Bill Tanton, the longtime highly respected sports columnist who passed away earlier this week, was already firmly entrenched on the staff of The Evening Sun when I broke in with the News American in 1958.
I was immediately thrown in over my head when one of my early assignments was covering college sports, which meant going head-to-head with Tanton while covering lacrosse, which meant we were complete opposites in the spring. Bill was the “lacrosse guy,” while I was the “baseball guy,” distinctions we often joked about throughout the years.
We also shared the basketball beat in the winter, so we spent a lot of time in the same press boxes during that time. Working for afternoon newspapers, with similar deadlines and time constraints, we also often shared rides to places like College Park, Annapolis and Emmitsburg. Travel allowance in those days was 10 cents a mile, and believe me it was significant on those longer jaunts.
I think those trips were the foundation for a bond Bill and I had throughout our careers. He was on a fast track for the job as columnist he handled so eloquently for 40 years at The Sun. We were on the same staff for the last 15 years of my career, after moving over from the News-American, but I don’t think anything ever changed that friendship we formed during those early years.
I used to tease him about players using butterfly nets in “his” game while he pointed out that nobody paid attention to college baseball — which the amount of coverage in our papers clearly demonstrated. Of course, he had played lacrosse at Johns Hopkins, still the school most associated with the game, while I had played baseball at then-Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland), where lacrosse was something of an afterthought at the time, which made the discussion clearly one-sided.
It was at the very beginning that Tanton, perhaps unwittingly, was a pivotal player in hanging a nickname on me that stuck throughout his lifetime, and I say that with great joy and sadness.
In my first year at the News-American, before I was officially on the staff, I was assigned to write a piece about the Colts band for a special section prior to the start of the 1958 season. Sports editor John Steadman had listed the assignments with last names only. When the advertising department put together a promotional ad, that assignment sheet was apparently the sole guide.
With everyone else easily identifiable with first names, and rather than leave my name off and therefore ignore the hugely popular band, the author simply identified me as “writer” (lower case) Henneman, which is how I was first identified as a member of the News-American staff. I don’t think the ink was dry on that day’s run of the paper before Frank Cashen picked up on the “name” of the newest member of the staff.
Cashen, whose spot I would eventually take on the staff, and Tanton were also friendly competitors in those days. It was Cashen who initiated it, but nobody spread “writer” faster or better than Bill. Within the fraternity of colleagues and close friends it stuck for a long time. Those who have my real email moniker know it will last as long as I have one.
From those very early days of this journey, I don’t think Cashen or Tanton called me any other name. I know this for sure — the most recent time I heard “writer” was from Bill.
I cherish the memories and miss those guys. I won’t forget them.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Baltimore Sun