Ron Drogo, (spnited), RIP

Damn it Casty, you're getting me choked up.

Ron was one of the people here I would have really liked to meet. I know I would have liked him.

When talk of a Buffalo get together came up, meeting him & JR was a lot of the appeal in going.

 

We talk a lot on here about the changing media world -- how much we should be blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and podcasting with our ever-shrinking audience as a way to keep them engaged. And we debate the minutia about whether long-form writers should use the first person, or whether a subscription-based web model will ever work. We take our scalpels to Peter King's hagiographic profile of Roger Goodell, and we argue over blogging feuds, draw lines in the sand and scream at one another debating art and commerce. And that's a good thing. I'm glad we talk about all those things, because they matter. And they're important, especially going forward.

But we don't talk a lot about the value of a true newspaper man, and what he means to a community.

I guess I understand why we don't talk about that much. It's not a job that's particularly sexy. It's not something many people, certainly those in my generation, aspire to be anymore. It's a role that's quietly disappearing.

But goddamn, do I love the newspaper man. (The newspaper woman, too.) I love his heart and his institutional knowledge and his calm when chaos breaks out seven minutes before deadline. I love that he cares, even when the bosses don't. I didn't know spnited, at least not in the flesh, but I know a ton of people like him. Wise, curmudgeonly, funny, passionate, and for the most part, anonymous. Anonymous guys who spend years making asshole writers like me look better than we probably deserve in print. They don't go to Poynter every day to read the latest consultant-driven strategies, and they don't really care who is dissing whom on Twitter. They just focus on getting the paper out, one day after the next, doing the work, respecting the craft, getting (virtual) ink on their hands. Maybe that's a romanticized version of the truth, but it's a something I'll always believe exists, and is invaluable to what we do.

Yes, the media world evolves. Necessarily so. And it's easy to mock what seems uncool and outdated in retrospect. But the newspaper man, at his core, gets what matters, and always will: this is about people, and it's about storytelling. The rest is just packaging. It's obvious spnited cared about the people. Look at the way he treated Jason McIntyre (with kindness and respect, at least according to Jason's tweet today) even though Jason's vision for his own career couldn't have been more different than the one Ron was living.

There is this quote I love in the final season of The Wire where the city editor says: "You know what a healthy newsroom is? It's a magical place where people argue about everything, all the time."

Maybe I'm projecting too much, but I have been thinking about that line all day when I think about spnited. I doubt very much he ever watched The Wire, but David Simon wrote that line with men like spnited in mind. Men who do not suffer fools kindly, and do not rise through the ranks by kissing ass. The give kindness to those fellow journalists who need it, and playful guff to those who could use it, and piss and vinegar to those who deserve it. I'm the son of a newspaper woman, so this is in my blood. I suspect it always will be.

The daily argument the newspaper man has with those around him isn't a fight. Not really.

It's a love story. A goddamn love story.

 

+111111111111111111111111111111111

 

Beautiful.

 

I'm reluctant to even add anything, but not enough healthy newsrooms these days, not enough discussions or spirited/even heated arguments. Not enough left of what made newsrooms someplace where it was really cool and fun to be. And that's a little more true today.

 

So as far as fairly regular posters, we know we've lost Trip McNeely, Spnited and editorhoo since the board began (Van McKenzie rarely posted as far as I recall). Any that I'm missing?

 

I wish I could tell you where the old age and dickhead jokes started but I don't have the slightest idea. They just feel as if they've always been part of the landscape, like spnited. I remember the first time we exchanged PMs, had to be spring of 2003. I think I thought I was qualified enough for some gig his place (I didn't know it was his place at the time) and he wrote me to tell me about the gig and where to send my stuff and signed his real name. I had a jolt of excitement--Spnited thought enough of me to tell me who he was!

Shortly thereafter, I guess, we began our board "battles." Our banter was authentic, but the sentiment certainly was not. Only once did we ever have to apologize to each other for something we said here. It was all a big joke and, I like to think, a sign of mutual respect.

