Plain Dealer and the Sporting News. Hal Lebovitz answered fans questions about serious, goofy, and biazarre situations on the playing field. Hal was the go-to guy for rules questions, right up until his death in 2006. National TV broadcasters even called him at home live during the World Series for opinions about on-field rulings. This book is for fans who love to "know it all."" />
Your cart: 0 items $0.00
Daily Trivia: Cleveland Trivia Quiz
Check out today's question and enter to win a free book.
See today's question
Browns Scrapbook
A collection of sportswriting by Chuck Heaton.
Click Here
Cleveland Ethnic Eats 8th Edition
The Guide to Authentic Ethnic Restaurants and Markets in Northeast Ohio
Click Here
Corpse in the Cellar
#3 in a series of incredible but true stores of Cleveland crime and disaster.
Click Here
Cleveland Cops
Hilarious and heartbreaking true stories told by Cleveland police officers.
Click Here
Cleveland Amusement Park Memories
A nostalgic look back at Northeast Ohio's amusement parks.
Click Here
Hal Lebovitz, author of Ask Hal

Photo © Danny Vega

Hal Lebovitz

Hal Lebovitz, who was inducted into the writer's wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000, was a sportswriter for more than six decades. He got his first job covering high school sports for the Cleveland News in 1942 and soon became a beat writer covering the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians. He was hired by the Plain Dealer in 1960 to cover baseball and was that paper's sports editor from 1964–1982. “Ask Hal, the Referee,” his popular column on sports rules, began in 1957 and also appeared in the Sporting News. A former college athlete, he also coached baseball, basketball, and football and officiated all three sports, including a stint as a referee traveling with the Harlem Globetrotters. His sportswriting continued to appear regularly in the News-Herald (Lake County, Ohio), the Morning Journal (Lorain, Ohio), and several other newspapers, until his death, at age 89, in 2005.

Books by Hal Lebovitz

Clevland books: Ask Hal by Hal Lebovitz
Ask Hal
Answers to Fans' Most Interesting Questions About Baseball Rules from a Hall-of-Fame Sportswriter
by Hal Lebovitz

"Very few writers (or broadcasters for that matter) know the rules of the games they cover as Hal Lebovitz did." – Bob Costas Think it couldn't happen? It probably did! Just ask Hal. Hal Lebovitz rei  . . . [Read More]

Clevland books: The Best of Hal Lebovitz by Hal Lebovitz
The Best of Hal Lebovitz
Great Sportswriting from Six Decades in Cleveland
by Hal Lebovitz

Here, collected for the first time, are the best columns and feature stories by Cleveland's greatest living sportswriter. Hal Lebovitz is a true major league hall-of-famer. Enshrined in the Baseball H  . . . [Read More]