Cavs Go to the NBA Finals, Hal Lebovitz Should Be Here

Life does have its ironies. Just as the Cleveland Cavaliers are poised to take their first NBA championship in 37 years, Hal Lebovitz isn't around to enjoy the hoopla.

A sportswriter's sportswriter, the 89-year-old Lebovitz died of cancer in October 2005. As I told people then, he left behind six decades worth of superlative prose and thousands of smarter sports fans.

Back in 2004, I was working at Northern Ohio Live magazine. I won the honor of telling Lebovitz that he had been tapped as a finalist for the magazine's annual Awards of Achievement. Artists, writers and philanthropists for all causes were always grateful to be considered for the honor, which came complete with a fancy black-tie dinner on Cleveland's Playhouse Square. Even though Lebovitz had already been enshrined in the Writers' Wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I figured Live's top honor would be welcomed as the hometown coda to an incredible career.

"What took you so long?" said Lebovitz, who got his shot in at me before he agreed to talk about his career.

"Ever since I was eight years old, I knew what I wanted to become when I grew up-a schoolteacher and a writer," Lebovitz said. The creator of the celebrated Ask Hal column in the Plain Dealer-a showcase of encyclopedic knowledge about sports-got to do both. Lebovitz was a teacher-coach before joining the tiny sports department at the old Cleveland News, the scrappier afternoon competitor to the scrappy Cleveland Press.

At the News, Lebovitz covered the Browns and the Indians. He said the News was the crucible in which he learned to write "clearly, intelligently and simply." There he began Ask Hal and reprised the effort for The Sporting News, leveraging his knowledge as a referee.

In my office, I still keep an Ask Hal column, a yellowed treasure from June 25, 1978. In the column, a local baseball umpire wrote to Hal regarding a protested call of a fielder's obstruction of first base.

"You made the correct call," Lebovitz answered. "When obstruction is called, the runner always gets at least one base beyond the one he last touched.

"I hope," Lebovitz added, "the protest didn't obstruct justice."

When the News folded, the legendary Gordon Cobbledick recruited Lebovitz for the Plain Dealer team. From 1964 to 1982, Lebovitz was the boss of the sports department. As the head honcho of the newspaper's so-called sand box, Lebovitz kept the Indians from moving out of town.

From 1984 until the end, Lebovitz kept at his craft, writing for newspapers outside of Cleveland. A distillation of his work can be found in the book The Best of Hal Lebovitz: Great Sportswriting from Six Decades in Cleveland (Gray and Company).

Journalism's sports maven was also a repository of local newspaper history. At Live's awards dinner in 2004, I relished listening to Lebovitz talk about the people of Cleveland's newspapers, including the News' assistant city editor Russ Faist, who was my mentor at the Universe Bulletin for 11 years. Lebovitz understood that in the fraternity of journalism, the lifers ultimately move from apprentice to master.

Dinner with Hal Lebovitz and his wife, Margie, remains a cherished memory. Like a kid in awe, I asked him to autograph his book. In his own hand, he christened me "a wonderful dinner companion."

Later, he mailed me a handwritten note. He pronounced that "Live certainly knows how to throw a party" and that he and "his bride" Margie had enjoyed dinner with me and the love of my life, Carol Maloney.

In fact, it was at the downtown party that I received the best advice of my life. Not from Hal, either. From Margie. As Carol slipped away to smoke, Margie leaned over to me and said, "You better hang on to her."

Six months later, Carol and I got engaged. I didn't have to ask Hal. Margie just told me outright.