Mike Downey, decorated sports writer and former Chicago Tribune columnist, dies at 72

Mike Downey, a longtime sports writer who wrote the Chicago Tribune’s “In the Wake of the News” column from 2003 to 2008, died Wednesday in California at age 72.

Downey suffered a heart attack, according to his family, in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where he lived with his wife, Gail Martin, a professional singer and daughter of the late entertainer Dean Martin.

Downey was born in Chicago Heights and wrote for several newspapers over a long and storied journalism career, including the Tribune, Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit Free Press and Los Angeles Times, where he was a featured metro columnist who wrote about news, politics, sports and entertainment.

He began his career writing for Star Publications in the south suburbs while in high school at age 16, and he was a sports writer at the Daily News until it ceased publication in 1978. Downey won many awards over his career, including the Ring Lardner Award for career excellence in sports writing and 11 selections by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association as Sportswriter of the Year: seven in California and two each in Illinois and Michigan.

Even after retirement, Downey continued writing in his free-flowing style on Facebook, where he mostly catered to his friends and readers who were fans of sports and Hollywood. A recent post on the death of actor Dabney Coleman mentioned Coleman’s TV show about a sports writer, “Slap Maxwell,” and other roles.

“Nobody played smug better, as in a 1991 ‘Columbo’ in which Coleman’s homicidal attorney is tripped up by a Pasadena traffic camera,” Downey wrote. “Dabney Coleman played dozens of characters and was one himself.”

The same could be said of Downey, a voracious reader and writer who enjoyed being the life of the press box and of dinner parties with family and friends. Even his emails were classics.

“He was in constant touch with his friends, always writing something funny,” former Sun-Times columnist Ron Rapoport said. “Being with Mike Downey was just like reading his columns. His Facebook posts were amazing. They were columns and so well thought out that many people said to him: ‘You really should be paid for this.'”

Downey came to the Tribune in 2003, replacing Skip Bayless as one of two columnists for “In the Wake of the News,” a column that dates to 1913. Among the many stories he covered in his six years at the Tribune were the rise and fall of Dusty Baker’s Cubs in 2003-04 and the White Sox championship season in 2005. He also wrote a regular column on the hot topics of the day that he called “Downey’s 11,” a play on Dean Martin’s “Rat Pack” ensemble movie, “Ocean’s 11.”

“Mike could do remarkable things with the language, but what really made his writing stand out was how thoughtful, enlightened and entertaining it was,” former Tribune sports editor Dan McGrath said. “Beyond that, he was a generous colleague and a great guy. He was the pillar of a top-notch sports section. We’ve lost one of the best people we’ll ever know.”

Tributes to Downey appeared all over social media, from his colleagues and some of the people he covered, including former Dodgers GMs Ned Colletti and Fred Claire, who wrote: “Mike’s sense of humor showed in his writing, as did his insight, honesty and integrity.”

Colletti wrote via email: “I was starting my first career as a sports writer at the Daily News with Mike. I looked up to him then and have always respected his talent but more so his kindness, wit and friendship. I know a thousand people, not 10 were like Mike.”

Downey’s love of writing produced columns that defied the norms of sports writing and set him apart from his peers. After the Sox won the World Series in Houston, he penned a Dr. Seuss-like rhyme for one column that ended like this:

“How would the White Sox get it?
We didn’t know how, we didn’t know when,
Just knew we would never forget it.
They easily won the World Series;
Smashed the Astros four in a row.
But did a sweep by the Sox come as a shock?
The answer, quite frankly, is ‘No.'”

Downey was a one-of-a-kind writer and a legend of press boxes in multiple cities.

He’s survived by his wife, Gail. Services are pending.