"Good 5 Cent Cigar"----Student newspaper at the University of Rhode Island

Article published Oct 19, 2005
 Sportswriting legend passes;
Lebovitz, of 'Ask Hal' fame, was 89

By David S. Glasier
Special to the News Journal

In what turned out to be his final column, Hal Lebovitz this month marveled at what happened immediately after the Indians' season-ending loss at Jacobs Field.

He wrote that fans "deserved an ovation" for the way they stood and cheer- ed for the home team despite obvious disappointment over the final dashing of playoff dreams.

Today, it's the legendary sports columnist, reporter and editor getting an ovation in the form of stirring tributes from friends and colleagues. Lebovitz, 89, died early Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer.

Born in Cleveland on Sept. 11, 1916, Harold "Hal" Lebovitz was a longtime University Heights resident.

He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Margie, his son, Neil Lebovitz of Cleveland Heights, and his daughter, Lynn Lebovitz of Chester Township.

"My condolences go out to the Lebovitz family," said Steve Roszczyk, publisher of The (Willoughby) News-Herald. "Hal was a legend. Most of our readers know him as one of, if not the, greatest columnists in Cleveland sports history."

"To those who were lucky enough to know him personally, Hal was so much more. His kindness, generosity and sincerity were matched only by his humility. Hal Lebovitz was truly a great man. It was an honor to have known him. We'll miss him."

Lebovitz was the featured sports columnist for The News-Herald and its sister paper, The (Lorain) Morning Journal, since 1984. His Sunday and Monday columns ran the gamut of sports with special emphasis on the Indians, Browns and Cavaliers.

He also wrote the popular "Ask Hal" columns that answered reader questions about sports rules.

In 2000, Lebovitz was inducted into the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Plaudits

Lebovitz's career as a Cleveland sports journalist spanned 63 years and four generations of readers.

"No one ever had a finger on the pulse of sports fans in this town the way Hal did. That was his greatest strength," said Dan Coughlin, a WJW-TV 8 sports reporter and former Plain Dealer sportswriter.

After breaking into the business with the Cleveland News in 1942, Lebovitz worked at the afternoon paper until it went out of business in January 1960. He was the Indians beat writer through most of those years at the News and also covered the Browns.

"Hal was a real journalist. He grew up in a time when newspapers were kings and always kept the sense that the printed word was magic," said Bob DiBiasio, the Indians vice president of public relations.

Lebovitz was hired by the Plain Dealer the day after the News folded. He was named sports editor of the Plain Dealer in 1964 and held that job until his retirement from the paper in 1984.

"Hal was the hardest working, most competitive sportswriter I ever knew," said Russell Schneider, a retired Plain Dealer sportswriter and author of "The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia."

"He had more sources and contacts than you could possibly imagine," Schneider added. "You believed what he wrote. I can't think of a better tribute for any sportswriter."

In addition to the "Ask Hal, the Referee" features running weekly in the Sporting News from 1957 to 1993, Lebovitz for many of those years was the Indians correspondent for the St. Louis-based magazine.

During the 1960s, one of the faithful readers of the Sporting News and "Ask Hal, the Referee," was Bob Costas, an avid baseball fan from the New York City borough of Queens.

Years later, when he become a successful sports announcer for NBC, Costas met Lebovitz and subsequently crossed paths with him on various occasions.

"There was a robustness about Hal, a bounce in his step," Costas said. "He was a straight-shooter, not a pot-shot artist. He was the kind of guy who got respect not just for his versatility and knowledge, but for his integrity."

As NBC's lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball, Costas said he twice called Lebovitz at home to get a clarification on a rules question that came up during a telecast.

"Hal was the go-to guy when it came to the rules of baseball," Costas said. Even as his health deteriorated, Lebovitz kept writing columns and making regular appearances on "More Sports & Les Levine," a television talk show airing at 6 p.m. weekdays on Adelphia Cable access channel 15.

"Hal really defined sports knowledge for everyone in my generation. If he wrote it, it was gospel," Levine said. "His death marks the end of an era."

Formative years

The same as most boys in the Glenville and west side neighborhoods where he lived, Lebovitz played pick-up baseball, football and basketball.

"I have a passion for sports. It's been part of my life in all ways," Lebovitz said in a 1999 interview.

Looking back on his younger days, Lebovitz spoke fondly of summer afternoons spent watching the Indians at League Park on Lexington Avenue. He admired the way Hall of Famer Tris Speaker and Charlie Jamieson patrolled the outfield for the Indians.

From his usual perch in the left-field bleachers, Lebovitz also watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the Yankees, Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers and other of the game's greats from the 1920s and '30s in action.

