B. LaVANGE SMITH: WOMAN OF LETTERS

Another letter arrived from B. LaVange Smith.

During my nine years at The Times, I’ve probably received 200 letters from B. LaVange Smith, each thoughtful, incisive and meticulously written on a slant across the page.

She writes me. She writes others at the paper. She writes lots of people lots of the time. Recently, I phoned her to ask why.

“Writing adds something to my life,” she said from her home in Claremont. “I like to get my ideas out. I write eight or 10 letters a week. I could write at the drop of a hat.”

B. (for Beulah) LaVange Smith is a retired teacher and about as bright and opinionated as a person can be. Besides writing letters, her great passion is sports. Oh, yes, she is 79.

She is also interested in the sports of politics and life. In a recent letter, she noted about Lt. Col. Oliver L. North at the Iran- contra hearings:

“The North appearance was a carefully rehearsed performance. My prediction is that he won’t wear. When Richard Nixon gave his Checkers speech, I was offended. Others were carried away. It was an emotional appeal to a serious charge. History knows the outcome. So no one can convince me that North is a hero.”

Enough of that. On to weightier matters.

“Now let’s take Rick Sutcliffe,” Smith said on the phone, warming up. “He’s an outstanding pitcher, but he was given the bum’s rush by the Dodgers.” After Sutcliffe left the Dodgers in a cloud of acrimony en route to pitching stardom for the Cubs, Smith advised him by letter: “You must not allow feelings over this hurt to stay with you.”

This is no sports-fan-come-lately. Her late husband was the family’s only avid sports follower at first. That was when they lived in St. Louis and she initially accompanied him to Cardinals games just to be at his side. But soon her ardor for the sport surpassed even his.

“Baseball is my major interest,” she said. “It’s the perfect sport. I’ve been a baseball fan for over 50 years. I used to sit by Dizzy Dean as he broadcast Cardinals games in St. Louis. I’m interested in basketball, too. I love college football. My three major interests are rookies, the human side of baseball and abuses in communications. I love sports on TV. But I’ve done a lot of protesting to the networks about abuses.”

Smith’s roll call of so-called abusers in sportscasting, in abbreviated form:

“Now I think Vin Scully is a terrible offender. . . . Howard Cosell was the worst. . . . I’ve had my problems with Ted Dawson. . . . This Bud Furillo, when he was on ‘Dodger Talk’ (on KABC Radio), was the worst.”

The good guys:

“I like Jim Hill (now on KABC-TV Channel 7). And I like Fred Roggin on (KNBC) Channel 4. And I like Mike Smith on Channel 4 very much. And I like Al Michaels on ABC, and his partner.” Tim McCarver? “Yes. Some people say he talks too much, but I like his enthusiasm and his knowledge. I like the announcers on WTBS, too. I like anyone who gets up there and knows his business and does what he’s supposed to do.”

On her letterhead stationery, Smith titles herself a “Sports Facilitator.” What is a sports facilitator?

“One who eases into crucial situations,” she replied. “I see things happening that shouldn’t be happening. I see things that aren’t right. And I step right in.”

For example:

“Pete Rose was the highest paid player in baseball when he signed an $800,000 contract with Philadelphia. He came under attack out here. Sparky Anderson got up on the Dinah Shore program and said that the remarkable thing about Pete Rose was that he never was touched by God like Johnny Bench. I wrote to the Dinah Shore program and protested, and when they later reran the program, those words were deleted.”

Smith also demanded by letter that NBC Sports wait until the conclusion of games before choosing MVPs for its baseball telecasts, something it now does. She stepped right in on that after “Scully and (Joe) Garagiola had picked (Mike) Scioscia in the eighth inning. Then Mike Marshall won the game with a home run in the ninth.”

Whether her letters actually made the difference in any of these cases, she’ll never know. But the important thing is that she forcefully expressed her opinion instead of being only a passive observer.

There’s a tendency for some of us who are younger to automatically speak condescendingly to a 79-year-old, as if she needed help hearing and understanding. Maybe we’ve seen too much TV. “Television treats us very harshly,” Smith said. “It makes us look mostly senile. I think there’s a great deal of prejudice in society toward older people.”

Smith--who says she regularly attends Dodgers games, driving to the stadium herself--is where the negative stereotype ends. She taught English, history and journalism for 19 years before retiring at age 65. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from UCLA, where one of her classmates was veteran KNBC reporter Saul Halpert. She writes him, too.

“Her letters are wry observations on the passing scene,” Halpert said. “She feels some need to communicate with me about these things. But sports is a facet of her that I’ve never known,” he added.

“With my years of teacher’s training and my interest in baseball, I have something unique to offer,” Smith said. “I see baseball as seriously threatened. I don’t like the drugs. I don’t like the people calling themselves financial advisers and taking athletes’ money. I don’t like the morals. I don’t like the paternity suits. I don’t like the many divorces. Baseball years ago was a strait-laced game.”

Seldom does Smith get a reply from anyone she’s written, but she says she doesn’t mind. “I always saw that I had something to contribute,” she said. “I work in a gap where no one else is competing.”

Even a sports facilitator must slow down eventually, you would think. So I asked Smith how long she would continue to pour out the letters. “Always,” she said.