LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Before Bill Plaschke was a nationally honored sports columnist, before Around the Horn, before his byline became a fixture in the Los Angeles Times, he was just a school kid in Louisville, sitting in class at St. Albert the Great and later Ballard High School.
On Sunday, he let the world in on a hard personal truth: He’s been living with Parkinson’s disease.
“I’ve got Parkinson’s,” he wrote. “And it hurts to even say it. I’m still mobile, still active, I don’t have the trademark tremors that distinguish the famously afflicted Michael J. Fox or the late Muhammad Ali but, damn it, I’ve got it.”
He was diagnosed four years ago but kept it private, even from his bosses. “I didn’t look like Parky, I didn’t act like Parky, so why should I publicly reveal something so personal and embarrassing?” he wrote. “Yeah, I was embarrassed. I felt humiliated in a way that made no sense and total sense.”
But now he’s telling his story, in the same bold, human style that’s made him one of the most decorated columnists in the country. And he’s doing more than telling it — he’s fighting it.
“The irony, huh? I’ve spent my entire career writing triumphant stories about athletes overcoming illness and adversity, only to reach the home stretch struggling to find a similar triumph in a story about me,” he writes. “It’s not easy. Now I know what all those subjects of all those feel-good stories understood about the truth behind my positive prose. Degenerative disease sucks beyond any inspirational adjective.”
At a gym in Monrovia, California, he joins 80-somethings and 50-somethings in a boxing program aimed at slowing the effects of the disease. “Boxing works best,” he wrote. “I hit the bag really hard like I’m hitting Parkinson’s.”
My friend and former Courier-Journal colleague Michael Smith told me some years back that boxing was part of his own Parkinson’s regimen. The total movement and physical nature of the workouts are physically and mentally therapeutic.
Plaschke’s column is sobering and human. He confesses his worries — like whether, on FaceTime with his granddaughter, she’ll see past his “Parkinson’s masked face.”
Still, he strikes a defiant note.
“I have Parkinson’s. But, by God, it doesn’t have me.”
I don’t have a motivational ending here. Just prayers for Bill — for strength, for good days, and for as many punches as he can throw.
You can read Plaschke’s column in the L.A. Times here. (Subscription site.) Or read about his Parkinson’s announcement in USA Today here.
Quick sips
– Louisville’s trip to the College World Series has made the next couple of weeks busier than some of us had planned. Then there’s Tanner Shiver, a Louisville infielder. He’s getting married in nine days. The CWS is a curveball for him and his fiancée, Katelyn Farmer of Louisville. But they’re embracing the ride. Read about it here.
– There wasn’t much good ratings news for sports last weekend. Even with the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners squaring off, the Belmont Stakes drew just 3.8 million viewers on FOX (peaking at 5 million for the race itself) — even without NBA or NHL competition. The NBA didn’t fare much better: Game 2 drew just 8.6 million viewers, the lowest for a Finals Game 2 since the 2020 “bubble.” The number was down 29 percent from last year’s Game 2 and was the worst non-COVID Game 2 since the Cavs-Spurs matchup in 2007 — which aired opposite the Sopranos finale.
The Last Drop
"I leave that gym sweaty and sore but uplifted with the reminder that I am blessed to still lead a wonderful active life filled with family and friends and work and travel and so, so much hope."
— Bill Plaschke, on boxing through Parkinson’s disease
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BOZICH | Losing Vince Marrow to Louisville feels like end is near for Mark Stoops at Kentucky
Luke Mistone hits go-ahead homer in the 8th to help Murray State advance to the program's first CWS
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