Great Story In Sunday Times Sports Section!

Those of you who do not read the LA Times sports section (or those far larger numbers who do not read the LA Times, period), will miss an excellent story this Sunday by Bill Plaschke. It tells the simple story of a small town little league umpire who after 34 years of service to the sport, discovers he is dying of four kinds of cancer, and the response to this by the community.

It is plainly and simply and elegantly written. And it breaks your heart and reinforces your belief in the goodness of people.

Read it.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-plaschke29may29,1,5032875.column?coll=la-headlines-pe-sports

Also in the paper that day is Steve Lopez's follow-up column on a mentally ill homeless man on skid row. It's not a bad column.

But it is as much about the columnist as it is about the person he is profiling and the writer's words often get in the way of the story. In one paragraph a rat is as big as a meatloaf and in another paragraph the cockroaches are now the size of Volkswagens. The metaphors and the similes call attention to themselves and the writer, not to the story or the man the story is about.

Again, it is not a bad column. But in a just world, a man like Bill Plaschke would write a LA Times column about the people of Los Angeles and Steve Lopez would be back in Philadelphia.