Longtime Chicago Tribune writer Paul Sullivan has on occasion ruffled feathers, as he discusses in his interview on this week’s “Tell Me A Story I Don’t Know” podcast with host George Ofman. “Sometimes I do that on purpose and sometimes by accident or by fate. … I’ve gotten into it with more players and management that I can list here.”
To say the least, he is not shy — one of the reasons he won the Illinois sportswriter of the year award three times and the distinguished Ring Lardner award for excellence in sports journalism. After being on the baseball beat for over 30 years, he was elevated the to Tribune’s “In the Wake of the News” column two years ago.
Sullivan’s life in journalism began inauspiciously. A student at Missouri, he was not admitted to the school’s highly rated journalism program. “It is my own fault. I was a very social person in college and I had a lot of fun and thought I could cruise through it. I didn’t have good enough grades to get into journalism school.” As he looked for work as a writer, his career took some zig-zags — especially at the beginning. “I started out as a bellboy at the Drake Hotel. I was there about three or four months … was in a movie, Continental Divide they shot there. I was in a couple of scenes. I met John Belushi who was the star of the movie.”
His interactions with pro athletes have been more consequential. In particular, his relationship with former Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano was temperamental, to say the least. “Big Z as I called him, had quite a few incidents that were beyond the pale … shouting, screaming, throwing things, smashing things. One day we were in Milwaukee and he picked me up like a sack of potatoes and held me over his head. … Everyone thought we hated each other cause we did yell at each other, mostly because he was mad at something I wrote.”
Sullivan has not exactly mellowed but enjoys covering different events as the caretaker of “In the Wake of the News.” Has he thought about life after being a sportswriter? “I do every day. I’m close to retirement age. I’d probably continue to write in some form. I have a lot of stories that have been unpublished I’d like to get out there.”
