by Eric Sorensen
“Hello Pard’ner!” I loved it when Henry Champ called me that. I would show up at his house in full baseball uniform, and Henry would emerge in his and we were like two kids again, off to play in Washington’s Ponce de Leon Oldtimers’ baseball league, one weekend in Virginia, the next maybe in Maryland.
Even by oldtimers’ standards, Henry was an oldtimer. It was 2007 and he was 70, about the oldest guy in a league of mostly 50-somethings. But he was still a standout, a rangy 6’3″ first baseman who made the rest of us look good by scooping errant throws out of the dirt, and who never seemed to hit a ball that wasn’t a line drive.
I can’t tell you much about young Henry (Dan Bjarnason, a former colleague fills in some of the holes in a heartwarming account for CBC).
I, like many others of my generation, first knew him as one of broadcast journalism’s icons – he covered the Vietnam War for crying out loud – a senior correspondent not only for the CBC and CTV, but NBC News.
Henry was a newsman’s newsman. He said his secret was working his sources. He likened it to a fur trapper tending his traps – he’d check in regularly with his contacts so he was always ahead of the curve when there was news to be made. And he would be the guy to report it first.
Get daily National news
Henry was the most generous colleague I’ve known. He would share information, suggest who could contact, help in any way to better tell your story. In the world of journalism, where inside info is guarded jealously, Henry was happy to share. I substituted sometimes for Don Newman on the CBC’s Politics program years ago and it was always a delight – and a relief to hear that one of our segments would be Henry from Washington.
First, he would make me sound smart: “Good question, Eric…” and then he would be off and running with five minutes of insight that didn’t just update the news, but helped me and viewers understand what the news meant.
Once I was in Washington full-time, we played baseball together, went to Nationals’ games sometimes, and shot the breeze about sports and politics.
Veteran Canadian broadcast journalist Henry Champ, as seen in this file photo supplied by the CBC. Henry died on September 23 at the age of 75 in Washington, DC.
Once in a while, we’d head out to a batting cage just outside Washington. Henry would hit the ball “on the screws” 80 per cent of the time. At 70 years old, he still had a keen eye, and a sweet swing. And he’d talk to anybody. One youngster emerged from the batting cage and Henry said, “Hey, young fella…” and he began offering the kid tips on his batting stance, and his swing. The young baseball prospect soaked it in, grateful, though not knowing who this stranger was. It was just Henry being Henry, generous with his time, his wisdom, and his charm.
I picked him up one early summer day in 2008 to go play baseball. He had a nagging cough. Henry said it was an infection that would require surgery the next day. He ended up in the operating room for more than 10 hours, as surgeons tackled the lung cancer they discovered.
He went back to work just weeks later to cover the 2008 Democratic Party Convention. The night of Barack Obama’s nomination at the vast outdoor stadium in Denver, I found Henry seated in the media area, clearly exhausted. “This was a mistake,” he conceded. It was the closest Henry ever came to sounding downcast, around me anyway.
After the election, he retired from the CBC. Though you couldn’t keep him down. He blogged for the Corp, and as the new chancellor of his alma mater, Brandon University in Manitoba, Henry personally recruited Washington-area basketball talent for the college team for which he once starred half a century ago.
On and off for the next four years, Henry had more hospital stays and more treatment. I could hear the fatigue in his voice, and he moved more slowly, but his zest for life never faltered.
I’d ask him how he was doing. “I can’t complain!” he’d reply, saying it in such an uplifting way it was as if he didn’t have worry in the world. And it was an infectious enthusiasm. Henry had a way of making everyone around him happier.
Last Wednesday, we were going to attend a Nationals’ game. It was the night the Nats would clinch Washington’s first baseball post-season berth since, well, since before Henry was born. I was looking forward to the game, but mostly looking forward to being with Henry, to talk about the U.S. presidential race or Bryce Harper, the new baseball phenom. When I called that afternoon and spoke to his wife Karen, she said Henry wasn’t feeling well enough to go. Not a problem, we’d go another time.
It wasn’t to be.
So long, pard’ner.
Eric is Global National’s Washington Bureau Chief. Follow him on Twitter: @ericsorensendc.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.