The
BJ Sports Department in 1972 had four future Hall of Famers and the best
informed horseracing writer in the Midwest.
Sheldon
Ocker was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.
Tom
Melody was inducted into the Keyser High School Hall of Fame in West Virginia,
joining former BJ managing editor Scott Bosley in the Keyser HOF.
Milan
Zban was inducted into the Marshall University Hall of Fame in Huntington for
his baseball and football prowess.
Warren Harding High graduate Ray
Yannucci was inducted into the Warren (Ohio) Hall of Fame and founded and was
owner/publisher of five NFL team publications: Browns
News/Illustrated, Broncos Report, 49ers Report, Ravens Report and Oilers
Report.
Jack
Patterson’s horseracing expertise was impeccable.
Sheldon
joined a sportswriters Hall of Famers group that includes Ring Lardner,
Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Heywood Broun, Shirley Povich, Dick Young, my
late, former Dayton Daily News boss Si Burick, Jim Murray and Cleveland’s Hal Lebovitz.
That’s
pretty classy company.
Sheldon’s 33 years of
covering the Cleveland Indians for the BJ easily qualified.
Sheldon switched from
the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Indians in 1981 when Bob Nold decided he didn’t
want to spent his entire spring and summer on the road or in Cleveland.
Sheldon retired from Ol’ Blue Walls after the 2013 season.
His wife is Stephanie.
Tom Melody brought his no-nonsense, no bowing to hifalutin
people in power attitude with him from his West Virginia upbringing.
That didn’t sit well with Cleveland Browns owner Art
Modell, who tripped over his ego so badly that in 1963 he pushed out the best
and most creative coach in Browns history, Paul Brown.
All Paul Brown – co-founder of the team named for him – did
was win seven league championships in 25 years in the fledgling American
Football League and the National Football League.
The Browns won the NFL in 1964 with Paul Brown’s players,
but didn’t do it again for 55 years . . . and counting.
Paul Brown switched to the Cincinnati Bengals, who named
their stadium Paul Brown Stadium. They recognized talent.
Paul warmed up for his NFL career by coaching Ohio State to
the 1942 national title and Massillon High to only 10 losses in 11 seasons.
Massillon’s stadium also is a Paul Brown Stadium.
His 1940 Massillon team is considered the best high school
squad ever in Ohio. It beat Kent State University in a scrimmage, 47-0.
Former BJ reporter Bill Hershey thought more highly of Tom
Melody than Art Modell – King Arthur in Tom’s mind – did.
Bill wrote to me:
“In the early 1970s
Nick Skorich was the Browns' coach and the team was having a bad season.
“Tom wrote what is
still my favorite sports lead.”
"It was Halloween
and the Browns came to the stadium dressed as football players."
“Just right!”
"Besides that in the
early 1970s Tom let me work on Friday nights to take sports' scores and even
let me cover a high school event - not sure what sport it was. The Friday night
hours helped put food on the table and also helped me fulfill a boyhood wish to
be a sportswriter.
"Tom was one of the
best.”
Former BJ editor
Charles Montague also volunteered praise for Tom Melody:
“I asked Tom Melody one day why he always
referred to Browns owner as Arthur Modell, never Art?
“ ‘As in King Arthur?,’ Tom replied, being a man of few words. He was conveying
how he felt about the imperious Browns owner, who felt reporters should be
cheerleaders for him and way he ran team.”
Tom Melody is in the Keyser (WV)
High School Hall of Fame, as is Scott Bosley, former BJ managing editor. Scott lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan and played football at
Keyser High with the late Mike Melody, Tom’s brother.
Tom was at the BJ for 42 years. He
lived in Norton and later Wadsworth where he passed away in 2019. His wife of
61 years is Sharon.
Tom was born June 10, 1937, in Cumberland, Maryland, to the
late Joe and Bertha Melody.
Tom and Sharon’s children are Joe of Lexington, Kentucky, Chris (Wendy) of Kingsland,
Georgia, Kathie (Jeff) Priest of Wadsworth, Matthew (Theresa) of Cincinnati and
Mary (Rob) Yeiser of Verona, Wisconsin. They have 17 grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.
A guy from Keyser that I encountered during my 3-month
winter stays in The Villages, Florida remembered Tom because “there’s a Melody
Music Store” in Keyser today.
