The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 168

www.delawareonline.com 6 SUNDAY NEWS JOURNAL MAY 19, 2002 as in machine as in Zabitka Authors give dean of sportswriters his due, but fail to capture what makes him tick REVIEW By GARY MULLINAX Staff reporter Matt Zabitka is 6-feet-2. He weighs 212 pounds. We start that way as a tribute. The dean of Delaware sports-writers usually asks for those vital statistics first thing after putting on the headphones, also a bit disorganized. Okonowicz and Rhodes do allow one of the best sportswriters in America to muse about Zabitka's importance.

Gary Smith, a Sports Illustrated feature writer, was one of several young journalists who learned the ropes from Zabitka. Smith was a clerk and fledgling sports-writer at The News Journal during the early 1970s. We didn't know whether it was a home run or not. Sometimes it landed in a train." After leaving the Navy, Zabitka hustled his way to a regular job with what was then the Chester Times, where he wrote about such local-athletes-made-good as major-league baseball player Mickey Vernon and baseball manager Danny Murtaugh. His output did xviatfabitka punching out a telephone number and an-n i loudly to the person who answers: "Matt Zabitka, News Journal sports department." He does this Ports not dimmish when he came to The News Journal.

In fact, he was also a stringer for the national Sporting News during his first decade here. Early on, Cartwright asked him to write a bowling column for The News Journal. Soon, he was "He's been kind to me, and he's always covered my career in a positive way." Randy White, Dickinson High School grad and former Dallas Cowboys star He said that while he did not learn his writing style from Zabitka -Matt is a straightforward, punch-it-out guy while Smith waxes poetic he did pick up much else from him. "He made it fun to be in that room at 10:49 p.m., when the gun was at your head and a Bestsellers Fiction 1 The Shelters of Stone, Jean M. Auel 2.

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If they're 5- foot-2, or 7-foot-8, that may be a story," he told the authors of Matt Zabitka, Sports: 60 Years of Headlines and Deadlines Authors: Ed Okonowicz and Jerry Rhodes Publisher: Myst and Lace, $24.95 ft this new book ahnnthim "I'm looking for an angle." I V. 'J big guy. Hard to JLk LJk ignore. A for Jerry Rhodes mer athlete who figured out how ber of stories he wrote for the paper before computers made it easy to check or of stories he wrote for what would become the Delaware County Daily Times, in Chester, before he was lured away by former News to stay around the games he loved. Here are two turning mas many as four a week.

Too much bowling, said the boss. Do a golf column instead. Soon, the golf columns were piling up. In fact, it has always been plain hard to shut Zabitka down. Soon after arriving in Wilmington, the president of the News Journal, Lee Reese, tried to introduce himself.

Zabitka, in the middle of a phone interview, finally became annoyed at the interruption and said angrily, "Can I help you sir?" "The man replied, 'I'm Mr. Reese. Matt grabbed a pen and pad and asked the man how he spelled his name. 'Is it REEZ or REES or Zabitka demanded. He'd never interview somebody without getting the name right.

After learning what Reese wanted, "Matt was so embarrassed he looked for a hole to jump in." With The News Journal, Zabitka has kept up the stream of stories about local heroes, including those who made it elsewhere. One of them collected here is about ex-McKean High School football player Randy White, who became an all-star pro with the Dallas Cowboys. White told the authors: "He's been kind to me, and he's always covered my career in a positive way" Zabitka has made a lot of people feel good over the years. They even forget they first had to tell him how much they weighed. stack of high-school box scores and shorts were piled up on your desk," Smith told Okonowicz and Rhodes.

"He made the business one that I could love and see myself doing the rest of my life. The older I get, the more I appreciate people who find a way to keep alive their zest for life, for work, for people, their capacity to be like a child hell, to be silly. Matt could be gloriously silly." And gloriously busy. After all, he still drives down 1-95 from his home in Claymont to The News Journal each day at an age when most people are long retired. Zabitka didn't learn his journalism in college.

He was a strapping teen-age ball player in Chester who happened to be able to read and write better than his teammates. He convinced the editor of a small paper to run a sports column that he would write for no pay about the city's athletes. He also started a shipboard newspaper in the Navy during World War n. Zabitka's 1930s and 1940s Chester would make a fascinating setting for a novel. He talks about playing baseball on a field where a train track ran between the shortstop and left field.

"They used to haul a lot of coal there," he said. "We'd play baseball, and while the guys were batting, the trains were coming through. So the left- Journal sports editor Al Cartwright. The stories are still around. Zabitka pulled many of them from the files for authors Ed Okonowicz and Jerry Rhodes, who work in the University of Delaware's public relations office.

The book is filled with reprints of articles Zabitka wrote about such stars as Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Joe Montana (most of them in town for sports banquets) and about local athletes whose chief claim to other numbers on Zabitka: 3 that's how many fingers he still uses to type with, only now on a computer keyboard. And 81 that's his age. In other words, he's a throwback. A link to history A cultural treasure. You expect him to come to work with a green eyeshade on.

Once upon a time, before the nation got health-conscious, he could stand right in the middle of the newsroom and light up one of those cigars he is now al Zabitka didn't learn his journalism in college. He was a strapping teen-age ball player in Chester who happened to be able to read and write better than his teammates. Meet the Author Delaware author Suzan L. Jackson will discuss and sign copies of the book "A Cup of Comfort for Friends," which contains her story "The Start of a Beautiful Friendship," at 2 p.m. today at Borders, 101 Geoffrey Drive, Stanton.

Doug Peterson will discuss and sign copies of his book "Going for the Green: Selling in the 21 st Cen-tury" at 2 p.m. today at Borders, 4221 Concord Pike, Talleyville. News Journal reporter Matt Zabitka will sign copies of the book "Matt Zabitka, Sports: 60 Years of Headlines and Deadlines" during the Blue Rocks game at 7:05 p.m. Fnday at Frawley Stadium, Wilmington. fame might be the story Matt Zabitka once wrote about them.

The authors' approach -which also includes long, verbatim responses by Zabitka to their questions does not allow for deep analysis of his professional and cultural significance, though you can put it together for yourself. The total package is lowed only to chew on. Zabitka "Zee" to co-workers who have listened to him conduct business during the 40 years he has been at this newspaper has acquired about 7,500 bylines in The News Journal, by his count. That's just since 1994. He can only guessat the num- fielder, he could either stay in back of the train, where nobody Reach Gary Mullinax at 324-2888 or could see him, br in front of gmullinaidelawareonllne.coni..