From the Capitol to the clubhouse, a Sun-Times politics reporter took a swing at covering baseball

Head down to a clubhouse at any Major League Baseball stadium, and you’ll find the same distinct locker-room smell: sweaty, stuffy, sanitized and slightly stomach-churning.

There’s only so much that cleaning chemicals and dutiful clubhouse attendants can do to keep up with 26 elite athletes working out, showering, playing baseball and then showering again during the course of a game day.

In some places, the dank odor hits you behind the eyes the instant you walk in, like the cramped visitors’ locker room did to me at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. While it isn’t yet fully caked into the walls and carpets of the visitors’ locker room at the Braves’ relatively new Truist Park, that clubhouse whiff is unmistakable and inescapable.

It's one of the workplace hazards I encountered over the summer in my first foray on the White Sox beat for the Sun-Times — not that I was bothered by any of the smells, flight delays, rain delays or subpar takeout meals that come with the grind of daily professional baseball coverage.

Every second of it was a childhood dream realized, an opportunity that this veteran political reporter never saw coming.

Sports got me into journalism. I flipped to the back page of the Sun-Times every morning while growing up in Burbank, scouring the box scores of “The Kids Can Play”-era Sox.

I was doing my first impression of a sports writer by the time the Sox hoisted their ‘05 World Series trophy, covering football and basketball for the student newspaper at Reavis High School.

Northwestern seemed like a logical place to stake out a sports media career, and I did dabble in Big Ten golf coverage, but I soon fell down the path toward hard news.

A part-time gig on the Sun-Times’ breaking news desk emerged in a brutal job market after graduation. Flash forward a decade and several metro beats later, and I’m covering state and local politics at a newspaper that still exists, against all odds.

We got our latest reminder of the Sun-Times’ financial travails earlier this year with a devastating round of buyouts that claimed a fifth of our newsroom, including Sox beat writer and all-time Sun-Times great Daryl Van Schouwen, who took the opportunity to call it one hell of a career.

He was among dozens who made the selfless decision — though many felt they had no choice — to give up their jobs so that other colleagues wouldn’t lose theirs.

Emotionally drained from being part of the Sun-Times Guild team that negotiated the buyout exodus, it wasn’t until the dust started settling that I joked about the idea of raising my hand for the Sox opening.

When my wife, Chrissy, didn’t immediately shut down the prospect and instead encouraged it, conversations with Daryl, copy editor Bob Mazzoni and sports columnist Steve Greenberg kindled an excitement to take another shot at what I'd considered a teenage fling.

To my surprise, the bosses allowed me a shot as part of a Sox beat-by-committee alongside Kyle Williams and Kade Heather.

Walking into Rate Field for the first time with a press badge instead of a ticket was a trip. Yes, I grew up a Sox fan. No, I didn’t have trouble taking off that hat and covering them objectively. You won’t find a more critical fan base than the South Side army of armchair general managers.

After covering 42 games and following the Sox on seven road trips, I can confirm there’s only one rooting interest in the press box, and that’s for a fast game — all the better if it’s out of reach one way or the other well before your deadline.

I got a sick feeling after filing my very first story, a feature on reliever Cam Booser’s made-for-TV comeback. The good news? I got the back page. The bad news? Booser got rocked late in a loss to the Brewers, prompting a frenzied last-minute rewrite.

It turns out covering a team isn’t all that different from covering a government body, which I continued doing in between my stretches with the Sox, who provided welcome respites from this year’s steady stream of political chaos in Illinois.

For both subjects, it’s a lot of standing around, shooting the breeze, developing working relationships with the people who make news and then trying to turn that information into something useful for readers.

For one subject, it just so happens that most of those conversations happen in musty locker rooms. And while baseball players generally aren’t as loquacious as politicians, try asking Shane Smith about his changeup.

It’s a really hard job, and stumbling through it for just a quarter of a season gave me an even higher reverence for the Sun-Times reporters and editors who put together the best sports section in the nation every single night.

I hope to pitch in on the beat again next season. That clubhouse atmosphere really sticks with you.