Earlier this year, Robert Creamer, showing he still was on top of his game, responded via email to a series of questions from Graham Womack at Baseballpastandpresent.com.

Creamer, who died Thursday at the age of 90, weighs in on a series of topics as only he could. This is a real treat from the legendary Sports Illustrated writer and editor and the man who was the definitive biography of Babe Ruth.

Here are some excerpts:

What still excites you about baseball?

That’s easy– the wonder of ‘What happens next?’

When I’m watching a game between teams I’m interested in, sometimes that wonder — and the fullfilment of it, as in the sixth game of the 2011 World Series — can be excruciatingly exciting, and its fullfilment as you watch and wait can be almost literally incredible.

Is baseball still America’s pastime?

No. It’s our spectator sport and I think possibly still our biggest spectator sport, and we love to read about it and talk about it and watch it on TV but nobody PLAYS baseball anymore. Softball, yes,but today everybody plays basketball or touch football whereas a century ago EVERYBODY played baseball. If you can find an old newspaper file from around 1912, ten years before I was born, look at the coverage of games on Saturdays and particularly Sundays – dozens of games, club teams, neighborhood teams, small town teams, political clubs, social clubs. It’s astonishing.

Who was the greatest player you covered?

Willie Mays. Period.

I saw a lot of Willie Mays, and that certainly gave me a strong bias towards him. But I saw a lot of Mantle too and was deeply impressed by what he could do. Yet Willie stayed above Mickey in my mind, then and forever. I saw the famous catch Willie made against Vic Wertz in the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series but later on I saw him make a catch in Cincinnati’s old ball field, Crosley Field. My memory says Crosley had a steep warning bank against the left-field fence. A Cincinnati runner was on first base when the batter sent a tremendous fly ball to deep left center. Willie went up the bank, leaped, made a spectacular catch, turned and as he was falling threw the ball on a line to first base where he just missed doubling off the base runner. Simply an amazing play, and he kept doing things like that.

Has there been a philosophy or ethos you’ve tried to follow through your writing career?

You ask about “my writing career” and whether I had a philosophy or ethos about it. When I was young I thought I was the best writer in the world, or at least that I was as good as anyone else. Over the years as I found and marveled at writers of great skill and accomplishment I began to understand that I was okay but that there were a lot of writers, male and female, who were better than I, and who could do things I couldn’t do.

Part of that sobering up process came from an appreciation of something Red Smith said (or wrote — probably both) when he was at the height of his admirable career. I may have the precise quote wrong but essentially Red, a newspaperman through and through, said, “It’s important to remember that today’s poetry gets wrapped around tomorrow’s fish.”

Amen.

It’s strange how things work out. What seemed to be the worst moment of Tim Sullivan’s career turned out to be one of the best.

A few weeks after his controversial dismissal as columnist of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sullivan has landed as the new columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal.

In an email to me, Sullivan writes about the entire experience. Later, he followed up in another email:

I hated to ramble on, but I think there’s a useful message in my experience — that the unknown is not quite as fearful as we might imagine.

No need to apologize. As any columnist knows, there’s nothing better than a good story.

Here’s Tim:

Being unemployed for the first time was initially unsettling — I barely slept the first week and lost seven pounds — but it turned out to be the most gratifying experience of my career. The response from friends, colleagues and ordinary readers was overwhelming and the job opportunities proved much more plentiful than I thought possible at age 57.

Some of this owes to the perception that I was a victim of integrity; that my firing was the result of stands taken in resistance to the political agenda of new management. I am inclined to think I have been given too much credit on that score; so much so that I drafted a book proposal with the working title, “The Accidental Martyr.”

The perception plainly worked to my benefit, though, and became so pervasive that the actor, Alec Baldwin, sent out a tweet recommending me to the New York Times on the basis of my “old school” sensibilities. Dave Kindred wrote a column about me that was so kind I would like it inscribed on my tombstone (though it might have to jump). I felt like George Bailey at the end of “It’s A Wonderful Life,” — the richest man in town.

Within two or three weeks of the day I filed for unemployment benefits, I was in contact with seven papers about potential jobs or freelance opportunities. At the suggestion of Houston Chronicle Sports Editor Nick Mathews, I also dropped in on the APSE convention in Chicago on my way home from interviewing in Louisville.

The possibilities proved much more numerous than I had expected and both my appetite and lost weight returned (and then some).

Ultimately, the Courier-Journal proved the best fit for a variety of reasons — not the least of them the fortuitous timing of Rick Bozich and Eric Crawford leaving the paper for a local TV station within days of my dismissal. Louisville is a three-hour drive from my daughter at Ohio State, and closer still to Cincinnati, where I spent the 25 years preceding my California adventure. Louisville real estate is attractive and the region is familiar.

I spent 23 years as a resident of the Commonwealth, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, and have covered 18 Kentucky Derbies and quite a lot of college basketball.

