No Bitterness in Herb Score

Terry Pluto: No bitterness in Herb Score
by Terry Pluto Plain Dealer Columnist

Thursday November 13, 2008, 11:05 PM

It was a hot spring- training day in Tucson, Ariz., about 25 years ago when Herb Score and I were talking about a pitcher who had said he planned to quit near the prime of his career.
"I think you should play until they tear the uniform off your back and tell you that you can't play anymore," said the Indians' broadcaster. "That's what I did."

It happened in 1963, when he was at Class AAA Indianapolis. He was still trying to come back from an eye injury -- that resulted from a line drive off the bat of Gil McDougald on May 7, 1957 -- and later, arm problems.

Score told me, "There's nothing better than playing."

He quickly said he was grateful to be the Indians' radio voice. He said in some ways, the injuries that cut his playing career short at age 30 became a blessing because it opened a door to broadcasting.

"I've done this longer than I ever could have played," he said of what became his 34 years on air.
When Score died Tuesday at the age of 75, I thought of his dignity and patience. I thought of the times he signed autograph after autograph. I thought of how he was asked thousands of times, "How's the eye?"

"Fine," Score would say, often with a smile.

Or sometimes, a fan would say, "It's too bad about the eye, you could have been one of the great ones."

The former Indians pitcher would politely thank the fan.

It seemed as if he had separated himself from the injuries, that he didn't realize what was lost. In his first two Tribe seasons, he had a 36-19 record and led the American League in strikeouts.
Yes, Score knew how good he was at age 23, and how he was destined for greatness. But he rarely talked about his own career, except to make fun of his problems as a hitter. If pushed, he'd insist that it was elbow problems -- not the eye injury -- that ended his career. Being a man meant dealing with the cards life dealt.

It meant doing your job and not whining. It meant dressing well, as he always did with sharp suits, and every hair on his head seemed in place and never needed to be cut. It meant being a class act, as men of his generation would say.

On the air, Score seldom criticized players or managers. But he was a close friend of several Tribe managers and front-office types. They felt free to tell him their frustrations and dreams, and Score never broke a confidence, never engaged in trashy gossip.

General managers such as Gabe Paul and Phil Seghi asked his opinions on players, and Score had strong ones. He didn't express them on the air, but he did in private to those with the Indians who wanted to know.

I had a taste of that side of Score just once, when mentioning a Tribe pitcher whom I thought was having a good season.

Score stopped me and said, "Unless your ERA is under 3.00, you really are not doing your job."
He then backed off a bit, saying that was how the great ones from his era performed, and the game had changed.

At the time of this conversation, I was in my middle 20s, a baseball writer for The Plain Dealer. Score supplied the soundtrack for the Indian summers of my youth. My father spoke reverently about how Score would have been a Hall of Fame pitcher.

I was always somewhat awed how Score treated me as a peer, how he always remembered my wife and asked about Roberta by name. I remember how Score could have could have been bitter, but instead, he made all of us who spent time with him better for it