RIP Jerome Holtzman

I still have "No Cheering in the Press Box" in my home bookshelf. RIP

 

With the cigar, the suits, the eyebrows, Jerome looked like an old-time sportswriter right out of central casting.

His "No Cheering in the Press Box" was a great resource. I always wished he had done a follow-up with the writers of the next generation who were his peers -- Dick Young, Phil Pepe, Maury Allen, Joe Falls, Bob Hunter, Ray Kelly, Earl Lawson, Bob Stevens, Phil Collier, Joe McGuff, Charley Feeney, etc. to show how the business had changed further.

Too many of them are gone and now Jerome is, too. RIP.

 

I noticed on Saturday that his Wikipedia page already mentioned his passing, and immediately checked Google and came here to find nothing.

Thought that a bit odd.

"No Cheering ..." should be in every hotel room.

 

In 1978 or 1979, I was in a Florida paper newsroom working the night shift in advance of the next day's PM, and Mr. Holtzman was using our work space and phones and such.

He was minding his own business when I proceeded to regale him with what a hot-shit young writer I was (23) and I had won some awards, blah, blah, blah.

To his everlasting credit, he did NOT tell me to shut the fuck up. He simply ignored me in such a stony way that I wound down after about 90 seconds and went back to typing in the dog-track agate, leaving him to his work.

Despite the way my career has turned in the past 10 years, I will always be a print guy at heart, and these are the kinds of men and women I longed to work with and for and be around, no matter how grumpy they could be. Rooms full of those kinds of people are what made me fall in love with the business.

Fewer and fewer of them left.

 

I still hear him humming, using that old porta bubble, and smoking the cigar. I remember one time in the post-season it was in a town where they were replacing the porta bubble's and he called over to IT and arranged to buy the surpplus porta bubbles so he would have replacement parts at home to fix his, which the paper phased out.

 

According to his Wikipedia page, Holtzman was born Dec. 11, 1926, which would make him 81. Turns out he was about 11 months younger than my grandfather, who died about a month ago.

A sad day for amateur baseball historians everywhere.

 

Video about his archives, now at the Chicago Baseball Museum:

 

RIP.
Can't help noting Sullivan used "passed away" in his story. I thought people died in the Chicago Tribune (as in the headline).

 

Oh man, that is so so so so sad. :'( :'( :'(

I had the great honor of visiting him at his home about 10 years ago. A giant Victorian place in Evanston, near the lake. It was a sweltering day, the house had no air conditioning, and he led me up four flights of stairs to his office in the attic. I was melting and panting by the third floor, and he skipped up those stairs like he was a kid.

This office....you can't imagine. A museum, really. Every book ever written on and about baseball, ceiling to floor, by writers you know and plenty you'll never hear of. On shelves, stacked on tables, lined up down the hallway. Anywhere there wasn't a book, there was a manuscript, a pile of papers, a collection of something. A collection of everything.

On the big old desk, a manual typewriter. He apologized for his ink-stained fingers, he had just changed the ribbon.

Of course, he was on my endless list of people I meant to call, just to catch up...and never did. My very big loss.

RIP, Jerome. No cheering in the pressbox today, for sure.

 

The Dean was as nice and helpful to me when I was a 22-year-old punk driving in to cover a game at Wrigley from West Podunk just for the clips as he was 10-15 years later when I was covering my own ball club and voting for the Hall.

Eternally grateful to him for writing the "No Cheering" book, giving so much due to the legends of this business even as he was so encouraging to the newbies. I had grown up reading the guy's coverage and -- y'know, this is where I quibble with all the niche marketers and trendy hiring editors: As a young reader, I never wanted to read young writers and never lost interest in the paper because someone "more like me" wasn't writing. I wanted to know what the veterans knew from their years inside the ball clubs and behind the scenes. I wanted to read Holtzman and Bill Gleason and Rick Talley and Bob Verdi and the rest of them.

That's where I think this obsession with mirroring the audience is wrong. I wanted experts then, even as a kid, and I want experts now.

RIP. Sportswriting and baseball just lost a giant. We should all wear suspenders on a designated day in his honor.

 

Of all the thousands of stories he told over the decades, the one I'll always remember is from his Hall of Fame acceptance speech.

His daughter had just died a few months earlier; she knew she was dying, and told him she knew she wouldn't be with him in Cooperstown. He made sure everyone knew she was there that day, in every way that mattered.

RIP to the Dean.

 

RIP to a legend.