Lolley loved talking about Steelers, youth baseball
If you are a Steelers fan who likes to keep up with the team, most likely you knew who Dale Lolley was.
A former longtime sports writer for the Observer-Reporter, he transitioned to several other media outlets as a Pittsburgh Steelers reporter while still contributing a weekly column to the O-R.
Lolley died Wednesday of cancer at the age of 56.
Lolley worked for DK Sports, Steelers.com and was co-host of the Steelers broadcast “The Drive,” and often took part in the “Final Word.”
He was a friend for years and actually a huge youth baseball fan.
My sons both were part of Washington Youth Baseball leagues at Washington Park, which Dale was highly involved in. His sons were older than mine and played there as well.
Dale volunteered countless hours to the league for many years.
It is there at Washington Park that I had many long conversations with Dale on a myriad of sports subjects, mostly on the Steelers and youth baseball.
He would bounce ideas off me on occasion on how to improve the league, how to make the experience for the players better, and oftentimes they made perfect sense to the point where I thought why aren’t they doing that already?
And, yes, we’d talk about the Steelers a lot.
As a sports writer I would develop my own opinions watching the Steelers each year and can remember numerous times where he proved to me why he was so good at what he did.
I would make Steelers offseason comments such as I think the problem was this on defense, clearly, or this player needs to go or they have to sign that guy or what Mike Tomlin did that one game made no sense.
Once in a while Dale would agree with me but most often he would smile, shake his head and point out how wrong I was and offer his own explanation, sometimes from inside information he had.
Basically, he displayed to me how much more he knew and could correctly interpret about the Steelers than I ever could.
I gained a great deal of respect for him from those discussions.
Many times he’d see me and talk with me while one or both of my sons were playing in a baseball game and he even would give me a pointer here and there that might improve their performance while watching them bat or field. He was always kind to them and offered encouragement when he saw them with me.
The funniest memory I have from those days, one that I’ll never forget, happened while I was watching my son Westley playing as my elder son Colton stood next to me.
Dale saw me, walked over and asked if my other son was playing and I said yeah, they’re out in the field now. Then we started on another sports talk.
While watching the game a batter stroked a line drive into right-center field. The center fielder sprinted over and made a diving catch for the out.
Dale said, “Wow, that was a nice catch by that kid.” I concurred, “Yeah, what a play, saved a couple runs.” My son Colton was pulling on my shirt, evidently realizing what I hadn’t figured out yet. Then Dale asked, “So what position is your kid playing?” I pondered for a second and said, “He’s in center fi- … oh wow that was Westley! Great play Westley!”
We both broke out laughing.
Once my sons aged out of the league, I didn’t see Dale as much but when I did he’d always offer a smile and ask how my boys were doing.
In later years Dale had a positive impact as a member of the Founders League for the Pony League World Series, helping transform the Washington-based team into a much more competitive entry.
I was very saddened to hear of his death on Wednesday. Too young to be gone.
I know I was proud to call Dale Lolley my friend.
Rob Burchianti is sports editor of the Herald-Standard and can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com