Ode to a sportswriter dying young

You didn't know Jeff Carlton. Unless you picked up a newspaper when driving through Greensboro, N.C., you probably didn't read him either. Please don't let that stop you from reading a little something about him here.

Jeff was a friend and colleague of mine when we worked together at the News & Record. He went to work in Greensboro almost nine years ago on the recommendation of another friend and sportswriter, Rob Daniels, who went to work there himself on a recommendation by me. We were three University of Virginia alums working on the same sports staff in North Carolina, which seems pretty good for a school that has no journalism program. We presume it is the first time that's ever happened outside the Commonwealth.

Six years ago at the fresh age of 30, Jeff was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Surgery and treatment sent it into remission and he went on with his life. Two years ago it came back. On Monday, Jeff was going to start some aggressive chemotherapy to beat it again. The week before he could get started, he fell at his house and had to go to the hospital. Before he was to be released two days later, Jeff slipped into a coma. A day later he died. He was 36.

His older brother, Walter, is not a sportswriter. But he wrote and delivered a tribute for Jeff that was as beautiful as anything I've ever read in a sports section. It was the finest choice of a sports analogy I've ever heard. That's one of the things I wanted to share, though my paraphrasing barely does it justice.

Like all of us who work in sports, Jeff loved games. Baseball was his particular favorite, and the Phillies his favorite team. He was the kind of baseball fan who made special trips each year with his brothers and friends to visit new ballparks.

During the inaugural season of the Washington Nationals - before the cancer came back - Jeff went to a game and sat in the bleachers. Outside the door of the memorial service, a picture was blown up of Jeff showing off a foul ball that he had caught that day in RFK Stadium. He naturally held the pine-tar scuff mark to the camera to prove it was genuine.

Walter was sitting right in front of him, and his natural brotherly instinct was blinding jealousy. All their lives they've been waiting to catch a foul ball and this one fell right out of the sky into Jeff's lap. The luckiest man on the face of the earth, his brother fumed.

Walter held the ball up for everyone at the standing-room only service to see. And in his sorrow he explained how sublime this luck was. Because Jeff always admired the batters who fought off pitchers with foul balls. Foul balls meant staying alive. And that's what Jeff was doing himself.

Strike one was delivered six years ago, and strike two came four years later. They were the kind of bogus called strikes off the plate that Jeff used to complain about when Maddux and Glavine made a habit of it in Atlanta.

For the next two years, Jeff kept fouling off pitches. He stayed alive not for himself but for his team - family and friends. He never complained about the bad calls he suffered. He never let it slow him down until strike three cruelly slipped by him last week.

It was easy to be sad for someone taken away too soon by such a savage and random disease. But it was the beauty of his life and not the ugliness of his death that lifted everyone who attended his service.

Another former colleague, Jim Young, delivered a nice tribute to Jeff. With his permission I have included it here. It struck me as a beautiful way to remember somebody by cherishing what you had instead of dwelling on what you lost. And while you probably didn't know Jeff Carlton, you know someone just like him and may one day be forced to live without them.

...

Like everyone here, it’s been hard these last few days thinking about where Jeff won’t be.

He won’t be at the desk next to me in the office, spinning around in his chair to offer a bit of wit, insight or maybe a sarcastic comment about my Atlanta Braves and Bobby Cox.

He won’t be sitting across from me in a booth at lunch, offering his wit, his insight, or maybe a sarcastic comment about my South Carolina Gamecocks and Steve Spurrier.

He won’t be sitting around the table during a poker game, offering his wit, his insight or maybe a sarcastic comment about how lucky I got the hand before.

He won’t be a lot of places in my life anymore, which is leaving an enormous hole that I have no idea how to fill.

But I’m going to try, as Jeff and other Phillies fans like him have learned over the decades, to accept crushing disappointment and move on.

To that end, I’m trying to stop focusing on the places where Jeff won’t be and to spend more time thinking about the place where Jeff is now. Rob Daniels and I started riffing on this Thursday while in the office. It’s exactly the sort of thing Rob, Jeff and I would have hatched over lunch at Fisher’s.

Where Jeff is now – it’s always 1980 for the Phillies.

Where Jeff is now – the Washington Capitals are the most clutch playoff team in hockey.

Where Jeff is now - Al Groh is not Virginia’s football coach and Craig Littlepage has no authority of offer contract extensions.

Where Jeff is now – Virginia Tech is on probation. Looooong probation.

Where Jeff is now – a road trip to see minor-league baseball has already been planned and the car’s got a full tank of gas. That car, by the way, has an XM station that plays only the Fixx, all day long and another that plays only Cracker.

Where Jeff is now – Ronald Reagan is probably the president. Yeah, Jeff was a bit different than the average journalist in that respect.

Where Jeff is now – he’s always getting the card he needs on the river.

Where Jeff is now – he’s got television with a channel that shows only Seinfeld, another that shows only Sopranos episodes and another in which every baseball game he watches is broadcast in the voice of Harry Kalas.

Where Jeff is now – deadline is always thirty minutes later.

Where Jeff is now – the copy editors always let him add five inches to his game story.

Where Jeff is now – he has the personal cell phone numbers of all the coaches and they all call him back, IMMEDIATELY.

Where Jeff is now – he has a dog that looks and acts a heck of a lot like Floyd.

Where Jeff is now – he’s happy, at peace and waiting for the rest of us to join him one day … and probably making a sarcastic comment about how long we’re taking to get there.

...