The best man at my wedding, Lonnie Wheeler, wrote a terrific book about Kentucky hoops called, “Blue Yonder.” I am re-reading it now as due diligence.

The strongest selling point, though, proved to be the people in charge at the Courier-Journal. Bennie Ivory, the executive editor, exudes old-school sensibilities and a commitment to the news that I have not always associated with Gannett papers. He ordered an additional seven pages to the paper to cover the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare — and did so without seeking permission from the publisher. That decision resonated deeply with me, as did the 10 Pulitzer prizes on the wall outside publisher Wes Jackson’s office.

Jackson, a former University of Kentucky football player, immediately disarmed me by demonstrating that he was too wide for the bathroom door built to a previous publisher’s specifications. The C-J’s new sports editor, Creig Ewing, is a savvy and amiable guy who let it slip that he once shared an elevator with Bruce Springsteen.

I felt surrounded by both kindred spirits and Kindred’s spirit — I first discovered Dave when he was writing columns for the Courier-Journal — and it felt a lot like home.

This column by David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News ran on July 1. Thanks to a tweet from SportsbyBrooks, I saw it the other day.

This is a powerful and important column that deserves wide-spread attention. Jones writes about his reaction to the CNN report of an email that could implicate Joe Paterno in failing to stop Jerry Sandusky from his unthinkable crimes.

In covering the man and his football program for 21 seasons, the single most dominant thread is this: his ambition and drive. He would allow nothing and no one to disparage the institution he had built without some form of retribution. And he had complete power over his domain.
He could be a vindictive man. At times, he was pointlessly petty and nasty.
Just like the rest of us. Except that in the case of a man who had accumulated such power, the consequences of his actions could take on much greater impact.

Jones writes of hearing about possible allegations involving Sandusky in Aug. 2011. Eventually, he went to Sandusky’s home to try to track down the coach.

I drove to State College on Sept. 16, knocked on his door in a rainstorm and was met by his wife, Dottie.
I asked if Jerry was home. No, said Dottie cordially, he wasn’t. I fished out a business card and handed it to her and said he might remember me as a reporter from when he was a coach more than a decade before and please would she have him call me. She pleasantly said she would.
And then, I mentioned police. Had police questioned him about anything lately? The question was that benign. I wanted to test her reaction.
It was not quizzical. Not: “Police? What do you mean, police?”
Instead, it was immediate and forceful. Dottie Sandusky narrowed her eyes and said to me: “If you have any other questions, you can ask the people at The Second Mile. And I do not appreciate you coming to my house.” She slammed the door in my face.

Then I knew. What I had heard about Sandusky had been heard by others. Police were very likely involved, even if no charges had been filed. And that lent credence to everything else I had been told.

Jones concludes his column, cautioning people to expect to hear the worse about Paterno in an upcoming Penn State investigation. He writes:

We don’t know the totality of what the Freeh investigation will uncover. I would just ask those who cannot get their minds around the concept of Joe Paterno acting in self-interest — acting to preserve his institution rather than individuals — to prepare themselves to have their bedtime story disrupted. You don’t get to be as powerful as this man was by sitting idly by and allowing others to call shots.
Such power breeds fame, and vice versa. Soon, we bestow the mantle of greatness on men who do not warrant it, as often as we ignore the anonymously noble, those truly worthy of our praise.
How many times do we instill intrinsic goodness in those we don’t even know? Have the Roman Catholic priest scandals in Boston and Philadelphia taught us nothing?
It does not have to be a lesson of bitter disillusionment, only one of caution. Trust those few you personally know.
The vast majority of you have never known these men at Penn State. You only knew of their station atop your chosen club buttressed by the trappings of their fame.
The most famous of them all was the head football coach. His fame did not make him a saint.

The column elicited 262 responses on his site. Reaction was split. Here are some samples.

Critical thinkers?….What’s there to think?…Joe Pa lied and covered things up……But you are right about one thing….The brain washed penn state fans will never believe it.

******

We do agree that he could have done more. We choose to support him because he has done great things for hundreds of thousands of people. He has been an inspiration in so many other areas. He made a big mistake. We all do from time to time. This is not black and white. He is not a bad person based on one mistake. Even if it was a huge one

******

Sorry, Joe Paterno was one of the greatest men that Penn State ever had working for it, if not THE greatest.  It was a sad day when he was fired, and the board over reacted.  People can put him down all they want, but he was a very special person to anybody who ever went to Penn State.  He turned boys into men on that team, and was an inspirational figure for the entire university and community.  He will be missed greatly, and nobody could fill the gap that was created by the board when he was fired.

He reported this incident to not one, but two different people at the university.  One of these people was the HEAD of campus police at the time.  So essentially he DID report this to the police, so many people fail to grasp this.  It was the university, Spanier, the state attorney generals office at the time, and the Centre county DA at the time, that dropped the ball.  Not Joe Paterno.  Please read up on the entire situation before throwing guilt around, there is a reason he was cleared of any legal wrong doing from the beginning of this whole thing.

