way it should be.
    But what about those behind the headlines, those who made the writers look perfect…and who made sure the paper was printed.
    That would be the seat of the pants editors, the rewrite men, the copyeditors--nameless--faceless but putting a finishing polish and a manful headline that should draw a reader into a story.
    And then there were the printers who set the type, put the pages together and if they spotted an error, they’d holler..another safeguard to a better and factual story. And there were the proof readers…sitting at their desk pouring over galley proofs and page proofs…a real backup for today’s spell check.
    The pages then went to the stereotype’s who turned the pages of type into the metal plates that fit on the press.
    Let’s not forget the engravers, who scanned the great photos taken by a dedicated photo crew, and put them on the plates that would wind up in the paper.
    Of course the next step, the pressmen and then the mailroom where the papers were bundled and put aboard the delivery trucks.
And in past days, those trucks dropped the bundles in the neighborhoods where they would be delivered--by youngsters, boys and girls--who made a little spending money or saved up for college.
    Hey, it’s great to give credit for the great days of the paper to Fran Murphy, Ken Nichols, Steve Love, Stu Warner, Ben Maidenberg and the countless other familiar bylines.
    And there’ll probably be others mentioned-particularly some of the higher ups whose only accomplishment was taking credit for what ever went right, but only arm-chairing what went wrong.
Those great by-liners are gone now. But so are their backup crews. Those printers, engravers and pressmen.
    We should give a “well-done” to a great, great crew.

cleaning out some old folders and ran into this...and it do bring back memories of the days when newspapers were run by journalist....a great seven years...and i got to be women's editor and assistant news editor.

A new look at the Kent State Shootings...and a person it affected

It was just a routine visit to meet my daughter at a car dealership to see if she needed a ride home but it turned into a trip down memory lane.
    A young lady waiting for her car drew the interest of a passerby when he noticed her Kent State shirt that indicated she was a member of the band.
    Seems he had also been in the band in 1970. Of course that was the year of the tragedy at KSU.
    We’ve read and heard about it over the years but I hadn’t hear what he had to say.
    Seems that after the shootings, when the KSU band appeared at an away football game and were introduced they were booed by the crowd in the stadiums.
    And some of the remarks from the stands were not exactly a complement. But those band members stood tall, marched in formation and played their music.
    My story teller, first name was Stuart, says he was not “political” at the time, but a later incident changed him…eight years later.
    But on that tragic day, he remembers the campus on lockdown and recalls the guards with guns and the tanks.
    And then the word came out that students should go home. The college was on lockdown and students had to leave.
    Stuart says he couldn’t call his parents because phone service had been cut off. Of course this was before cell phones.
    So, he said, students went from building to building until he found himself off campus. He says the roads were lined with students walking.
    To this day he still wonders where the foreign students and those from out of state wound up.
    After leaving campus, he started walking toward Orville, his home.
    Down the road apiece, a small car passed him carrying about 12 students crammed inside.
It stopped.
    Stuart wasn’t sure what was happening. He kept walking and the car backed up and then kept going along side.
    Now, remember this is the 70s and Stuart, an African-America, wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
    Then the driver called out his name.
    The driver told him “I remember you from high school. You ran against me for an office and you beat me.”
    So Stuart added himself to the car’s load and they headed for Orville.
    Then a car passed and Stuart recognized it as his mother’s.
    When he told the driver, the driver said: “we’ll catch him..”
    They turned around in pursuit, blowing the horn and Stuart leaning out of the window trying to get his folks’ attention
    “I was leaning so far out the window waving, that the guys hanging onto me is the only thing that kept me from falling.”
    Finally his mother noticed him and the car pulled over.
    So he’s had these memories over the years…just another bystander caught up in a moment history not of his doing.
    And he would love to see how some of those other bystanders made out and what are their memories.
    Of course reams have been written about the central characters, but little around those on the fringe.
    As I said early, Stuart now is interested in politics. What changed his was that 8 years after the shootings, he would up working for a company and found that one of the co-workers had been a guard commander at KSU.
    He didn’t talk about the incident and neither the guardsman until one day on a break when the guardsman opened up.
    And Stuart said the guardsman said: “We should have shot more of them.”

A Great Silver Anniversary!!! PLAY BAll!!!

The Roy Hobbs World Series just finished its 25 year where amateur  ballplayers from all over can play on Major League turf. This is the wrapup I wrote for "The Inside Pitch" our daily newspaper for players.

The 25 anniversary year of the Roy Hobbs World Series is now in the record books with a record turnout of 232 teams.

