One Legend in His Time; One in His Own Mind

Some people think I live in a fantasy world because I write about Salma Hayek and Mimi Rogers, but then I’ve been hugged and kissed by both.

I saw myself having a nice chat with the President of the United States one day, some people scoffed, and a week later I was shaking hands with Martin Sheen.

Let me tell you, I even pictured myself sitting in the Shav Glick Media Center at some point in my life, which had family and friends laughing, knowing there’s no way I’d ever find good reason to visit the Pomona Raceway.

It never dawned on them, however, how far I’d drive to avoid covering another day of tennis in Staples Center.

They also didn’t take into consideration the rain and the fact the dragsters would remain shut down Saturday, making it the perfect peaceful day at Pomona Raceway to sit and reminisce with Glick about his days serving on General Ulysses S. Grant’s staff before becoming The Times’ longtime auto racing writer.

“MacArthur,” Glick said. “I served on Gen. MacArthur’s staff.”

That’s right, I forgot, he was just a youngster when the Civil War broke out.

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I DON’T know how many icons you’ve met in your lifetime, but Glick is one of them in the auto racing industry, the nicest man in the sportswriting business, and sitting in a press box named after himself.

Now, when I arrived at the track to visit the Glick Media Center, officials wouldn’t let me in. This happens to me a lot, of course, but I figured if I dropped Glick’s name on them, everything would be all right.

Well, you’d have thought I dropped Sports Editor Bill Dwyre’s name on them with the dumb looks they gave me. If they name a press box after Dwyre, it’s gonna be in some tennis stadium, so I’ll never be in it.

“They wouldn’t let me in here a day earlier,” said Glick, who has won just about every auto racing writing award ever presented. “I told them, ‘That door over there has my name on it,’ but it didn’t make any difference.”

I can understand not letting the hacker play on a nice golf course, but if you’re not going to let Mr. Auto Racing set up his computer, you might as well let the air out of the tires.

We’re talking living legend here, a guy who sat next to sportswriting great Grantland Rice and who covered every basketball, football, baseball and track event Jackie Robinson competed in at Pasadena Junior College before taking Robinson on as golf partner years later. (I can only imagine how grueling that must have been for a great athlete like Robinson to watch Glick swing a golf club.)

Glick has been a constant in this area since beginning work at the Mirror in 1954 -- making him currently the longest-running editorial employee at The Times. He has lived in the same Pasadena home for more than 50 years, was married for 41 years before his wife, Florence, died in 1991, and can’t wait to write the next story.

“I have no plans on retiring,” said Glick, who takes no vitamins, never has, and who will be 83 on his next birthday. “My mother lived to be 101 and my father began building a house after he turned 80.”

Glick, who covered golf for The Times and also wrote under the byline “Shavenau Glick” until the early ‘70s, said, “I’m just happy to be alive and being able to work. And now I’m looking forward to the 2005 Indy 500.”

He has covered every Indy 500 since 1969 if you overlook the one he missed after being stabbed in the stomach in an Indianapolis bar in 1983 while trying to help a friend. “I haven’t been back to that bar,” said Glick with that familiar smirk.

And so it went on a wonderful rainy day, the racing shut down because of the conditions, no tennis to muck things up, and a great chance to listen to Shav Glick talk about the good old Model-T days in the Shav Glick Media Center.

A dream come true, which means I won’t have to go back there again.

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I HATE big crowds, so I went back to the tennis tournament Monday expecting to find Venus Williams playing hopscotch under the stands.

I don’t know much about tennis, as the e-mailers like to point out, but when one of the Williams sisters announces she’s hurt (sore calf muscle) after falling behind, 5-0, history inspires healthy skepticism. The WTA Tour provided an injury report that said Venus was really hurt. The WTA Tour’s CEO also said “the level of intensity here was great.”

The Williams sisters are so dominant they can beat everyone else hopping on one leg, and yet they both fell to someone named Kim Clijsters, Serena losing the final match -- obviously distracted and worried about her sister’s sore calf.

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THE DRAG racing at Pomona Raceway Sunday drew more than 45,000 fans. Six days of tennis in Staples barely drew that many.

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RADIO PERSONALITY Jim Rome

was on his game Monday morning: “Barry Bonds should have won seven MVPs; [of course] that’s more friends than he has.”

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DEVEAN GEORGE has played 226 minutes for the Lakers this season and has eight assists. I hear now he’s not talking to the media, and while that’s a loss that ranks right up there with Chad Kreuter taking a vow of silence, I presume it’s because they didn’t credit him with a ninth assist in allowing Jerry Stackhouse to score the other night and give Washington a buzzer win.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Eric Perlmutter:

“Everything that comes from your computer is absolute junk.”

I don’t get any credit for consistency?

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com