A few days before our wedding two decades ago, a small package arrived for Patricia and me from Rancho Mirage, Calif. Inside, a CD. Dean Martin’s “Love Songs.” And there was a handwritten note from the sender, a man named Mike Downey. He had heard of the wedding from a mutual friend and wrote, “Sounds like amore!”
As it happened, Downey had six years earlier ended his long bachelorhood by marrying a lovely, talented woman named Gail Martin. She is the daughter of Dean Martin. We imagined the CD was plucked from a cardboard box storing leftover CDs in a corner of a garage. Yet we have ever since referred to having received “a precious family heirloom from the Dean Martin family.”
Just a month ago, I created a Facebook post about our 20th anniversary. Among the commenters: Mike Downey, who wrote, “That’s definitely amore.”
I was crushed to learn today that Mike died of a heart attack on Wednesday. It hit me hard partly because we were linked together by more than shared press boxes. I was introduced to Downey by that aforementioned mutual friend, my mentorJoe Distelheim, who worked with Mike in Detroit, then moved south to inherit considerably lesser talent filling up the columnist’s slot on the sports page.
Downey wrote for three major papers in Chicago, the Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times. Upon retirement, he wrote the occasional column for CNN, like this piece on the cheating Astros. For those of a certain age who can remember the ill-fated “Inside Sports” magazine, he was the wit behind “The Good Doctor,” a faux advice column for curious sports fans.
“Doc, tell us about Afternoon Deelites, the horse owned by Burt Bacharach.
D.W, LIVERMORE, CALIF.
This thoroughbred knows how to win at Santa Anita but doesn’t have a clue about the way to San Jose.
Downey was a big-timer. The resume shows that. For several years, he’s been on the ballot for the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame. He was an immense talent. He was as good or better than the celebrity sportswriters who have morphed into TV stars. But he never exhibited the ego of the big-timers, the ones who would cluster together at big events and tell each other how good they were.
I don’t know I’ve ever stood taller among some close colleagues than at an NCAA Final Four press room. I was typing away at one of the long work tables with my usual band of friends from mid-market Southern newspapers and Downey walked past and spied me. He stopped, spoke and asked, “Is anybody in this seat?” And he hunkered down with us – not with the other big-timers. When he left briefly, a friend asked me, in the tone of someone learning a friend had backstage passes for Taylor Swift, “You know Mike Downey?!?!?”
I don’t know I’ve ever enjoyed press box companionship as much as a day in August 2008 when we attended a Team USA baseball game together at the Beijing Olympics. The game between the U.S. and the host team nearly became an international incident, with a reckless hit-by-pitch and a nasty home plate collision. As it happened, Downey had celebrated his birthday a few days earlier by going to the Great Wall of China. My birthday was coming up. He inspired me to do the same. Meanwhile, as I raved about a raw, unknown heavyweight boxer from Alabama named Deontay Wilder, I inspired Downey to come watch him fight the next day, and introduced the two.
Downey and I had a shared appreciation for the National Sports Media Association. When executive director Dave Goren decided to ratchet up the website by including a rotating band of columnists, Downey recommended me as part of the team. It was guys like Downey, Bob Ryan, George Vecsey and Jerry Izenberg. I was a .210-hitting minor league shortstop among the ’27 Yankees. But Mike’s faith in me was so appreciated.
From one of Downey’s columns on the website: “On a couple of occasions, I gave a speech. Not a good speech, inasmuch as I happen to be one of those guys who is pretty witty until I make the mistake of opening my mouth. If I were a standup comic, I would be heckled and booed every night. … I tried to be funny, but, trust me, I was no Andy or Tennessee Ernie. I am no Larry the Cable Guy. I am not even as clever as my actual cable guy.”
Downey and I kept connected via Facebook and email. His regular Facebook posts were a treasure. His last LA Times gig, he did a lot of celebrity profiles. He moved seamlessly through that world. Sorta like Oscar Madison at the Oscars. He’d write on the various comings and goings and passings of celebrities who had entered his orbit, with a subtle touch that was unique insight and not blatant name-dropping.
Much of our correspondence included references to the Rocket City Trash Pandas. Downey was a baseball guy. He appreciated the minor leagues. He briefly was part-owner of the Hillsboro Hops, a Single-A team on the outskirts of Portland, Ore. He loved the Trash Pandas nickname. I sent him a cap he proudly wore. He graciously wrote a blurb for “Pandamonium,” my book about the Trash Pandas.
I don’t know who enjoyed it the most, Downey writing the email or me receiving it a couple of years ago, the day he gleefully informed me, “Answer to 4 Across in the L.A. Times crossword puzzle today: TRASH PANDA.”
Just another thoughtful gift from a generous friend whose loss I mourn.
Never a Bad Game 