By the time he was in Glenville High School, Lebovitz was accumulating money for college tuition by working as a vendor at League Park.

On one particularly memorable afternoon when the Yankees were in town, Lebovitz recalled that Ruth was out of the line-up and sitting in the seats behind home plate.

"He (Ruth) called me over a number of times. I'd guess he bought about a dozen hot dogs from me that day," Lebovitz said in a 2000 interview. Lebovitz was an outstanding student at Glenville High School while playing on the varsity football, baseball and basketball teams.

After graduating from Glenville in 1934, he enrolled at Western Reserve University. A chemistry major, the 6-foot-3 Lebovitz was the starting center on talented WRU teams coached by Roy Clifford. Back then, Lebovitz and his WRU teammates played Stanford, Michigan State and other big-name opponents. Tellingly, the busy student and athlete somehow found time to serve as sports editor of the WRU newspaper, the Reserve Tribune. Clifford thought so highly of Lebovitz that he asked him to stay on after graduation in 1938 to coach the WRU freshman basketball team. Among the players on that undefeated squad was Steve Belichick, father of future Browns head coach Bill Belichick.

Getting started

In the summer of 1938, the nation was still in the grips of the Great Depression when the newly married Lebovitz landed a job at Euclid Central High School.

For a weekly salary of $25, Lebovitz taught chemistry and math, supervised home room and study hall, served as an academic counselor and helped coach the basketball, football and baseball teams.

To supplement that modest income and to stay active in sports, Lebovitz umpired sandlot baseball games. He also officiated baseball and basketball games for junior high schools, high schools and colleges.

In 1938, while coaching baseball at Euclid Central, Lebovitz started collecting box scores from the 25 schools in Metropolitan Interscholastic Baseball League.

He struck a deal with the sports editor of the Cleveland Press to run the batting averages and pitching statistics that he compiled from those box scores. The Press also agreed to purchase trophies for the winning teams and individual statistical leaders.

Four years later, the News offered Lebovitz $15 a week to write a thrice-weekly notes package about local high-school sports. By 1944, the pay was raised to $25 and Lebovitz got his first byline.

Lebovitz came to a fork in the road in 1946, when the News offered him a full-time job as science writer for $75 a week. As much as he loved teaching, Lebovitz couldn't pass up the money and the opportunity to have a career in journalism.

News Sports Editor Herman Goldstein loved the fact that Lebovitz was a go-getter and made sure the newcomer stayed in his department instead of getting moved to the science beat.

For the rest of his life, the Cleveland sports scene was Lebovitz's domain.

More plaudits

Russ Schneider fought back tears recalling his long relationship with Lebovitz.

Schneider was a copy boy at the News in 1945 when he met Lebovitz. They were teammates on a basketball team in the Cleveland Industrial League.

"Hal was like a coach on the floor," Schneider said. When he finished a three-year hitch in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1949, Schneider signed a minor-league contact with the Indians. Lebovitz, by then a full-timer at the News, arranged to have Schneider paid $100 to write a series of "two stories from spring training in Florida called "Report from a Rookie."

Schneider didn't make it as a professional ballplayer, but he got a job as a sportswriter at the Plain Dealer in 1955. The two were reunited professionally when Lebovitz joined the Plain Dealer in 1960.

Lebovitz covered the Indians until 1964, when he succeeded Gordon Cobbledick as sports editor.

One of the first moves Lebovitz made as sports editor was naming Schneider to follow him on the Indians beat.

When the franchise was struggling on the field and at the gate in the 1960s and early '70s, Schneider said Lebovitz deftly used the power of the paper "at least four times" to dissuade owners of the Indians from moving the team elsewhere.

Lebovitz was just as passionate about the Browns. He never again spoke to longtime friend and Browns owner Art Modell after Modell in 1995 moved the team from Cleveland to Baltimore.

"Hal was aggressive, but he was a great boss because you always knew exactly where you stood with him," Schneider said.

Retired Plain Dealer sportswriters Bill Nichols and Dick Zunt have similarly warm memories of their former boss.

Nichols was the Cavaliers beat writer during the 1976-77 "Miracle of Richfield" season.

"Hal gave me a lot of breaks and honored me with space and freedom," Nichols said. "He pulled no punches and wore his heart on his sleeve. I loved the man."

Zunt, who covered prep sports, said Lebovitz was an unwavering champion of that beat.

"Hal knew the heart of the Greater Cleveland area and appreciated the importance of high-school athletics to the people who live here," Zunt said.

Legacy assured

It never occurred to Lebovitz to slow down or rest on his laurels when he left the Plain Dealer. He immediately started working for The News-Herald and The Morning Journal.

