Ron Drogo, (spnited), RIP

BYH:

Bravo.

 

DD and BYH just set the bar high. And the thing is, Ron would probably be a little pissed we're spending this much time saying nice things about him and ruining the image he put out here.

 

No chance, IJAG. Ron and I had discussed this sort of thing on the board before and he didn't dispute a word.

But yeah ... those shots BYH and DD launched won't be coming down for a while. Thanks to both.

 

Sorry I'm so late to this thread.

I had the privilege of meeting and spending time with Ron twice, once at the SportsJournalists.com outing here in Toronto and another time at a mini-outing in NYC. I'm not in the journalist biz but we clicked almost right away. My last memory is the two of us standing outside the last bar of our NY night, smoking and talking about something or other---family, sj, dickheads--I can't remember.

Our birthdays are two days apart and there was some talk of HC & I driving down to NYC so Ron & I could celebrate our 60th birthdays with a bunch of East Coast sj-ers. That didn't work and I'm sorry for that.

I was, however, really pumped when he said that he'd come to a potential SportsJournalists.com mini-outing-- a Buffalo Bisons baseball game. Maybe we can still organize it and if so, during the 7th inning stretch we'll have a moment of silence along with a beer in honour of one of the good guys.

RIP Ron.

 

And today God says, "I understand your complaint, spnited, but even I can't overcome Jeff Wilpon." They both nod and shrug.

 

DD, BYH, we should all be so lucky to live our lives so that tributes like those are written about us. Beautiful jobs.

 

I never met Ron or talked to him personally, and had never heard of him when I found out his real name, but I'll certainly miss his presence here. I have to admit that I'd go out of my way sometimes on baseball threads to mention Tom Glavine just to set spnited off.

By the way, something I've always wondered ... what did his username mean/stand for? It's one that's always been a mystery to me. (I apologize in advance if it was mentioned 6 or 8 pages back).

 

spnited stood for sports night editor. That was his role in Bergen, N.J.

 

I just saw this and read through all 10 pages. With each passing post, I couldn't help but be that much more sorry never to have had the pleasure of meeting Ron, and shooting the breeze over a couple of beers.

RIP, Ron.

 

You and me both.

 

If BYH is posting his PMs, I'm posting one of mine. I discovered today, with sadness, that I had only five PMs from him that I saved. This was one of them:

Yes, I went to spnited for relationship advice. The most happily single man (post-divorce) I ever knew. And he never did anything but tell me exactly what he thought, and why.

I will miss that.

 

I never met Ron Drogo and in my six plus years as part of the SportsJournalists.com family I didn't have many run-ins with Spnited, probably due to my focus on hockey threads. But I lurk pretty much everywhere. Spnited was one of the good people on this board. He was part of its foundation and one of my favourites. And it's clear through the many tributes on this thread that he impacted many here and he will be missed. There will never be another Spnited. My condolences to Ron's family and those close to him.