It's Christmas morning, and rather than ruin the day with any mention of the Dodgers, my gift to you today is a newspaper gem, Shavenau Glick.
You know him better, of course, as Shav, maybe the first victim of a newspaper cutback -- when an editor shortened his name years ago to save space.
Shav has been writing about motorsports for the Times forever. A former poker-playing buddy, I believe, of Johannes Gutenberg, he has survived the death of his wife of 41 years, the passing of his stepson, the loss of a lung, losing two chunks of his head to melanoma, being stabbed in the belly while on assignment and working for Sports Editor Bill Dwyre.
He's 85 now, and had hotel reservations for the NASCAR race in Daytona in February, but recently they've begun to carry him out of places on a stretcher because of dizziness, "unpredictable as an earthquake," Shav explained, which can be annoying for a newspaperman on deadline.
So on Jan. 16, the only writer for a general-circulation daily newspaper enshrined in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America will turn in his laptop, his ID badge and call it a career, after 52 years with the Los Angeles Mirror and Times.
It's a considerable setback for motorsports readers who prefer a little extra meat in their stories, thanks to someone who has been there for every flat tire.
It's an even bigger loss for those who have worked with the easygoing soul, watching the old newspaperman still get excited about the next person to be interviewed, the next story to write.
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The Glick highlight reel, which stretches back to silent movies, has an "ESPN Classic" feel to it. At 12, he was sitting in the Coliseum watching Babe Didrikson Zaharias win an Olympic gold medal in the javelin; 52 years later, in1984, The Times had him covering the first women's Olympic cycling event.
He was Jackie Robinson's classmate at Pasadena Junior College, later his golf buddy, and he recalls with fondness watching Ted Williams play in high school. He interviewed thousands of people, singling out Richard Petty, Jack Nicklaus and Dinah Shore as his favorites.
It's quite the resume, all right. The Pomona Raceway named its press box after him, and when he didn't have the proper credentials a few years back, he was unable to talk his way into the Shav Glick Media Center. He enjoys telling the story, which tells you a lot about him.
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