By Michael Janofsky
I was a kid in college at the University of Maryland in College Park, where my friends and I spent almost as much time playing basketball as attending classes. We spent most afternoons on a playground, and on those nights when the Bullets had a home game at the Baltimore Civic Center, we drove up.
At the time, early in my senior year, I still had no idea of future plans. But a New York acquaintance suggested I introduced myself to Jim Henneman, who had left sportswriting at the News American to become the Bullets public relations director, and maybe he could give me some direction. Jim did more than that. After telling him I was a journalism major, he asked if I’d like to work as his part-time assistant through the rest of the NBA season.
You bet, I said, and it changed my life.
Jim showed instant trust in me. I wrote press releases, program bios and press notes, and I ran the press table for reporters covering the games. I got to know leading sportswriters in town as well as the players — Wes Unseld, Earl Monroe and Gus Johnson among them. On occasion, I accompanied the team on a road trip.
With the season and my job ending, one of those writers, Bill Tanton, then the Evening Sun‘s sports editor, offered me a job covering high school sports. It was the humblest beginning that led to a nearly 40-year career in journalism that took me from Baltimore to the Miami Herald to the next 24 years with The New York Times. Along the way, I moved from sports to news and traveled widely, interviewing national and international figures.
But it all had begun with Jim, who took a chance on someone whose entire journalism experience to that point had consisted of writing one — count ’em, one — story for The Diamondback, Maryland’s school newspaper.
Memories of my days with the Bullets came flooding back this week when I learned that Jim died on May 22 after a courageous fight with cancer. While I never forgot how he had shaped my career, I always knew I was but one of many whose lives he touched with guidance, help, friendship and in most cases, all of the above.
We had lost touch for a long while after I left Baltimore in 1978, but the publication of his book on the 60th anniversary of the Orioles in 2014 brought us back in touch. As I’ve written before and told many friends, the first photo in the book showed Brooks Robinson swinging away at a pitch, and just beyond him I spotted my parents in their seats. In a note to Jim, I told him how my knees buckled when I saw the photo, and he wrote back how amazed he was as well.
Throughout the years, I’ve gone back to Baltimore from my home in Los Angeles to see a weekend of games, and every time, Jim, ever the gracious host, helped me secure great seats or a press box pass, a real special gift. Whether he was working as the official scorer or just watching, we sat together for long stretches talking about our pasts, our presents and our lives in retirement.
As testament to his imprint on the city, the Orioles and his long career as a sportswriter before and after his Bullets gig, the team last season memorialized the press box in his honor. I was thrilled for him, and thrilled again a few weeks later when I returned for a series with the Yankees and posed with him at the entrance to “The Jim Henneman Press Box.” He was rightly proud, and colleagues he saw every day were still congratulating him.
Over the next months we continued to exchange emails about the Orioles, mostly my complaints about this or that and his walking me back from the ledge with a calm and sensible explanation. He always made me feel better.
My rants continued through the winter months and into the early weeks of this season. Each time we did the same dance: Me, outraged. Jim, the grown-up. Until early this week. The losing streak was making me crazy, and I dashed off another note of outrage. Jim had always responded within a day or so. But not this time. After a few days passed, I sensed something was very wrong. Stan Charles, a friend from the old days, wrote to tell me Jim had gone into hospice. I had known he was ill but never thought the end would really come.
My mind raced back years. Tears came with the memories. I saw that college kid with no life’s plan in mind. Until I met Jim Henneman. May his memory be a blessing for his family and all who knew him. It certainly is for me.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Michael Janofsky