His Sunday column, full of news, views and insights, was immensely popular with readers. It also was a can't-miss proposition for many key figures in Cleveland sports, who paid little or no heed to other sports columnists.

To gather material for the Sunday column, Lebovitz would go to games and practices whenever possible during the week. Then, on Friday morning, he'd get on the phone and touch base with a roster of contacts that was the envy of every sports reporter in town.

"From a professional and personal standpoint, Friday will never be the same for me," Bob DiBiasio said. "It was a badge of honor to be on Hal's call list."

Lebovitz is a member of halls of fame administered by Cleveland Press Club, Sigma Delta Chi, Case Western Reserve University, Glenville High School, Euclid High School and Sports Media Association of Cleveland and Ohio.

He was a 1999 inductee into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame along with former Browns offensive lineman Gene Hickerson, former Indians slugger Andre Thornton, college and pro football great John Hicks, figure skater Tonia Kwiatkowski, boxer Jackie Keough, auto racing impresario Roger Penske and Cleveland sandlot baseball legend Nobby Lewandowski.

"It's an honor to be inducted because I'll be with all these top-notch people," Lebovitz said at the time.

Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame vice president Merle Levin knew Lebovitz for 50 years and characterized such displays of modesty as typical.

"Hal was extremely appreciative of all the honors that came his way," Levin said.

Lebovitz's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July 2000 was an especially important milestone in a career full of them. He said the ceremony at Cooperstown was an "out-of-body experience."

Previous inductees to the writers wing include Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyan, Red Smith, Shirley Povich, Jim Murray and Cobbledick.

"The amazing thing about Hal and those guys is how much of the game's history they witnessed," Bob Costas said.

A devoted husband and father who enjoyed going to movies and plays, Lebovitz jogged or exercised daily well into his 80s. He loved life and meant every word of his customary column sign-off, "Stay well and see you somewhere, I hope."

 

 

 

Never Cut a Boy

 
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
 

Hal Lebovitz's most famous column was "Never Cut a Boy," which was reprinted annually for many years after its first appearance in 1964. Here are excerpts from that column.

Consider this an open letter to every high school football coach, principal and superintendent:

Football practice is now under way. The boys have reported; they have been issued uniforms. This is what happened here to one boy not too many years ago:

The boy had just entered high school. All summer he looked forward to the opening of football practice. He enjoyed contact. He had tossed a football around almost from the day he left his crib. His dream was to play on the high school varsity.

On August 20 he reported for the first day of practice. "You'll have to furnish your own shoes and you'll need $7.50 for insurance," the junior varsity coach told him. The boy rushed out to buy a pair of shoes. Cost $20.

He returned the next day carrying them proudly, paid his $7.50 insurance fee, did calisthenics with the squad and at the end of the session he was cut. So were several other boys - all dropped from the squad after one session of calisthenics.

The boy rushed to a telephone and called his dad's office. Unable to withhold the tears, he sobbed, "I was cut."

"Go back tomorrow," the father suggested gently. "Maybe there was a mistake."

The boy returned, finally summoned sufficient courage to ask the coach for another chance. "Come back in two weeks," said the coach.

Two weeks later the boy carried his new shoes back to practice. "Sorry," said the coach, "we haven't time to look at you now. Come back after school starts."

The boy did. This time the coach apparently had no alternative. He gave the boy a uniform. Within a week, he cut the boy once more.

The boy was crushed, completely. The father advised, "Try next year, son."

"No," said the boy. "I don't want to be humiliated again."

The boy never did try out again. He never followed the team. His interest in the school was never the same. The cleats on his $20 shoes are slightly worn - from football on the neighborhood lot. They remain the heartbroken memento of his brief high school football experience.

Later, the father checked with the coach. "We can't handle sixty boys," he offered lamely. "We didn't want your son to get hurt."

If you are such a coach, I strongly urge you to quit. Mr. Principal and Mr. Superintendent, if your school has such a coach, get rid of him fast. Either that, or drop football; a game in which anybody's son can get hurt.

I speak as a former football coach who never cut a boy. I firmly believe there are lessons to be learned on the football field that have valuable carryovers in life. . . .

Football takes some stomach. A boy who doesn't have it will quit of his own accord. The fields are big. They can accommodate large squads. Let the boy hang around. Let him do calisthenics. Let him run until he's out of breath. Let him scrimmage with the fourth and fifth teams after the regulars are finished.

But don't cut him. If he hasn't got it, he'll cut himself. If he has it, he'll stick it out. He'll be a better man for the experience and, by the time he's a senior, he'll surprise you. He'll help make you a winner.

So, coach, hold that knife. Why plunge it into a boy's heart.