******

He may have turned boys into men “on that team” but he apparently failed some even younger boys who needed his help like none of the football players ever needed his help.

Randy Harvey wrote his first piece as the new columnist for the Houston Chronicle. The Texas native is coming back to his roots.

He writes:

There’s no such thing as a former Texan.

I  understand the culture, which not everyone does. While at the Los  Angeles Times, I was working last fall on a business deal involving  sports coverage with a kind, smart man from Switzerland. Over lunch one  day, we began talking about college football, which means about as much  to the Swiss as schwingen does to us.

I quickly realized  Jean-Francois had never heard of the Sooners and Longhorns. I explained  the rivalry to him as best I could as he made mental notes. A couple of  days later, he ran into my office excitedly, pointed to the television  and shouted something about the Sooners and Longhorns.

As he stood  by proudly, I turned on the television to find a game between Texas  A&M and Oklahoma State. One small step for mankind.

Meanwhile, Gwen Knapp is leaving the San Francisco Chronicle. She is joining the new Sports on Earth site.

Knapp writes:

The 49ers‘ chances of winning the next Super Bowl have just improved. They claimed their last Lombardi Trophy only months before I arrived to write a sports column in July 1995. Now, on nearly the same date 17 years after I appeared in a San Francisco newspaper, I am going to work for a website called Sports on Earth, due to launch in seven weeks.

The past 17 years saw the Raiders‘ return to Oakland; Steve Mariucci‘s Midwestern goofiness; a merger of The Chronicle and old Examiner; “Moneyball”; Mike Singletary; Tim Lincecum; trips to court with Barry Bonds and Bill Romanowski; trips to the Final Four with Jamila Wideman, Candice Wiggins, Jayne Appeland Nneka Ogwumike; a reefer-scented World Series parade; and the 49ers’ renaissance – but not a Super Bowl celebration, which had become as constant as fog on the Fourth of July in the years before my arrival.

I’m not taking responsibility, mind you. I didn’t introduce Eddie DeBartolo Jr. to the governor of Louisiana, or hire Terry Donahue. But I believe in jinxes just enough to suggest that the mayor’s office stock up on confetti for February.

Frank Deford has had his share of tough interviews through the years. But he’s never experienced a Q/A like the one he will face Monday night:

Being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report. (Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m. ET)

“It’s going to be different, that’s for sure,” Deford said.

Indeed, how do you handle an interview with somebody who is working in character? Charlie Rose is one thing, but the Stephen Colbert on the show is not the real Stephen Colbert.

Deford, 73, says he will go in prepared.

“If you’ve seen the show, you know he’s not mean,” Deford said. “What he’ll do is make a characterization of you. If you’re scientist, he’ll portray you as being a nerd. He’ll try to make me the typical slovenly sportwriter. I’m going to dress as well as I can.”

That won’t be out of character for Deford, whose stylish purple-inspired wardrobes always blasted the stereotypes about the profession.

Deford also is going to follow another piece of advice he received during a pre-show interview Friday. Don’t try to one-up Colbert.

“You’re not supposed to be the comedian,” Deford said. “When you try to be something you’re not, that’s when you get in trouble. I learned a long time ago I am not a comedian. I once did a roast (for Ahmad Rashad), and it was awful. I learned my lesson.

“I hope I do OK. I’m not too worried about being embarrassed.”

Deford will be on the show to promote his new book, Overtime: My Life as a Sportswriter. Last week, he was thrilled to learn the book hit 30th on the New York Times bestselling list.

“It allows us to put a sticker on the book that says we’re a New York Times bestseller,” Deford said.

The book isn’t selling by itself. Deford said he has given 50 speeches and done more than 100 interviews throughout the country for the book. Trust me, as someone who has experienced the interview blitz on a much smaller scale for a golf book, it can get tedious answering the same question over and over.

Deford, though, isn’t complaining.

“The only thing worse than going out on tour is not going out on tour,” Deford said. “Some people think it’s horrible, but I know there are writers who would kill to get one question.”

This isn’t Deford’s first trip to the bestseller list. But this one is different, he said, because the story is about his life.

“Do I want it to be successful? The answer is yes,” Deford said. “This is a little bit different than the last novel I did. This is mostly about me. Stephen Colbert wouldn’t be having me on to talk about a new novel. (Writing a life-story book) is a one-time thing.  I figured I might as well leap into it, and give it all I have.”

Joe Cowley is back on Twitter. Or at least his old account, CST_cowley, has reappeared.

It vanished abruptly in late April following a series of offensive tweets about women. Cowley was subsequently reprimanded by new Sun-Times editor Jim Kirk.

Cowley’s account popped up again last week, minus the offensive tweets. Cowley also has yet to weigh in with new tweets.

However, it likely won’t be long before Cowley jumps on the Twitter train again. His edgy tweets helped him amass nearly 10,000 followers.

However, when Cowley does starting tweet, expect he will limit his comments to sports.