Sun, 25 Oct, 2026, 11:31 pm
Reported by Times of San Diego
Between working as a sportswriter and a statistician, Alpine resident Steve Dolan estimates he has watched in person more than 3,000 Major League Baseball (MLB) games while sitting in a press box over the past 50 years.
That’s a lot of balls and strikes,” Dolan told Times of San Diego. “But, I love baseball, it’s a great game. I played baseball in high school (El Capitan High School in Lakeside, class of 1973).”
Dolan, 71, has been affectionately considered as the “Dean of the Padres Press Box” by his peers. He holds the longevity record for active news media covering the San Diego Padres ballclub. He started covering baseball in 1973 with the Back Country Trader, a now-defunct weekly community newspaper based in Lakeside.
Over the decades, Dolan has covered the Padres as a sportswriter for weekly and daily newspapers and wire services. His resume includes the El Cajon-based Daily Californian newspaper (1974-1977); the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs (1977); United Press International (1978-1979); the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego County Edition (1980-1987), the Associated Press (1988-1996) and SportsTicker (1997-2000).
