Tribute to Russ Schneider

Former Plain Dealer sports writer Russ Schneider of Seven Hills died Tuesday, Oct  at the age of 89 and sports columnist Bill Livingston wrote this tribute. Photo by Linda Kinsey of Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A diamond is forever? So was a baseball diamond to Russell Schneider.

In all likelihood, all the old baseball men are getting an earful in their sky boxes from Russ today. The long-time Plain Dealer reporter died this morning at 89 after years of declining health.

He probably is looking up Frank "Trader" Lane so he can ask him what in the world was he thinking when he traded Rocky Colavito?

He'll look up George Steinbrenner, too and they can debate what it would have been like had the Boss purchased the Indians, as he had wanted to do, and not the New York Yankees.

This newspaper's Cleveland Indians beat reporter from 1964-78, Schneider was tough, dogged, competitive to the point of combativeness, and my friend.

The friend part took a while. Schneider wanted the columnist job I got in 1984. Eventually, however, we became not only friends, but confidants. Knowing him was certainly one of my great privileges.

Baseball lifer

Schneider also covered the Cleveland Browns for a time in the 1980s and became great friends with former Browns coach Sam Rutigliano.

After Schneider assumed the beat, Browns owner Art Modell said effusively, "Welcome to the family."

"I'm here to cover the team," Russ said gruffly. "Not to be part of your family."

Before that, he realized his life-long dream of covering the Indians because he simply would not give it up. Russ wore down former Plain Dealer sports editor Gordon Cobbledick, beating a path to his door every day from the spring of 1963 until he got the Indians beat in December.

On the beat, he was so competitive he would not talk to rival reporters, zealously guarded his sources, and once almost brawled with former Indians president Peter Bavasi when Bavasi tried to confiscate Schneider's tape recorder during a heated interview at the old stadium.

You won't see those "Front Page" types in the business anymore.

After retirement, he had a second home at the Indians' old Winter Haven spring training headquarters so he could check the prospects out in person.

Tough and passionate

Schneider was a former Marine. And it would take much more than a cold day in May for him to back down from a challenge, any challenge -- and May was often far from a nice day here with ice mantling the Lake Erie shoreline long past Opening Day.

A former catcher, Schneider coached amateur baseball in the area. He approached every game as if it were the seventh game of the World Series. The joke was that umpires around town asked for hazardous duty pay when they had his games.

Last visit

The last time I saw Russ was Oct. 16, a few days after the Indians' lost the divisional series to the New York Yankees.

Schneider's final days were spent in an assisted living facility in Broadview Heights. It was near the Cavaliers' practice building, so I swung by there after their practice session ended.

I had brought a small notebook, hoping to ask Russ about his favorite players and the highlights of his long career. But by then there would be no more interviews in this life for Russ.

He was asleep when I entered his room. I'm not sure whether he knew me or not after I gently roused him. I think there was a gleam of recognition in his eyes and the faintest nod, but I'm not sure. I left a note for him with the nurses.

Before I left, I leaned over and lightly kissed the tough old Marine on the top of his head. It might be best that he never knew about that.

There are worse things to lose than a baseball game.

*

Bill Wynne's Smoky gets another accolade

From the Oct. 13, 2017 Plain Dealer,

Brian Albrecht writes about another medal for  Smoky, the Yorkie that Bill Wynne, retired PD photographer, found and trained in World War II. For photos, go to The Plain Dealer.

Smoky of World War II recognized by U.S. War Dogs Association

By Brian Albrecht, The Plain Dealer 

balbrecht@plaind.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Smoky the war dog was four pounds of talent, determination, courage and love.

The Yorkshire terrier whose exploits during World War II won her international acclaim, and is buried at a memorial in Rocky River, just added another medal to those accolades.

The U.S. War Dogs Association recently presented Smoky with a service award given to military canines who have served in America's armed forces.

The medal, inscribed "faithfully we lead the way," came as a surprise to William Wynne, a native Clevelander who owned and trained the dog that was found in a jungle foxhole in New Guinea during World War II.

Wynne, 95, of Mansfield, said, "I'm very happy because Smoky was always on the outside, looking in, as an unofficial war dog of World War II.

"Now, this (medal) puts her on the same scale as the (military) dogs that are over in Afghanistan, and all dogs going back to the Vietnam war," added the former Plain Dealer photographer. "I feel really good about it."