After his BJ retirement I met Jack
Patterson mall-walking at Chapel Hill Mall, when it was THE mall that drew cars
from the widest area, according to an auto license plates check.
Jack was a super expert when it came
to thoroughbred horseracing. He passed
away in 2011, wife Barbara in 2009. They attended 31 Kentucky Derbys together
in Louisville, where John S. Knight showed up for every Kentucky Derby, flying
from Miami, before spending his summers and autumns at 44 E. Exchange Street.
Jack, the son of John and Kathlyn Patterson, and Barbara Lyntz were classmates at Warren G. Harding
High School in Warren, Ohio, then dated after Jack ended his Army service in
1951 and married in 1954. It lasted for 55 years.
They had four children, John Patterson of Cuyahoga Falls, Mike Patterson of Boca
Raton, Florida, Patricia of San Jose, California, Kathy of North Canton and
Valerie of Tallmadge. They had 11 grandchildren.
They spent their final years in Munroe Falls, moving from
Akron.
Jack came to the BJ in 1955 and stayed for 38 years.
Later, when Stu Warner, the Mad
Hatter, became executive sports editor, he inherited sports editor
Tom Melody, Sheldon Ocker, Jack Patterson, Ray Yanucci, Paul Bailey, Bob Nold,
John Seaburn, Jim Derendal, Milan Zban and added Tim Farkas, Barry Forbis,
Kevin Huhn, Ken Krause, Mike Naragon, Larry Pantages, Dick Shippy and Dan Thom.
Youngstown State graduate Ray
Yanucci, who will be 77 in December, parlayed his 1977-80 Cleveland Browns
coverage into a career with entities tied to National Football League
activities.
The Browns hired Ray in 1981 to
launch and manage Browns News/Illustrated as its editor-in-chief.
In 1986 Ray formed an investment
group that purchased Browns News/Illustrated, which is published for 16 years
and peaked with 50,000 subscribers before its 2001 sign-off.
One by one Ray became owner/publisher of 49ers Report, Oiler News, Broncos Report and Ravens Report.
He ran all five out of his Berea office.
Ray was co-founder of the Akron Browns Booster Club, which
became a charter member of Browns Backer Worldwide.
In 2003 Ray became a consultant for
the revamping of Notre Dame’s Blue and Gold Illustrated.
In 2005 Ray became
consultant/publishing director for The Huddle, the Browns’ in-house
publication.
In 2006 Warren Harding High graduate
Ray was inducted into the Warren Sports Hall of Fame. Paul Warfield was his
teammate during Ray’s years at Warren Harding High.
Ray has staged charity golf outings
for years in Warren in memory of his brother, Ron Yannucci, who passed away in
1996 at the age of 50.
Ray met his wife, Marge Brekoski
Yannucci, at a Warren record hop when they were between 9th and 10th
grades. Both were avid dancers. They were married June 25, 1966 in Warren.
Marge graduated from the Trumbull Memorial Hospital School of Nursing
and had a 48-year career as a registered nurse, including 40 at Summa Health in Akron
where she was once was named most outstanding nurse in the Summa network.
Their children are former Stow High
cheerleader Kelly Yannucci Stanford of Avon, who has a daughter, 11; and former
BJ first team All-District soccer player at Stow Marc Yannucci of Streetsboro,
who has a son, 10.
Ray is an avid golfer, with a
hole-in-one to show for it.
He prepped for his BJ NFL coverage
days with high school and later Kent State beats at Ol’ Blue Walls.
Their travels took Ray and Marge to
London and Hawaii and NFL cities all across America (after all, Ray covered 23
Super Bowls). In recent years, they have made Naples, Florida a regular
vacation spot.
Ray was named best analyst in the
Cleveland area by the PD when he co-hosted a Browns pre-game show in 2002-2003.
Milan Zban wrote for
the PD, the Youngstown Vindicator and the BJ.
Milan Zban had an outstanding athletic career in military, collegiate and
minor league baseball. Just two days out of Youngstown East High School in
1950, he left for Sanford , Florida, in the New York Giants farm system.
That promising minor league career and excellent spring training effort
abruptly came to a halt when Milan tore up his ankle sliding into second base.