I know I always took “dickhead” as a term of endearment, and I know I respected the hell out of him, not only because he was older than all of us combined but because he was a true newspaperman. I admired the pride he took in newspapers, and the pride he had in a career spent in newspapers, and the pride he took in himself. He had a lot of pro beats but he never got down over no longer having the biggest beat at the paper and was as enthusiastic about his preps duty as he would be about the Mets or Knicks and never wallowed or spent time in what-ifs. I wish I could be more like him in that regard.

Despite all his beat and newspaper experience, he never big leagued me, and I'm a nobody. I tried to make an unconventional end-around to get a beat gig but he always made me feel like an equal, even though I wasn't. I could vent at him about the idiot bosses or the demands coming down on me at a magazine or website, and even though it was a different world, he would nod and understand and commiserate. And I was always so honored when he would tell me a little nugget he picked up from lunch with Noble or Casty33, or when he would send me some gossip about a New York writer or when he would vent at me about what a mess the Mets front office is.

He was so New York. He could tell you to fuck the fuck off, and mean it with every fiber of his being, but if you could say something to lighten the mood--especially something at his expense, and yes, by that I mean something other than the age jokes, which did begin to bug him when every Tom, Dick and Harry began making them--he'd laugh and all would be forgotten.

As IJAG noted, when you needed a friend, you could count on spnited. When my Mom was sick, he sent me PMs asking me how she was, and he was one of the people I sent a group email to the night she died. A few days later, he wrote to ask me how I was doing and in reply had a pitch-perfect line about how his siblings would gather after their Mom had died and sort of feel as if they were getting back to normal and then just....go silent. It summed up exactly what happened between my sister and I in the weeks and months following our Mom's death.

I am honored people think of us as a team of sorts, but feel terribly that we only actually met once or twice, and that there was always another outing I could go to, or another time I could meet him in the city (I was supposed to meet he and IJAG for her brother's birthday but I had to cancel--I think I was in my antisocial phase after my Mom's death and just begged out). I wish I could have given as much to spnited as he gave to me. I feel terribly for those who did get to see him on a more regular basis, and jealous they got to experience the legend for themselves.

I'm so used to seeing him on here, ranting about the Mets or telling someone he/she is full of shit or bringing a very reasoned and lucid take to any number of journalism issues, that I think I came to take him for granted. He had great genes on his side, so even though he was a regular smoker, I just thought he'd live forever. We still communicated a lot on here, obviously, and sometimes on FB, but our last PM was from November and I wish I'd taken more time to write him, even just to tell him he was an old doosh. Even almost eight years later, I still thought it was an honor to receive a PM from spnited.

That PM, BTW, with the subject "50K...what a looser!" was perfect spnited:

That's the last of 600 PMs from him in my inbox (sorry Webby--yes, I'm That Guy). Six hundred PMs, one or two face-to-face meetings. I wish the ratio was a little less lopsided, but this dickhead is grateful for the experience (and, perhaps, a little bit less of a dickhead for it—just a little bit).

Thank you, spnited, for being the best this board and business has to offer, and thank you Ron for being my friend.

 

Not bad, but I'm still proud of the Aeropathetica.

 

I imagine Ron watched other baseball games in July, August and September, but I do know that the last game he watched while he was in Cleveland was a Sunday afternoon finale between the A's and the Indians. Vin Mazzaro was on the mound for the A's and, over breakfast at a greasy spoon recommended by TheSportsPredictor, he said several times how he was looking forward to watching Mazzaro pitch because the kid was from his coverage area.

After almost four decades in newspapers -- after so many thousands of games and pressers and days spent waiting in the clubhouse, after so many nights on the desk and calls from coaches -- he was still excited to watch a local kid made good.

Here's a link to the box score: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE201007040.shtml. Ron was one of 13,940 in the stands that day. Quick game, finished by 3:30. Wish I could have watched it with him.

 

Damn. Just damn. He was "Old School," and I say that with the very utmost of respect.

Damn.

 

especially for geezers such as myself and spnited -- the few among us who recall working in newsrooms FILLED with smoke, loud voices and the clanging of TYPEWRITER KEYS -- this resonates like a symphony. 8)

 

Double Down, that was awesome. Know a handful of them, and hopefully today, a lot of the writers on the board take the opportunity to thank their deskers.

BYH, a fitting tribute.