Ron Drogo, (spnited), RIP

It was a certain high praise to be called an idiot by spnited. Took no shit and gave very little -- there's great admiration in that.

 

Two of the last sentences he wrote here were "Read better please" and "I rest my case." Those are fitting.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/members/2071/;sa=showPosts

 

I think of the people I've met here (through various names), this is probably the one who was closest to me that we've lost.

This is very strange, of course: I never met him, didn't really know him, and in fact, we probably only directly exchanged comments on message boards 10 times in the past few years. I never spoke a single word to him personally. Plus he was part of the Eastern school of newspapering and sports newspapering, and anybody who has been around knows that there's that place and then everyplace else, the whole "New Yorker cover" view of the world.

But I considered him a fellow curmudgeon, and I think he considered me the same. I gently admonished him a couple of times for being overly grumpy, and he answered back a couple of times, even sort of apologizing for one or two.

There are times when being "old school" can be a handicap in this much-changed media world we've found ourselves in, but no matter how much things have changed, there's still a lot to be said for many of the basics. Ron was a basics kind of guy, and he was a good counterbalance to all the crap we now find ourselves dealing with on a regular basis.

So as odd as it seems because it's somebody I never met in person and didn't really know, this is an emotional one today, because it's the loss of someone who nonetheless had become a player in my life, who I identified with as coming up in this business when I did, and who I'm going to miss.

So rest in peace, spnited, and thanks for being, yes, a friend.

 

God damn it.

Had the honor and pleasure of meeting Ron in 2009 during a mini-SJ outing in NYC, along with IJAg, ben, dreu and others. It was my first time meeting fellow Sjers and it turned into an awesome night. Actually, I think it was his birthday, right IJAG? His sister was along with him. The night ended with us meeting Mos(t) Def. A grand time was had by all. Since then, I've kept hoping there'd be another NYC outing so I could hang out with him again, since I'm so bad at taking the initiative with anything and, you know, maybe just emailing him to get lunch sometime.

Damn it. I told IJAG one time he reminded me of Freddie Roman, in looks and mannerisms.

My condolences to IJAG, BYH and others that knew him even better.

Christ, who's going to yell at the guy who starts a thread wondering what he can do with a plugged toilet or when he should get his tires rotated?

 

I didn't know Ron or ever exchange PMs with spnited, but he was one of the people who made coming here to read so enjoyable. You could definitely see in reading his posts, especially on this board, the passion for journalism and I'd heard more than one person say how solid he was as a friend.

You'll be missed, Ron.

 

It was his birthday, STG. My brother came up with me. Ron, to this day, asked about my brother. Good man.

 

Man, this sucks. Never met him. Hardly knew him. And I think I was verbally abused by him only once. But he was a prescence on this site. When you saw that the most recent person to respond to a thread was him, you just HAD to see what he said.

RIP

 

I am shocked to my core. Shocked to my fucking core.

Words escape me right now. Everyone else has said it a lot better than I could right now.

RIP Ron. RIP Spnited. The heart and soul of SportsJournalists.com.

 

I think Jason used to work with him.

 

It seems like we've lost quite a few lately.

 

I guess heaven needed someone to tell the kids to get off its damn lawn.

And Moddy, somewhere spitted[/boom] is saying that no matter how badly the Mets suck, the Nationals suck worse.

 

He certainly gave me that high praise a lot.