Scalzo: I’ll miss the Mahoning Valley

The stupidest thing I ever wrote for The Vindicator came in 2004 at the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic.

It was the tournament’s final year and with rumors swirling of its demise, the best players on tour rallied together and ... decided to play the Evian Masters in Paris.

That year’s Evian had players like Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa and Michelle Wie.

The Giant Eagle LPGA Classic had Carmen Hajjar, Joellyn Erdmann-Crooks and Cindy Figg-Currier. In fact, only one of the tour’s top 20 money winners was in Youngstown that weekend: Pat Hurst.

My assignment that week was to add a little flavor to the media coverage, so I wrote about asking Natalie Gulbis to marry me (she said no — for the second straight year), about the good and bad of signing autographs, about what golfers spent their first paychecks on and, yes, the lack of big names in that year’s tournament.

In between some heartfelt sentiments about up-and-comers getting a chance, I may have slipped in a few jokes. Like when I wrote that the tournament only had a few big names, but it did have long names (like Russamee Gulyanamitta), funny names (Soo Young Moon) and no-names (Kelly Lagedrost). Or when I wrote that the field was a veritable Who’s Who of Who’s She? Or that several players weren’t even household names in their own households.

Oh, and one more thing: When I mentioned Hurst was the only playing from the top 20, I wrote this: “With all due respect to Hurst, nobody is going to pay $15 a day to watch her golf.”

The next day, an LPGA golfer named Dale Eggeling walked into the media room, yelled “Who is Joe Scalzo?” and proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes loudly (and tearfully) telling me it was the worst article she had ever read in front of about 20 other people. Her closing line? “If you were one of my horses, I’d have you castrated!”

That wasn’t the stupidest thing I ever wrote, though. (Eggeling actually came back five minutes later, admitted she hadn’t read the whole article and that it wasn’t as bad as she thought.) The stupidest thing was in the next day’s paper, when I wrote what I thought was a silly, over-the-top apology to Hurst that would smooth everything over.

It did not.

To quote the immortal philosopher Calvin (from the cartoon, not the Reformation): “How can something seem so plausible at the time and so idiotic in retrospect?”

I became the tournament’s worst enemy. Readers hated me. Golfers hated me. At one point, I was sitting in the back row of the interview room when a South Korean golfer pointed to me, then looked at her translator and said something along the lines of, “Is that him?”

I mention this because Friday was my last day at The Vindicator. It’s been an amazing 14 years, the best of my life. I got to watch Maurice Clarett drop 300 yards and five touchdowns on Lakewood St. Edward — in the first half. I got to see a then-unknown sophomore named Mario Manningham almost single-handedly beat Massillon. I got to write about LeBron James’ first playoff game and Kelly Pavlik’s middleweight championship reign. I even got to cover a Super Bowl. (OK, so the Ravens won. But still.)

Over that same stretch, I got married, bought a house, became a dad and transformed from a cocky, obnoxious kid just out of college to ... someone who is no longer just out of college. And while readers sometimes let me know when I went too far — like when I wrote a fake apology column that included the line “If I had any kids, I would name them all Pat Hurst” — they were just as quick to write something nice, like when I wrote about my dad losing his battle with lung cancer. Or when I wrote about my favorite concession stand food (Ursuline pepperoni rolls!). Or when I made fun of Steelers fans. (Note: Not everyone wrote something nice when I did that, although in my defense, I didn’t know Steelers fans could read.)

I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss making fun of Dana Balash’s hairline and Ron Moschella’s cologne. I’m going to miss running through Mill Creek Park and laughing through Jack Loew’s interviews. I’m going to miss eating wedding soup from the MVR and pizza from Avalon Downtown. I’m going to miss being in line at the grocery store behind a guy buying two items: a ball of mozzarella cheese and a box of “Just for Men” gel.

Nelson Algren once said loving Chicago was “like loving a woman with a broken nose. You may well find lovelier lovelies, but never a lovely so real.”

Youngstown is kind of like that. It’s not Miami. It’s not San Diego. It’s not even Cleveland. But anyone who’s ever lived here knows it’s a special place — a sports-crazed, community-minded, faith-filled place overflowing with fantastic people who wouldn’t pay $15 to watch Pat Hurst golf.

Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

Joe Scalzo spent the last 14 years covering sports for The Vindicator. He is headed back home to Stark County cover sports for The Repository.