WHEN MIKE DOWNEY AND I REALIZED THE SPORTSWRITING BUSINESS WAS WACKO

No one wrote better columns and vintage game stories than Downey, who is dead at 72, and regrettably, we shared a bizarre moment when a great industry took a step backward in his hometown of Chicago

     When DePaul was battling for the Final Four — DePaul, I believe, is still in Chicago — Mike Downey was my favorite sportswriter in the industry. His game stories were witty and filled with Belden Avenue charm and sometimes riotous. Later, he took a column job and produced Downey Does Detroit, which became a must-laugh synopsis of a dying town riveted to sports, better than even Mitch Albom’s warm impulses.

     Downey or Rick Reilly? That was our game.

     But now my knights are falling, once every 10 days. Downey died of a heart attack at 72, not long after T.J. Simers died at 73 from a brain tumor. They battled for readers with different styles and lived to write as they chose, both memorably. I remained in awe of Downey when he returned to Chicago, and as I recall, my final remarks to him were just a bit creepy. He wondered about the future of newspapers. So did I.

     One day, my editors at the Sun-Times decided to run online comments under certain pieces, such as my columns. One editor was British, which won’t surprise those at the Washington Post and other sites scrapping for lowly leadership help. Some of the shots at me were death threats, and at one point, the security director thought the dangerous aspects should be toned down. Somehow — again, somehow — our concern was leaked to the Chicago Tribune.

     Not exactly massive news. But the Tribune responded with an offbeat request of its readers. If any of them had thoughts about me, at the other paper, the sports section would run those observations in full. This was beyond media reality. The Tribune, in a city raging with sports coverage, was paying attention to me and giving me props. This was a crosstown concession that I was more important than what they were doing.

     I was aghast. So was Downey, the Tribune’s columnist. We talked in Detroit, of all places, and I said I wasn’t comfortable with the back-and-forth madness. He didn’t say much, contrary to his general popularity back at my wedding. That was a year after I had a heart issue in New Orleans, and months later, I handed back a guaranteed contract and left the Sun-Times. He left around the same time.

     For Downey to be subjected to such instability, when he was a brilliant writer, was indicative of where papers were headed. He got out at the right time, enjoying life in southern California, and sadly, I look at his death as a good reason why I escaped the trash after a midlife cardiology event. We’re dying too young in this bollocks profession, as the Brits might say.

     But I have a feeling those who cite the best sportswriting will mention Mike Downey. Debbie Does Dallas, Downey Does Detroit. Where did the great ones go?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.