Dick McBane, the BJ’s expert on minor league baseball, passed away Tuesday, May 7 at home in Lilburn, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb five miles from Stone Mountain State Park,

He came to the BJ from the Marietta, Ohio Times after a brief time at the Garrettsville Journal during his Hiram College days. Dick got his master’s degree at Michigan State.

 

Dick and wife Marylyn, married 56 years, moved to Georgia in 2004.

He was an excellent news reporter but his main writing love was minor league baseball, including visiting dozens of minor league ball parks.

 

Dick’s book, “A Fine-Looking Lot of Ball-Tossers: The Remarkable Akrons of 1881,” was published in 2005.

Dick and the late Don Bandy both retired from the BJ June 11, 1997. Don passed away in 2011.

Dick’s son, Roderick McBane, lives in Pearland, Texas. He is assistant head of the math department at Houston Community College. Roderick married Cindy Wagner in Albany, Louisiana amid the havoc of Hurricane Katrina.

Another son, Lachlan McBane, is an Atlanta Symphony violinist.

The McBanes have six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

Speaking of his Beacon years, Dick once told me:

 

“At the old BJ we worked for the best newspaper in the country (and I really do mean that) at a time when it meant something.”

Dick was among the five Guild retirees who won the healthcare class-action lawsuit filed by John Olesky that restored benefits to retirement day, the $2 prescription co-pay, plus Medicare primary and AARP secondary coverage, with all premiums paid by the BJ as part of the settlement.

 

45 printers also won the healthcare lawsuit restoring their retirement day coverage for prescriptions. That one was initiated by the late BJ Composing foreman Dave White.

 

The lawsuit came years after John S. Knight ended his ownership of his thirtysomething newspapers and a few changes of ownerships after Black Press reneged on the retirement-day promises made in writing to match an offer proposed by JSK during negotiations with the printers.

Dick’s obituary:

Richard Laughlin McBane, 83, passed away Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at home in Lilburn, Ga. after a struggle with Alzheimer’s.

Richard was born on August 17, 1935 to John L. and Mary (Russell) McBane in Salineville, Ohio. He received degrees from Hiram College and Michigan State University and retired after a long career as a reporter and editorial writer at the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal.

He served for many years as an elder in the United Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), at Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and also as Moderator of the PCA Presbytery of the Ascension.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Marilynn (Morton) McBane; sons, Lachlan (Cheryl) McBane of Lilburn and Roderick (Cynthia) McBane of Pearland, Texas; grandchildren, Sean, Huell, Liam, Dorothy, William and Connor McBane; and great-granddaughter, Fiona McBane.

Visitation will be at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, 2019 at Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. The funeral service will follow at the church at 2:00 p.m., with burial at East Shadowlawn Memorial Gardens in Lawrenceville.