That injury didn’t stop Milan from playing at Marshall Collegre in 1950, where
he was a two-sport star. He won four letters in baseball, playing first base,
and he lettered three seasons at both offensive and defensive tackle in
football.
The Giants came calling again and signed him to minor league Class A
contract. In 1956 Zban was assigned to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Later he played
for Michigan City, Indian of the Midwest League. The Crushin’ Croatian got his
first home run as a pro off Tracy Stallard, the pitcher who in 1961 would
surrender Roger Maris' record-breaking 61st homer. No wonder; Milan took
hitting lessons from legendary Mel Ott while in spring training with the
Giants.
During his BJ days, Milan lived in Hartville with his wife, Pat.
Milan is in the Marshall Athletic
Hall of Fame — more than 12 years after he died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Milan had a minor league baseball career and wrote passionately about BJ sports.
Zban was born on April 15, 1931, the
oldest of four children born to Mike and Barbara Zban. An East High Hall of
Famer, he played football, basketball and baseball in high school, where he was
class president.
His brothers John (a basketball
player) and Bill (football) followed him to Marshall.
When East High football coach Tony
Mason wanted his players to learn how to dance for the prom, he sent them to a
class taught by a professional dancer named Pat Maniatis.
Milan covered the event and asked
the teacher out. They married in 1959.
In 1971, Pat noticed a lump on
Zban’s neck. He was diagnosed with lymphoma.
“When the cancer first hit, I
remember him saying, ‘Gee, I’m lucky. I see kids in there that are 5 years old
that have tumors,’ ” Pat said.
“That’s how he looked at life. He was 40, we had
just moved here [to Hartville] and we found out he had cancer, but he never
said ‘poor me.’ I remember coming back from treatments where he was throwing up
in a bucket in the backseat, but he never complained.”
Zban battled cancer for 30 years,
going back 18 times for treatment. The doctor told Pat that her husband had
more chemotherapy than any patient he’d ever had. Zban finally passed away on
Feb. 5, 2002 at age 70.
Still
later, Terry
Pluto switched from the PD and was named Ohio
Sportswriter of the year multiple times. Terry wrote more than 20 books, mostly
about Northeast
Ohio
sports.
Terry
would write chapters for his books while riding a plane to and from games by
the Cleveland Cavaliers, which he covered enthusiastically and magically.
Later,
Brian Windhorst rode his coverage of LeBron James into a good career with ESPN.
The
golden BJ sports era has a long history.
As for the rest of that 1972 BJ sports
staff, Paul Bailey’s words zoomed through his stories like the Indianapolis 500
and Daytona 500 auto races that he covered.
Bob Nold preceded Sheldon on the BJ’s Indians beat till he tired of being
away from home and family.
Rich Zitrin was by far the wildest character in that BJ sports department.
Women who worked at night told tales about him . . . and others who regaled or
harassed anyone around at night when the Sports Department was wrapping things
up.
Jim Derendal has the most ignominious history, as coach of the Beacon
Bombers, who were true to their name. They bombed out so often that you needed
a flashlight to find them in the Cuyahoga Falls softball league standings.
Conversely, the Ladies of the Knight, as the BJ women called their team,
were league champions. The Bombers played like a girl. Hell, not even like a
girl when it came to the Ladies of the Knight.
Paul Facinelli’s greatest claim to fame was getting fired for doing his
job too well.
Facinelli did a great job of exposing wrongful child sexual abuse
convictions in Lorain County. Chief assistant Lorain county prosecutor Jonathan
Rosenbaum, who masterminded the convictions, objected, the Elyria Chronicle Telegram sided with Rosenbaum and
fired Paul in 1998.
In 2009 Lorain County Common Pleas
Court Judge James Burge overturned the convictions of Nancy Smith and Joseph
Allen, vindicating Paul.
Bob Nold, who passed
away in 2009, was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and was a University of Kansas
graduate.
He was inducted into
the Akron Baseball Hall of Fame for his coverage of amateur sports. He retired
from the BJ in 1996.
His wife of 53 years
was a perfectly named Autumn Delight. Their children were Robert B. Nold,
Philip C. Nold and Michael J. Nold. They had seven grandchildren. Bob had a
brother, John R. Nold.
