Stepping up to the big plate

Greetings again. Only this time from a different perspective, as

sports editor of the Daily Pilot, the greatest community newspaper in

the nation -- and I’ll make a thousand claims to support that belief.

On those lines, it is an honor and privilege to announce today

that yours truly, from ballparks and stadiums and gymnasiums and golf

courses and tennis clubs all around the Newport-Mesa area, is taking

over at the helm of the Pilot’s sports ship.

It is impossible, of course, to replace my predecessor, 35-year

employee and 14-year sports editor Roger Carlson, whose enormous

shoes I will never be able to fill. However, the same proud tradition

of sports journalism excellence will be upheld, while seeking new

ideas and ventures.

As you turn the spring pages of 2003, you will begin to witness

some changes, including specialty features on college athletes from

the area, seniors (with 60 as the age benchmark for eligibility) and

a new spotlight on recreation sports and athletes in Costa Mesa and

Newport Beach, the weekend warriors and those who grind on the fields

and courts on weeknights for competition and exercise after work.

Those people sweat and bleed, too.

You will continue to read one of the finest sports journalists in

the country in Barry Faulkner, while budding stars Bryce Alderton and

Steve Virgen will roll up their sleeves and reach new levels of

community sports reporting and feature writing. Melanie Neff, a USC

graduate and sportswriting veteran formerly of the Los Angeles Times

who arrives with lofty credentials, came aboard the Pilot sports ship

Monday. It could be the best rotation in sports with those four. What

a great place to be.

The new focus and energy hopefully will reflect in these pages,

while extending to different pockets of our community. Our aim will

continue on youths, high schools and colleges. We will carry on the

summer golf traditions of the Tea Cup Classic and Jones Cup.

As for myself, I started as a stringer at the Daily Pilot in the

fall of 1981, when typewriters were still be used, and, following my

college days and a three-year stint playing minor league baseball,

was hired as a full-time sports reporter in 1990. This is the only

newspaper I’ve ever worked for.

What do I like? I love the big three -- football, baseball and

basketball. Baseball was something I played for 30 years, until

retiring from the 30-and-over leagues a few years back. Golf is

terrific. Tennis has been in my blood since childhood. I’ve grown to

not only appreciate water sports, but enjoy them.

I love the sunsets glistening off the Newport Center buildings

while sitting in the Davidson Field press box at Newport Harbor High

in September. I love the spotlight introductions at wrestling matches

and basketball games, the smell of a tailgate barbecue at football

games and pine tar in the dugout, the scene of players leaping on

each other after winning a championship or tossing a water polo coach

overboard, the sounds of a basketball going through a net and the

crack of a wooden bat.

My biggest thrill as a sportswriter was covering the 1988 World

Series and Kirk Gibson’s dramatic home run to win Game 1 at Dodger

Stadium.