Wynne was serving with an Army photo reconnaissance squadron during World War II when he bought the little terrier that another GI had found, and forged a special relationship of training and trust.

He named her for her blue-gray color, and began teaching Smoky a variety of stunts including walking a tightrope while blindfolded, balancing on rolling barrels, spelling her name and even parachuting.

In a book he later wrote about his exploits with Smoky, "Yorkie Doodle Dandy," Wynne wrote, "Smoky became a tremendous morale booster. I had much to do in the military but she gave me an escape from the loneliness of the New Guinea jungle."

She was also a life-saver. When communications lines had to be strung across an airfield runway in the Philippines -- a task that would have exposed GIs to enemy fire -- Smoky was drafted to pull a string connected to the wires through an eight-inch-wide, 70-foot-long drainage culvert under the runway.

The dog also accompanied Wynne on 12 aerial combat missions, was awarded eight battle stars, and survived a kamikaze attack and a typhoon.

When Wynne was hospitalized with dengue fever, Smoky charmed the patients in other wards, and later repeated that role in performances at hospitals in Australia, becoming the first therapy dog of record.

In his book, Wynne said Smoky, "the little tyke who shared so much with me, who, unquestioning and courageously, responded to my every command, had become my truest friend. She was a diversion from the demoralizing reality of war. She made us laugh and forget."

After the war, when Wynne returned to Cleveland, they appeared together in a variety of television and theatrical performances until Smoky's death in 1957.

Smoky is buried in the Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks, in a .30-caliber ammunition box (appropriately enough) in the base of a marble pedestal topped with a life-sized bronze sculpture of the little war dog sitting in a GI helmet. An inscription reads: "Smoky Yorkie Doodle Dandy and Dogs of All Wars."

Wynne said there are 11 monuments to Smoky in the U.S., three in Australia and one in France.

The most recent medal is one of three she has received, including the prestigious Purple Cross Award of the Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Wynne isn't surprised by Smoky's enduring appeal as the subject of many books, articles and a possible movie.

Part of that appeal was her diminutive size, spirit and ability to surviving some of the worst that war could offer, including military rations.

Wynne recalled, "The food we got was so bad, it was so heavily salted because we were in the tropics, the guys were getting diarrhea every couple days. I didn't have any dog food, so she had to eat our food."

Wynne has owned other Yorkshire terriers since Smoky, but it hasn't been the same.

"Smoky, in anybody else's hands, probably would've been just another dog," he said. "But because of my desire to train her, she became something special."

Special in other ways, too, as Wynne looks back on those days during the war.

"At first, emotionally, I was trying to not get too close to her. I'd lost a couple of buddies and I didn't want to get too close, because the hazards were so great and I'd just get upset all over again," he recalled.

"But as time passed, we formed a special bond, and everything became concentrating on the dog. She came first, and I was doing things for her," he added. "The dog became more of an obsession, to bring her through this, and myself, too. It worked out."

In a sense that bond continues, as Smoky's recognition and honors continue, along with Wynne's involvement with the past.

"She's still very much remembered," Wynne said. "All of these things make up the incredible story of this tiny little dog that just did it day to day, and didn't think about it.

"She just did it."

Time for another lunch

PD Editorial Retirees & Expatriates

Casual unstructured lunch troupe

Gather for lunch on the last Fridays of January,

April, July and October

Spouses and guests always welcome

NEXT LUNCHEON: Noon, Friday, October 27, 2017

PLACE: LiWah, Asia Plaza, 2999 Payne Ave., Cleveland

                         Additional parking off short street along west side of plaza.

MENU:  Order from the menu.

 

RSVP: Janet French (216) 221-2318 or email jabfr519@cox.net by Tuesday, October 24

(JoAnn is recovering from surgery)

Book published

David Clary, a former PD assistant news editor, is on the California road talking about his new book “GANGSTERS to GOVERNORS:The New Bosses of Gambling in America”.  Young Dave, as he was known on the news desk because the late Dave Lake  was there first, is now at the San Diego Union and  a father of two.  "Gangsters to Governors: The New Bosses of Gambling in America," was published by Rutgers University Press on Sept. 28. It explores how and why states seized control of gambling, traditionally an illicit activity dominated by organized crime. The book weighs the consequences of government-sanctioned gambling and addresses current controversies over online and sports betting, he says.