DAN McGRATH
Dan McGrath brings three decades of journalism experience to the Chicago News Cooperative, including more than 12 years as sports editor, associate managing editor and senior writer for the Chicago Tribune.
Before joining the Tribune, Dan worked for newspapers in Freeport, Ill.; Reno, Nev.; Sacramento, Calif.; San Francisco; Philadelphia; and New York. While he has worked most of his career in sports, he also has been a media critic, national correspondent, metro columnist and book reviewer.
Sports sections that he has edited have won more than a dozen top-10 awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors Association. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for spot news coverage in 1992 and for commentary in 1993. A Chicago native, he is the co-author or editor of five books on the city’s sports teams, including the best-selling "Out of the Blue" on the 2003 Chicago Cubs.
Recent Contributions
by DAN McGRATH | Apr 4, 2011
Starlin Castro flashed tantalizing glimpses of an enticingly bright future all weekend at Wrigley Field.
by DAN McGRATH | Apr 1, 2011
It’s never a down year in Wrigleyville, the drink, drink and be merry capital of Chicagoland. Gloom-and-doom forecasts of a rough season for the Cubs did not seem to have made their way to the famously convivial neighborhood for Opening Day on Friday.
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 31, 2011
The Cubs’ decision to feature Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter on some of their marketing billboards has provoked disbelieving indignation throughout Cubdom. What were they thinking?
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 26, 2011
Watching Derrick Rose and the Bulls put a one-sided whipping on the Sacramento Kings at the United Center last week raised a question: Anaheim wants this team?
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 24, 2011
A year removed from the one shining moment that is the dream of every collegiate hoopster, Jon Scheyer’s reality is not as glamorous: puddle-jumper airplane flights, lengthy bus rides, fast-food cuisine at odd hours and brief stopovers in half-star hotels.
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 21, 2011
No sooner had the pairings been announced for the NCAA tournament last Sunday than Notre Dame coach Mike Brey was cautioning would-be bracketologists to pay no mind to where a team was seeded.
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 18, 2011
It’s not necessary to tear up your NCAA tournament bracket sheet if you have Notre Dame traveling far in the Southwest Regional, but if you wrote the Irish in with a pencil, and you have an eraser handy, and no one is looking …
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 17, 2011
Notre Dame, where Knute Rockne invented college football and Ara Parseghian perfected it, has become a basketball school.
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 12, 2011
Blackhawks general manager from 2005 to 2009, Dale Tallon assembled the team that ended Chicago’s 49-year Stanley Cup drought last season.
by DAN McGRATH | Mar 3, 2011
No institution is more scrupulously attentive to baseball’s history and traditions than the Hall of Fame. For baseball fans, a trip to the Cooperstown, N.Y., shrine is like a pilgrimage to a holy place — Lourdes, say, for Roman Catholics or Ditka’s downtown restaurant for aspiring Chicago tough guys.
