‘A legend’: Bob Elliott, long-time Sun baseball scribe, retires

Revue de presse

By Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun, le 31 mai 2016

Jose Bautista doesn’t easily trust anyone. He can be aloof, intense, sensitive, occasionally difficult.

He trusts Bob Elliott implicitly.

Which says as much about the Toronto Sun’s long-time baseball writer as it does about the most prominent and outspoken Blue Jays star.

Photo ci-dessus : Bob Elliott, the long-time Toronto Sun baseball reporter and columnist, is retiring on Wednesday. (Craig Robertson/Toronto Sun/Files)

Today is not a happy day or necessarily a good day for the Sun, for the newspaper business, for Bautista and so many ballplayers, for scouts, for managers that he has amassed as friends, for sources and lovers of the game. After 29-and-a-half years being the best in the industry, today is Elliott’s last day at the Sun. And it breaks my heart, and maybe yours, to know that.

He has chosen to retire — his way, his terms, and may I say he’s too young and too capable to go — but it’s his call after more than four decades of great newspaper work that this grandfather deserves to go out on his own terms.

For so many of us, Elliott has been the path, our eyes, the voice, the one must-read, the conscience, the insider, the stop you made if you cared about baseball. In this age of controversy and contention, he’s had a remarkable gift of relationship-building, of gaining trusts, of accountability, of all that journalism isn’t supposed to be anymore.

More than anyone in this city, this country, he broke stories. Almost all the big ones. And if he didn’t break them, he provided immediate context, the insider’s view, the road no one else travelled.

“He’s a legend,” said Alex Anthopoulos, the former Blue Jays general manager. “I don’t think there will be anybody like him again. He had a unique way about going about his job. You didn’t see him in scrums. You didn’t see him following the pack. Sometimes you didn’t see him at all. And there he was, late at night, when everybody would be walking out of the Blue Jays clubhouse and he’d be walking in. He never followed the pack.”

The pack followed him.

Elliott just didn’t write baseball. He wrote people.

He didn’t just pick a strand of grass from a yard. He got down and pulled out the weeds, and kept pulling and pulling until he found his story, with richer information than you could find anywhere else.

He didn’t just tell you about the meetings to sign Russell Martin or to trade Roy Halladay. He told you who was there, when they met, how they met, what they wore, and not just what restaurant they dined in, but what they ordered, too. The way he wrote it you could see the steak, almost taste it.

That was Elliott at his best, utilizing the bevy of sources he had built over four decades of covering baseball. Scouts. Agents. Executives. Players. Writers. It didn’t seem to matter. They all followed him if they wanted to know what was going on.

“You get a unique perspective from him,” said Bautista, the long-time Jay. “And for me, there’s a dual-respect kind of thing. It’s not crossing lines or boundaries. It’s respecting people’s point of view and not taking them out of context or portraying them as something else.

“I don’t know how he established that back-and-forth, that trust. As players, we felt a sense of security when we spoke with him. That we could candidly say things on and off the record at times. I think he’s done a terrific job always balancing that. He made sure he got his two cents in and he’d give you his opinion, without mixing it up with a message from the athlete.

“I hope he gets to enjoy his retirement the way he enjoyed his career.”

The quiet man, Edwin Encarnacion, had a daily routine of sorts. He’d talk to Elliott. Sometimes about baseball. Sometimes about other things. One whispered to the other, the other whispered back. They got to know each other, believe in each other. The kind of relationship so rare in professional sport today, but Elliott was old-school and Encarnacion has an old-school heart.

“He’s the one person I can talk to with confidence,” said Encarnacion on Tuesday. “If I want to talk about trusting, I believe a lot in him. His relationship with the players is amazing. He’s got the respect of the players. There aren’t many doing the work he does. He deserves what he got (the Hall of Fames, both Canadian and American). He’s an amazing guy. We’re going to miss him.”

The first story I ever wrote for the Toronto Sun was a double byline with Elliott. We were hired days apart in late 1986, started about a month apart in ’87, and couldn’t have been more different. The assignment that day: Write about the possibility of playing on grass at the under-construction SkyDome.

Our premise then: It wasn’t possible. All these years later, people are still wondering whether it’s possible.

Typically, Elliott — whether it be about grass, about free-agent signings, about trades, about manager hirings, about coaches being fired in the middle of a World Series — was almost always first. We’re fortunate to have been party to the best of his 30 years of Toronto journalism: Retirement starts today for the 66-year-old. Selfishly, I wish that wasn’t so.

TRIBUTES TO BOB ELLIOTT

Howard Starkman, former Blue Jays media relations chief

“Bob’s different. He’s always worked differently. Before cellphones and social media, he worked the phones, often all night long. And he had sources all over the industry. When I was the PR guy, he would call around midnight with some kind of question.

“What people don’t understand about Bob is, he’s a softy. He does a lot of things for a lot of people that nobody ever knows about And what he’s done for Canadian baseball is extraordinary.

“Back in the late ’80s, early ’90s, he broke an awful lot of stories. His pipeline was remarkable. He knew how to get information. People trusted him. It didn’t drive us crazy, maybe sometimes. It was a sign of respect, though. You’d wonder — how’d he get that one? And then he’d do it again.”

Rob Thomson, New York Yankees bench coach
“I’ve told this to many, many people: Bob Elliott, by writing his articles in the Toronto Sun, has done more for baseball in Canada, players in Canada, kids in Canada, than anybody else that’s ever been around. He more than deserves to be in both the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and in Cooperstown. When I read his articles and I read about young men playing college baseball somewhere in the States or on some pee-wee team here in Toronto, it really hits my heart. I can’t believe he’s retiring.”

Buck Martinez, Blue Jays broadcaster, former player and manager
“When I first came here and got to know Bob Elliott, I didn’t know how much baseball he knew. But over the years, he worked so hard at getting information, and working scouts over and working GMs over, working managers over, he got some of the best information I’ve ever seen. He certainly has served Canadians very well in bringing them inside and getting to know the game.”

Dan Shulman, ESPN baseball announcer
“I always think of him as the dean of baseball writers in this market and maybe in the country. He’s been around a long time, he’s well-connected, loves the sport, obviously knows the sport incredibly well and a guy I’ve read countless times and have always respected the work he has done.”

Paul Godfrey, president and CEO of Postmedia and former Sun publisher
“When I joined the Sun, I was a rookie publisher. I was fortunate enough to be told by (former sports editor) Wayne Parrish that he made a big catch — Bob Elliott. I had people telling me, ‘You guys are so fortunate to pick up Elliott.’ And I’ve felt that way ever since. I wish he wasn’t retiring and I tried to talk him out of it. Possibly, we’ll get him to write the odd piece for us. We’re going to miss him. He’s one of the best in the business.”

Alex Anthopoulos, former Blue Jays general manager
“This is a huge loss to Canadian baseball as a whole. He’s still going to be around, I’m sure. You talk about a guy who would champion Canadian baseball, champion scouts, champion the guys you don’t always hear about. Talk about a proud Canadian who loves the game of baseball. I don’t think there will be anybody like him again. And I think we’ll be talking about him for years to come.”

Richard Griffin, Toronto Star baseball columnist
“When Bob Elliott first came into the press box in Montreal and I was the PR guy, he was just a lost, young reporter who quickly made more friends than anyone on the beat, including myself. And when I came to Toronto to join the Star, he was the first one to welcome me. Just like I showed him the ropes in Montreal when he showed up, he showed me the ropes when I showed up here. And I’ll never forget it. I’ll always remember that Bob has been one of my best friends in baseball over 30-some years.”

Revue de presse publiée par Jacques Lanciault.