          And as usual, it was four weeks of renewing old friendship and making new ones.

          The marks the first year of a new division—Forever Young—those young fellows of 75-years-plus who are still kids at heart.

          This was the inaugural year for the Roy Hobbs Baseball Hall of fame.

          Seventeen joined the initial class…guys who over the years have shown their love and devotion to the game…not only on the field, but mentoring and promoting baseball at the Hobbs tournament and on their home fields.

          Next year more Roy Hobbs participants will be added when nominations are voted on by the Hobbs trustees and members of the initial class.

          This silver anniversary year was also a great one for an “outside” player—Cupid.

          Old Cupid went to the plate three times and hit three homeruns as three players married or announced their engagement during the Series (no, not to each other).

          The weatherman cooperated nicely this year with only a heavy downpour at Jet Blue Stadium which interrupted the schedule there for one day.

          The construction project at Hammond Stadium went on with no problems that were noted, although it was a bit hard for fans to figure out the inning and score because the scoreboard wasn’t working. And we wouldn’t play night games at Hammond since we had no lights during the work.

          Our oldest player in the Forever Young Division was 82-year-old Richard Pavlak. Our youngest player in the Unlimited Division was the Puerto Rico Astros’ Kelvin Padin, 20.

          In the Women’s Division there were two 15-year-olds,Jenna Hillman and Dani Strejc of the Chicago Pioneers.

          Also there was a bit of drama in the Women’s Division when Kyra Van Genderen arrived from Holland expecting to play on a New Mexico Team. But that team failed to show up for the Series and nobody got hold of Kyra.

          But she hooked up with the D.C. team and played ball.

          There are many highlights and first in the 25 years of Roy Hobbs baseball.

          We not only added players from other countries, but teams from overseas. Two guys who Germany played with a Dayton team. But in 2008 21 German players showed up with only 4 from Dayton. The Germans took on their own name “The Red Barons.”

          We have a team from Russia and one year had a team from Holland. And the Series has added teams from the Dominican Republic and, of course, from Canada.

          In The 23^rd Roy Hobbs Series, William Michael Dillon played his first ball game in 30 years. He had just spend 23 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. And he wasn’t bitter about his fate. He said he “felt like a baby born in a new world.”

          A new feature in the Hobbs Series was added recently. Players can opt to use the clubhouse with all its amenities…food, shower, trainers…just like the major league boys who play their spring training games on the same fields.

          As one player described it, “It’s living a major leaguer for a week.”

          Of course reunions are many. When the Vaughn Furriers showed up for the 20^th Hobbs Series, the team had last played together in 1962 when they won the Nova Scotia junior baseball title in the Canadian Halifax Minor League Baseball Association.

          Then there’s Dr. Alfred Ayala and Dr. Juan Carlos A. Guilar who played together for the first time in 25 years. After graduating from medical school Juan came to Miami to practice while Alfred opened his practice in Puerto Rico. Thanks to his sister, Alfred heard about Juan and called him. And they had their reunion in Ft. Myers.

          The Family Division in 2005 brought together fathers and sons and daughters. Among those family member were two former major league players, Bill “Spaceman” Lee and Mike Caldwell who brought their sons with them. 

          There have been a bit of misfortune for some players. Take the New Jersey team in 2006. Their equipment was shipped via UPS. But when the team arrived the shipment was nowhere to be found.

They turned to Ellen and Tom Giffen for help. “Out of the goodness of their heart they loaded us Knight uniforms jersey, Manager Jeff Schwartz said. Their equipment showed up 3 days later.

          For its 21^st years anniversary, the RHWS Pro Shop featured a deck of cards, with the back featuring the Hobbs Logo. The Faces consisted of the 20 previous Series program cover. There are three jokes in the deck—one with a photo of Ellen Giffen as Rosie the baseball clown and a photo of Tom Giffen and their dog,  Hobbs along with a photo of the late Todd Windhorst the clown, a symbol of  clown everywhere.

          And let’s not leave the women out. Not only those who take part in playing in the Woman’s Division, but those wives and girlfriends who are the real power behind those bats.

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The Polar Express is back in the yards for another year.

Another year on the Polar Express in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park..

What fun..as an Elf and as a Trainman. It's just warms your heart to see all those smiling faces..both on the happy volunteers who give up their time to take part in the Express and the parents and children who come aboard. Looking forward already to next year....

 

Santa arrives at Cuyahoga Valley National Park North Pole

this is why I keep coming back to the Roy Hobbs World Series in Ft.Myers, Fla...Seeing all my old friends and making new ones.