A Front-Row Seat to a Lifetime of Sports

If you’ve been in a press box for a major sporting event over the last four decades you probably crossed paths with Tim Sullivan, a highly respected columnist in Cincinnati, San Diego, and Louisville.

Whether it was at The Miracle on Ice, Joe Carter’s dramatic home run to win the 1993 World Series for Toronto, the multitude of Super Bowls, Final Fours, and Triple Crown races he has covered, Sullivan was there to chronicle the good, the bad and the ugly for his readers.

Approaching age 70, he is semi-retired and reflective of how the sports writing industry has changed.  “If I had known what the business would become I still would have gotten into it because I got the best years of the business in many ways,” Sullivan told the Old Scribes Newsletter from his home in Louisville. “Once the internet came along and Craigslist killed classified advertising, you could see advertising dollars drifting into other realms than newspapers. It was a pretty grim picture. I told people we’re dinosaurs and Jurassic Park is fiction.”

Covering Pete Rose

Pete Rose, who died last week at age 83, is a memorable subject in a memorable career. Sullivan worked at the Cincinnati Enquirer for 25 years after graduating from the University of Missouri in 1976. The native of Northern Virginia took the traditional route, starting as an intern at the Enquirer before becoming a beat reporter covering the University of Cincinnati. A stint on the Cincinnati Bengals beat was next before taking over the Cincinnati Reds in 1981. Three years later, he was elevated to columnist. Rose became a player-manager for the Reds that year, a larger-than-life hometown hero with three World Series rings and flaws that weren’t as publicly known.

"I guess I've written more words on him than anybody else in my career with Rick Pitino a distant second," Sullivan said. "For writers, Pete was a narcotic. He always had something to say, an anecdote or one-liner. He filled your notebook."

The Countdown to Ty Cobb

Rose broke Ty Cobb's all-time hit record on Sept. 11, 1985, with a single to leftfield that passed Cobb's record of 4,191. The build-up to that night in Cincinnati captivated the sporting public. "It was such a compelling story," Sullivan said, who recalled the caravan of writers following Rose to every game. "As a hometown guy, he was such a dominant subject."

Four years later, Rose was under scrutiny for his ties to gambling. MLB launched an investigation. Rumors began swirling and sports writers were forced to separate fact from fiction.

"We knew he was a very enthusiastic horse player,” Sullivan said. “But the extent of his gambling wasn’t known until 1989. Once the news of the betting investigation went public, I took a pretty hard line that he needed to go. There were all kinds of maneuvers made to help him keep his job. Marge Schott was the owner and pretty clueless about a lot of things and it fell to baseball and (Commissioner) Bart Giamatti to make the call.”

Rose was permanently banned from baseball, banned from being eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and banned from the sport he loved. 

Hall of the Unforgiving

Rose's death from poor health has prompted calls for the current commissioner to end Rose's banishment from baseball and confirm his eligibility for the Hall of Fame. Sullivan doubts that's ever going to happen.

“I wrote him in for a few years when I was still voting,” Sullivan said. “But as years went by and he continued to lie about the betting and then finally confessed when he had a book to sell, I soured on him.

“Most Americans want to be able to forgive people, but you have to take certain steps. You have to show remorse and try to change your ways and he just never would.

“Now that he’s gone, I can see there could be some momentum toward lifting that ban and allowing him to be voted in. But Shoeless Joe Jackson has been banned for 100 years and I don’t see that changing.”

The Shifting Landscape of Sports Writing

Sullivan has seen first-hand the shifting landscape of sports writing. The elimination of newspapers and jobs within existing newspapers have made the traditional path to sports writing almost obsolete.  "It's such an unstable business right now," said Sullivan, who after working at the Enquirer for 25 years, spent 10 years with the San Diego Union-Tribune and another 10 with the Louisville Courier-Journal. "If you're a gifted storyteller or a tremendously hard worker, there will always be a place for you. People want news. How it's disseminated and what you can get paid to do it, is a much different dynamic than when I was coming up."

Asked what advice he would give a 17 or 18-year-old aspiring sports journalist, Sullivan quipped, "Have a Plan B." He wasn't joking. "It's a really difficult time and I don't know if anybody has figured out a formula that can withstand the kind of pressures that we face. If I were 17 or 18, I think I would be inclined to look for a different line of work and enjoy sports as a spectator than a sports writer."

Readers for decades are glad he didn't.

The NFL Players Association is looking to eliminate access to the locker room. We’re surprised it has taken this long. You could see this coming since COVID-19 when inside access was not allowed. Now players think their privacy is being invaded??? …. Join the discussion at Next Level Sports Content.

Old Scribes Podcast Welcomes Austin Trout

Former light middleweight champion and current welterweight Bare Knuckles champion Austin “No Doubt” Trout visited the Old Scribes Podcast this week to discuss his upcoming title defense on Oct. 12 in Marbella, Spain.

Other topics discussed in this two-part series with George Willis and Matt Aguilar include Dec. 1, 2012, when Trout defeated Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden, facing Canelo Alvarez in front of 40,000 fans in San Antonio, the ugly side of the boxing business, and why top promoters didn’t want to promote a black fighter from New Mexico.

In Part 2, Trout also dishes on how Floyd Mayweather ruined boxing, and questions why Al Haymon isn’t promoting fights like he once did. Trout also details why he is fully invested in Bare Knuckles Fighting, and acknowledges the support of his family and wife Taylor..