At one point in my life, my plan was not to toil in a newsroom in my adult life. It was to play shortstop for the Cleveland Indians.

Herb Score’s death last week brought a lot of my childhood memories and dreams – including that one – back to me as I read the many tributes to him by sportswriters and fans around the country. Most of their pieces and thoughts focused on Score’s lengthy broadcasting career, which ended in 1997 after the Indians lost the seventh game of the World Series to the Florida Marlins.

I can’t remember what Herb said when Edgar Renteria drove in the winning run for the Marlins, ending the game and the Indians’ hope of a championship. It was probably something like: “And Renteria drives a single into centerfield; run scores; game over.”

Herb was never too high or too low when he called an Indians game. And he never seemed disinterested even during the hundreds of meaningless games the Indians played for three decades. I give him credit for that. There were some long seasons in that stretch.

But my memory of Herb Score dates to 1959, the year I reached baseball consciousness.

Two years before, Score was felled by a line drive off the bat of Gil McDougald of the New York Yankees. Writhing in pain and in a pool of blood on the mound at Municipal Stadium, it appeared that Score’s promising career might be over. It wasn’t, but it was never the same.

He returned to the mound for the Indians in 1958, but played in only five games after developing elbow trouble. Something magical happened to me after that year because, at age 8, I became obsessed with the Indians. And I mean obsessed.

My favorite player was slugger Rocky Colavito and during that magical 1959 season, newspaper clippings featuring Colavito and the Tribe adorned my bedroom wall. Score was Colavito’s roommate, you see, so he had no choice but to be my second favorite player.

I figured any friend of Rock’s was a friend of mine.

There was another reason I liked Herb Score. He lived in Lakewood, my hometown. There were a lot of ballplayers during that period who lived in Lakewood and my buddies and I set out periodically to visit them and obtain their autographs on our baseball gloves.

Back then big league ballplayers didn’t make exorbitant salaries like they do today and during the season Lakewood offered them affordable housing. And it wasn’t far from the stadium.

Pitcher Gary Bell, who had a 16-12 record in 1959, would be paid millions today. But back then he lived with his wife in a double house a few blocks from my home.

We tried not to visit him too early, but one summer morning we rang the doorbell and Mrs. Bell answered the door. She was in a bathrobe and had curlers in her hair. Uh-oh.

She didn’t seem to mind.

“Gary,” she yelled. “Some boys are here to see you.”

Mr. Bell, as we called him, sauntered to the door. He was a big dude.

“Hi, boys,” he said. “Did those autographs wear off this soon.”

“Yes, Mr. Bell,” one of us politely responded. “Can we have new ones?”

“Sure.”

It was that easy.

Although Bell was accessible, other players weren’t. We knew Score lived in a high-rise on the lakefront, so we never attempted to visit him – too much security. Pitcher Frank Funk, who joined the Indians in 1960, lived in an apartment above a tavern – the Belle Harbor – at the corner of my street. I don’t know why – maybe because he was just a relief pitcher – but we didn’t bother him either.

In 1959, the Indians were the toast of the town. And for much of the season, they were in first place. But in late August, the Tribe dropped four straight to the White Sox, who ultimately went on to win the pennant. The Indians finished five games out that year and for the first time I experienced Cleveland sports heartbreak.

Nonetheless, in my mind all those guys on that 1959 team, including Jim Perry, Russ Nixon, Woodie Held, Billy Martin, Vic Power, George Strickland, Tito Francona, Minnie Minoso and Jimmy Piersall, were heroes.

Colavito, Score and Bell would always be my favorites, no matter what.

Before the 1960 season, both Colavito and Score were gone, traded to other teams by general manager Frank “Trader” Lane. The long drought was about to begin.

Several years later and now out of baseball, the fact that hard-luck Herb Score returned to Cleveland to broadcast Indians games just seemed to be right. I didn’t care about the gaffes. Heck, he was human. And he didn’t like to hear himself talk. Besides, he represented the glory year of 1959.

When he signed off in 1997, well, I felt bad for him. There wasn’t a lot of fanfare. The Indians just lost the Series and most people were moaning about Jose Mesa’s less-than-spectacular pitching performance. Score kind of faded away.

He deserved better. He just missed greatness, you know. If only that line drive...

A year after he retired, on Oct. 8 in New Philadelphia, horrible luck would visit Herb Score again. En route to Florida, Score had stayed overnight in the Holiday Inn after being inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame. After leaving the hotel, he pulled his Buick Riviera into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer rig.

A New Philadelphia paramedic spotted the World Series ring on his finger and soon realized that our beloved Herb Score was in trouble. Deep trouble.

The truck had crushed Score’s car and he had suffered massive head and chest injuries. He was within an inch of his life.

Dr. Brenda Prince was among the first to administer to Score in Union Hospital’s emergency room.

“We all kind of knew of Herb Score,” she said. “We all listened to him.”

She said anxiety was high that morning in E.R. The adrenaline was flowing. They had to stabilize him. They had to save him. They did.

Prince tended to the broadcaster during the ambulance ride to Aultman Hospital in Canton. She was there to make sure he survived the trip.

“There was a pride among us – from the paramedics, to the nurses, to the physicians – that we were able to take care of him,” she said.

There was high anxiety that day in The Times-Reporter’s newsroom, too. One guy’s boyhood hero was in trouble. And now the task was to cover the story. It was difficult to be the detached observer that day.

Score survived, of course, but he was never the same. In 2002, he suffered a stroke and, four years later, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, covering the Indians Hall of Fame induction ceremony, offered photo evidence that proved that the vibrancy of youth eventually gives way.

Herb was in a wheelchair. And silver-haired senior citizen Rocky Colavito was at his side.

Was 1959 that long ago? Yes, I guess it was.

Rest in peace, Herb Score.

Dick Farrell is editor of The Times-Reporter. You can e-mail him at editor@timesreporter.com.