Art Martone was a good man, loved by his family, admired and respected by the dozens of colleagues who worked with and for him during his long career at The Providence Journal and, for a decade ,at NBC Sports Boston.
That’s the most important thing I want you to know, or remember, about the former Journal sports editor, who died early Wednesday of a rare neurological disease that struck about three weeks ago. He was 66.
Art was one of those rare individuals whom everybody liked. I never heard a derogatory comment about him, a compliment itself given the many constituencies he had to please while directing the largest sports department in the the state during a time of turmoil in the newspaper business.
He had an even disposition, a ready smile and a hearty laugh. He could mingle easily with professional stars in Boston and high-school bench warmers in his hometown of Cranston. And he loved a good story, whether of a game, a personality or an issue.
A Rhode Island guy to the core, he was familiar with sports from Providence College, URI and Brown to the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Providence Bruins. He could tell you about the hockey tradition at Mount St. Charles Academy in Woonsocket, the fierce rivalry between Catholic powers La Salle and Bishop Hendricken and the characters and coaches who breathed life into high school and college sports in the Ocean State.
Above all, Art was a Red Sox guy. He loved everything about the Boston Red Sox. He could discuss the Impossible Dream team of 1967, the oh-so-close finishes in 1975 and 1986, the David Ortiz championship years in the 2000s, and the drama of the recent pandemic seasons. He could also hold his own on the Patriots, Celtics and Bruins.
I met Art when I joined the Journal sports staff in the spring of 1977. He was already a veteran, a fixture in our corner of the newsroom. I can still picture him sitting at one end of the horseshoe-shaped copy desk, just to the right of the slot man Ken Hamwey, working his magic with the standings, box scores, transactions and other bits of information that went into the scoreboard page like pieces of a puzzle. He knew all the strokes for en spaces and em spaces and the other important keys that I forgot a long time ago. Bill Troberman was the only other player in the sports department who could match Art’s speed and skill.
As deadline approached and the pace quickened, some of us smoked or nibbled to cope with the pressure. I chomped Mike and Ike candy. Art started pumping his left leg up and down, fast, his way of dealing, and of setting the beat for the rest of the copy desk band.
Art took over the Journal sports department sometime in the late 1990s after Dave Bloss left to pursue international journalism. Art was easy to work for, appreciated extra effort and was generous with his gratitude and praise. He also was savvy enough to see the future of print journalism in the digital world, not the newspaper page. He was an early proponent of blogging, and wrote a popular blog himself. He urged us writers to to the same. Some of us old-school types were slow to adopt the new way of doing things, but he never got upset with us.
Art left the Journal for what is now NBC Sports Boston in 2009 as managing editor for digital. For 10 years he helped steer NBCSB into the expanding world of digital reporting. He retired 2019.
The sports world was a better place with Art Martone in the game. He was a star in his own quiet way.
Condolences to his wife Kimberly and his son James.
