He was coming out of Lombard Middle School Tuesday afternoon when he spotted two kids in handcuffs. They looked about 16. He turned to one of the cops hauling them away and said, “What did they do?”

The cop didn’t say, “What’s it to you?” He’d never met this guy before, but it didn’t matter. Around here, when you’re Lenny Moore, everybody knows you, or knows your story. They know Moore as the pro football Hall of Famer with the Baltimore Colts, who was the most gifted running back/receiver of his generation, and maybe they know him for the tireless work he’s done with young people since his football days ended 40 years ago.

And, increasingly, a lot of people know him for the cause he’s taken up in memory of his son Leslie, who died six winters ago, at 43, after a long twilight struggle with a disease called progressive systemic sclerosis, or scleroderma.

On May 7 at Martin’s West, they’ll hold the sixth annual banquet in Leslie’s name. It’s an occasion of joy and nostalgia. The proceeds raise college scholarship money for local high school athletes — and money to fight scleroderma. Leslie Moore fought it for nine years, knowing he would lose. It’s a hideous disease, afflicting about 300,000 Americans, in which the body attacks its own vital organs.

This story continues below
Advertisement

But the annual dinners become something more than a fundraiser. It’s the gathering of a generation. Many of the old Colts show up and retell the great stories of everybody’s youth. Those fans who once turned a ballpark on 33rd Street into the world’s largest outdoor loony bin revel in the tales.

“To see my old teammates show up every year,” Moore said, “I’m overwhelmed, I really am. We’re at an age now where our bodies are not the best. The other day I went out to see Jim Parker,” the great lineman who died a couple of years ago. “Just to visit his grave, to say hello. You know, we’re losing a lot of folks. All the wars we went through together, and we’re dwindling. But everybody who can make it [to Martin’s West] shows up, and it’s like the old days again.”

The roster of the departed grows longer with the years. But it’s not just the old Colts who attend. Some retired Orioles show up, and a whole bunch of pro football stars from Moore’s era — Deacon Jones, Lem Barney, Jim Marshall, Morgan State’s Leroy Kelly and many others, plus some Baltimore Ravens.

“Ray Lewis,” Moore said Tuesday, “always gets involved, always buys a couple of tables, and he brings in these youngsters. So they can experience what it’s like to be at a nice, big banquet. To see the kind of things they don’t see in their lives.”

The thought took Moore back to Lombard Middle School earlier in the day, when he spotted the two kids in handcuffs and turned to the cop.

“What did they do?” he asked.

“Stealing and robbing,” the officer said. “The usual.”

Moore watched them go off in a police car. He sees variations of these kids every day, with their lives coming undone, and their anger, and their lost potential. Moore has lived three-quarters of a century now, and it gets no better. He works for the State Department of Juvenile Services, working directly with kids who still have a chance to turn their lives around. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

“The kids today,” he said, “it’s sad. I go in and talk to them, shake their hands. Some of ‘em reach out and hug you. Some of ‘em, it’s, ‘Who’s this guy?’ I don’t make a big deal out of my football days. When I finally tell them, it’s like an ice-breaker. It’s a connection to something. They’re so hungry for some kind of a connection.

“I was very fortunate. I had two parents at home, and a lot of these kids today, they don’t. We were all locked together, close, in love. If I was troubled by something, I could go home. My brothers were there, my sisters. My dad. And there’s mom overseeing everything. These kids today, so many of them don’t have that. And that’s the beginning of all their anger.”

So he does the best he can with them. And he thinks about his son, who went to McDonogh through seventh grade and graduated from Northwestern High, where he played football. Leslie had a lovely beginning and a very rough dying. But his father keeps his name alive, and makes it count for something good. And he looks after other people’s children as well.

Tickets to the May 7 affair can be purchased by calling Cindy Ortman at 410-793-3905 ext. 2121.

Please send news tips to Michael Olesker at olesker@baltimoreexaminer.com