RACE WINNER

A death often brings talk of the person’s era. Shav Glick’s triggers the plural. Eras.

The career of the veteran Times sportswriter, who died early Saturday at age 87, spanned Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Dennis Keith Rodman. And beyond. He was there before television and after TiVo.

For 54 years, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, and he had a few stops at smaller papers before that. He wasn’t an editor, never a big shot, never a guy on a ladder to higher things. The only climbing he ever did was into a press box. He loved sports, loved to write about them, and never wanted to do anything else.

Younger writers angled for interviews. Glick got them from longtime acquaintances.

An example: The man who broke the color barrier in baseball was Jackie Robinson. Glick called him Jack. Robinson wasn’t a news source. He was a friend. They played baseball together in Pasadena.

A few years ago, a young Times sportswriter told Glick he had just been reading some old copies of the Pasadena Star News from the 1940s and said there had been a story by a Shav Glick.

“I didn’t know your father had been a sportswriter,” the young writer said.

“He wasn’t,” Glick replied. “That was me.”

Glick watched Rose Bowls when the players didn’t have facemasks. He knew baseball when Wrigley Field was known more as a Los Angeles landmark than a cathedral for frustration in Chicago. His early games of golf were played with brassies and niblicks. To him, Jack Nicklaus was a young upstart, messing with the legacy of Hogan and Nelson and Snead.

Yet he stayed current, appreciated Tiger as much as Ben, Byron and Sam, and moved comfortably in a Hall of Fame motor sports writing career that began with the old Offenhauer roadsters and traveled right along with the sleeker Lolas and Ferraris. NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow would have merely been something for him to report on today.

As a sportswriter, he stands among the few who were able, over a long period of time, to be both objective and universally liked. When other writers write it like it is, they seem to be the disliked messenger. Glick wrote it like it was and the unhappy recipients seemed to shrug and examine their consciences. If Shav Glick saw the errors of their ways, maybe there were some.

When he was working, he never slowed down. Increasing age was never a crutch. More like a challenge to show that he could keep pace.

He was in his 70s when Irwindale Speedway opened in 1999. A soon-to-be auto racing Hall of Famer, he was the beat reporter on auto racing for one of the largest sports sections in the world. He covered the big guys, the Indy 500s, the Daytonas and Formula Ones. Parnelli Jones and Roger Penske were on a first-name basis, as were Helio Castroneves and John Force.

But Irwindale was part of his beat, and from the very start, he was determined to give it the Glick coverage treatment.

Irwindale’s opening night began with an opening afternoon qualifying session. It was the routine stuff of racing. Lots of young drivers going very fast around a track encircled with concrete walls and empty bleachers, trying to get the best racing positions for that night’s show. Ninety-nine percent of the time, nothing newsworthy happens. The show is the night racing.

Well, sadly, less than an hour into the qualifying, a young driver from Oregon named Casey Diemert crashed badly and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

The evening had been planned with great festivities. The project had been several years in the doing and short-track racing fans were thrilled to have this new venue up and running. There were to be fireworks and speeches and appearances by racing dignitaries. Penske himself was there, and there are few bigger in the sport than he.

They even talked the sports editor of The Times into coming out, and the track opened with all the promised fanfare. As far as those in the crowd knew, everything had gone off without a hitch, and soon the night’s racing began.

But it hadn’t. Diemert had died. And the story on the front page of The Times sports section Sunday morning was about death and sorrow, not openings and fireworks.

Most of those who attended that night found out in the newspaper the next day. There had been no announcement. The story was by Shav Glick, who, unlike 99% of reporters focusing on a night assignment, had been there in the afternoon when Diemert crashed and had gone to the hospital to make sure of the facts.

The sports editor, who had no idea of Diemert’s death until he read about it the next day in his own paper, thanked Glick for his perseverance. He mentioned that he didn’t think too many reporters would have been there in the afternoon.

“They shoulda been,” Glick grumbled, in a kind of commentary on a perceived new wave of cut-the-corner journalists.

He never stopped being a newsman.

Three weeks ago, Times Deputy Obits Editor Claire Noland got a call at home about 9 p.m. on a Friday night. It was Glick, who had the news that Wally Parks, the man who made pro drag racing into a popular spectator sport, had died. Because Parks was in his 90s, Glick himself had written the obituary before he retired and The Times had the story in the Saturday paper, before other news outlets.

Years ago, the press box for drag racing at Fairplex was named for Glick. Times sports columnist T.J. Simers visited one day and asked that the air conditioning be turned up. The attendant on duty shrugged at the request and said, “This is his place. Go ask him.” And he nodded in the direction of Glick.

The little sign near the press box door says: “Shav Glick Press Box.” They’ll have to take that down now and add the word “Memorial.”

For sports readers and fellow sportswriters, reminders won’t be necessary.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

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Shav Glick, 1920-2007

Brian France, NASCAR chairman:

‘Shav was a legendary journalist who brought a greater understanding of NASCAR, in fact all motor sports, to West Coast racing fans. Shav will be missed by all of us in the NASCAR community, but his contributions will never be forgotten.’

Chip Ganassi, IndyCar and NASCAR team owner:

‘Shav was considered the Richard Petty of motor sports writing. He had few rivals in his field and will be sorely missed in racing paddocks across the country.’

Rick Mears, four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500:

‘Shav will be strongly missed. He and I go way back; we had such a long history together. It’s the work that he and his colleagues have done in motor sports that has helped all of us get where we are today. He was a huge part of my career and I know that I’ll miss him greatly.’

Carroll Shelby, legendary sports-car builder:

‘I loved Shav, this is a sad day for me. There’s never been anybody who was more passionate about the sport than Shav. And I owed him a golf game; that hurts me.’

Jim Michaelian, president of the Grand Prix Assn. of Long Beach:

‘Shav was a good friend to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach from the beginning and obviously a legend in sportswriting. His passing is a great loss to the entire motorsports community and especially in Southern California.’

Helio Castroneves, two-time winner of the Indy 500:

‘I’m deeply saddened to hear about Shav’s passing. He was such a wonderful part of the motor sports community and I know he’ll be greatly missed. I always enjoyed speaking with him; his love of the sport was so apparent with every conversation and story he wrote. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.’

Tom Compton, NHRA president

‘He will always be remembered as a consummate professional who loved what he did and the people he worked with.’

Dave McClelland, veteran motor sports broadcaster:

‘Shav was one of the leading lights for the entire world of motor sports.’