THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9411300170
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 27 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Sports
SOURCE: Bill Leffler
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
For much of our lifetime we were a couple of guys slugging it out in the trenches, competing on sports stories at the high schools, at the colleges and at the professional level.
Abe Goldblatt, The Virginian-Pilot. Bill Leffler, The Ledger-Star.
Portsmouth was home base for both of us. And it was especially important to be the first in getting the hometown stories.
It became a rivalry of respect.
Yet two competitors could not have been closer.
On many assignments we traveled together. Often on the road we roomed together.
But always there was that battle to have a little something in a story that the other had missed.
The years we both were assigned to cover the Norfolk Neptunes in the Continental Football League leave memories that will last forever.
How can I forget the day Abe and I were headed to the airport to travel with the Neps for a game and we were slowed down by a parade in downtown Norfolk. Just as we arrived at the airport the plane was taking off. Coach Gary Glick waved at us as they departed.
We took a commercial flight to Hartford, Conn., shortly afterward. And when we arrived at the team's hotel, all of the players were outside. They weren't waiting to greet us. The hotel was on fire.
But did we get the razzing for missing the plane!
Once we covered a Neptunes game in Orlando, Fla. As we returned to our motel after writing our stories at the stadium, our taxi was stopped at a red light behind another car.
A truck came up behind us and sandwiched our cab.
As we made our way out of the crushed vehicle, Abe said, ``There must be an easier way to make a living.''
Always a man with the right words.
We stayed at one hotel when the Beatles were quartered there. We landed at one airport when Secret Service agents were everywhere. The president of the United States was landing at about the same time.
We had one landing with a flat tire and another on a mountaintop in West Virginia when the plane barely made the stop at the edge.
But the most memorable was a trip to cover the Neps in Canada. Five of us, including the pilot, were in a little private plane.
It was a delightful flight to Toronto. After the game, we boarded to return in the midst of a rainstorm. Abe was a little reluctant to fly in that weather.
As we got airborne we noticed the pilot was inebriated. Later we learned he had been drinking most of the several hours he had waited for us at the airport.
Lightning cracked and the little plane shook.
``I don't believe we're going to make it,'' said Abe.
He really paled when the pilot responded, ``I don't either.''
Abe then began talking him into returning to Toronto.
The next day our flight home was very pleasant.
In his many speaking engagements across the area, Abe delighted in telling about ``the drunk World War I pilot and the little plane that didn't want to fly.''
When the sports staffs of the Pilot and Ledger-Star were merged, Abe and I no longer had to knock heads on our beats. In 1980 he officially retired. But he was in the office just as much as ever as he became a correspondent. Often he was on the phone to pass along an item that might be of interest in a story for me.
On Saturday, death claimed Abe Goldblatt at the age of 79. He asked to be buried at Evergreen Memorial Park, the site of the ballpark where, as a 12-year-old, Abe was present when a hurricane destroyed it.
Hundreds stood in sprinkling rain as Danny, the oldest of his four children, delivered a moving eulogy.
Back in the crowd, I found myself thinking about the way he schooled me on making our way to the front of the line at banquets.
``You're getting to be just like Abe,'' said a friend at a luncheon the other day.
Nicest tribute I ever had. by CNB