CHICAGO — No one knew Chicago like Mike Royko, and no one spread the gospel of the Cubs like the late Chicago Tribune columnist.
It was those columns that first attracted me to Royko, who was then a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Chicago Daily News, famous for sparring with Mayor Richard J. Daley.
I grew up in a Tribune household, so in order to read Royko I had to wait for the paperboy to deliver the Daily News, an afternoon paper, to a neighbor’s house. I’d sit on their front porch, carefully take off the rubber band, remove the front section and open it to read whatever gem Royko delivered that day.
It was an education I could not get in grade school and a lesson in journalism no teacher could pass on. By the time I decided to become a journalist and enrolled at the University of Missouri, I got a mail subscription to the Chicago Sun-Times, his next stop after the Daily News folded, because even a two day-old Royko column was better than anyone else I could read.
Years later, by happenstance, I wound up working for my idol at the Tribune, serving as Royko’s legman from 1985 to ’87. He hired me off a barstool at the Billy Goat Tavern when neither of us was completely sober, a decision he regretted at times. After he sobered up and officially hired me against the advice of the Tribune’s managing editor, Royko’s last words during the interview were: “Don’t ever (bleep) me.”
My lack of experience as a reporter — I started as a copy clerk and was a metro intern at the time — was a major drawback. Much of the reporting for Royko’s columns was done by the legman. Royko was such a well-known and intimidating figure by then that if he did the reporting himself, most people would hang up in fear of being eviscerated.
At the end of the day, I’d type up all the notes from my interviews and research and hand him a printout. Then I’d go home, or more likely to the Billy Goat, as he banged out a column. I’d read it the next morning like everyone else in Chicago and laugh out loud on the “L.”
His first column with me serving as legman was on a trendy bar event called “dwarf tossing,” a knowing wink at my lack of height. My assignment was to call bar owners and ask if they’d approve of the “sport,” which started in Australia. It turned into a hilarious — and politically incorrect — column that was the norm for Royko.
What I learned in those two years could fill a book, but the main lessons were this:
“Don’t (bleep) with people ... unless they (bleep) with you.”
“Don’t take ‘no comment’ for an answer.”
“Don’t ever get it wrong.”
Most of Royko’s legmen in his later years were women — and more experienced reporters than me.
“He felt more at ease with women,” Lois Wille, his friend and a former Tribune editorial writer, said in the biography, “Royko: A Life in Print.” “I think women were his closest friends.”
Royko also preferred to remain secluded in his office while I tended to wander the newsroom and talk with other reporters and editors during slow times.
Our relationship was stormy at times, and since his distinctive voice carried, everyone in the newsroom knew when I was in trouble. It was sort of like being the backup quarterback for Bears coach Mike Ditka. And you quickly learned to take the verbal abuse, keep your mouth shut and move on.
Tomorrow was another day, and there was a good chance Royko would be in a great mood, telling me old stories about the hapless Cubs of his youth or fighting with aldermen at City Hall. Every day was an adventure.
Still, when former Tribune editor Dick Ciccone, who wrote Royko’s biography, asked to interview me for it, I declined. Ciccone was the one who advised Royko not to hire me in the first place, telling him I was too inexperienced and he could hire anyone from the City News Bureau, the breeding ground for budding reporters. Ciccone also was the one who delivered the news to me when Royko declined to give me my annual pay raise, a decision I obviously disagreed with and one that negatively affected our relationship.
I emailed a few thoughts to Ciccone on my hiring and departure and let him fill in the blanks. “The real problem was Sullivan had been jammed down Royko’s throat,” Ciccone wrote. “Royko was never forced to take a Tribune intern again.”
Actually, the truth was Royko had willingly hired me — though he was not completely sober, as mentioned — and decided after two years I was better off going to sports than back to the metro desk. I protested, but as usual, he knew what he was doing.
Once I established myself as a baseball writer and took over the Cubs beat in 1997, all the bad blood that had built up had disappeared. I had survived Royko and prospered, and he was able to take some well-deserved credit for my career path.
I ran into him at the Tribune Tower the winter before leaving for spring training and looked forward to giving him some inside info over the course of the Cubs season. Unfortunately he died on April 29, 1997, leaving a void in the lives of his family and friends — and in millions of fans who loved reading his nationally syndicated columns.
Royko has never really been replaced, just as there has never been another baseball player as legendary as Babe Ruth.
But one of the rewards of being at the Tribune is access to the archives, where I can spend hours reading old columns anytime I want. He was ahead of his time, whether it was calling for the legalization of marijuana or pricking at the inflated ego of Donald Trump.
The wit and brilliance Royko displayed five days a week remains timeless, even as some of his best work would likely cause an uproar in this politically correct age. Can you imagine Royko on social media? How much fun that would be.
On the 25th anniversary of his death, I was honored to be among those asked to select our favorite Royko columns for subscribers to reread on chicagotribune.com. It was as difficult as picking your favorite Beatles songs, but well worth it.
If you are an old fan of Royko’s work, enjoy reminiscing. And if you’re just discovering the master columnist, welcome to the world of Mike Royko.
