Reporter/Writer, The Baltimore News American/ The Baltimore Sun

1928-2001

Inducted into MDDC’s Hall of Fame in 2008. This article is based on information submitted at the time.

A Baltimore native, John Steadman grew up in Govans, the son of the city’s deputy fire chief He played football on vacant lots, swam in Guilford  Reservoir and sneaked  into baseball games through loose boards at old Oriole Park.

Mr. Steadman was 13 when his father died of a heart attack.  He graduated  from City College, where he lettered in baseball, football and basketball and wrote for the school  newspaper.  Signed as a catcher by the Pittsburgh Pirates, he spent one season in the minors and hit .125 before swapping his bat for a pencil.

In 1945, the Baltimore News-Post hired Mr. Steadman as a $14-a-week reporter. For much of the next 55 years, he would attract a readership loyal to his straightforward style. Mr. Steadman established his reputation early on.

“John had a thousand sources. He could  find out  stuff that  no one  else knew,” Brooks Robinson, the Orioles’ Hall of Fame third base man, told The Sun after Mr. Steadman died on Jan. 1, 2001 at age 73. “He wouldn’t ask you a thousand questions, either; people volunteered information to him.”

Mr. Steadman shadowed the Colts from their first scrimmage in 1947. That year his iron man streak began — he attended every pro football game played by not only the Colts, but also the Ravens. Up until Dec. 10, 2000, he covered 719 games in a row. He was one of only eight reporters in the country to attend all 34 Super Bowls.

Toward the end of his streak, Mr. Steadman sometimes sat in the press box in a wheelchair.

After cancer was diagnosed in the fall of 1998,  Mr. Steadman endured rigorous chemotherapy and radiation treatments during the next two years while continuing to write his weekly column.

“He was Ripken before Ripken,” said Frank Deford, senior writer for Sports Illustrated and a commentator for National Public Radio.

Mr. Steadman left the business in 1954 to become the Colts’ assistant general manager and publicity director, but returned to the paper three years later.

“Once you’ve worked on a newspaper, it’s like a man who goes to sea and eternally loves the roll of a ship and where it’s going,” he explained at the time.

In 1958, Mr. Steadman was named sports editor at the News American and held that job until the paper closed in 1986. When the  News American folded, Steadman joined the staff of The Evening Sun, and when the Evening Sun folded in 1995, he moved to The Sun.