My first Spring Training with the Rangers was 1989 in Port Charlotte. Eddie Chiles was in the process of selling the team and it was the biggest story surrounding the Rangers.

Jim Reeves was all over it. He had the sources and he was the one who broke the story that Chiles was selling to George Bush.

The night he broke the story we were supposed to have dinner at Barnacle Bill's on Englewood Beach. Revo, James Walker, Mike Perry and I. Revo loved his stone crabs.

But he loved breaking news more and he stayed behind to work the story. Still remember him screaming at a source through the phone.

"I want this story and I deserve this story!" he screamed.

He got the story while I drove Walker and Perry to Barnacle Bills.

"There are great baseball writers and great reporters," Walker opined from the back seat. "Revo is a great reporter. I'll take a great reporter every time."

Jim Reeves, who is retiring from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was a great writer and a great reporter for 40 years. They refer to the sports section as the toy department at the newspaper but it's still news and Revo broke more news than any of us.

Here was his lead the night the ball went through Bill Buckner's legs and the Mets beat the Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

"Hold on to your hats and take your seats, the Red Sox just grabbed their throats. The World Series is going to a Seventh Game."

He covered the Rangers for 11 years. He was at the end of his run when I showed up from Denison in 1985. Four years later he was a columnist when they put me on the Rangers beat.

We did the World Series together in 1989. Giants-Athletics. We were back in my adopted hometown of San Francisco and sitting in the upper deck at Candlestick Park before Game 3. It was a gentle roar at first and then a giant concrete bowl filled with 60,000 people started rocking violently in the second worst earthquake to ever hit the city.

Revo had one of those battery operated television sets and he was watching the news. Our nerves were all still on fire with aftershocks when he uttered those words that I will never forget as long as I live.

"The Bay Bridge has collapsed."

We covered that story together and at least a thousand more over the next 17 years. He was the columnist, I was the beat writer. There were many others with us. Tony DeMarco, Simon Gonzalez, Jennifer Briggs, Roger B. Brown, Gil LeBreton, Galyn Wilkins, Randy Galloway, Johnny Paul, Mac Engel, Carlos Mendez, Jesse Sanchez and Kathleen O'Brien. And many others.

The one thing we did better than anybody else at the Star-Telegram was we worked as a team in the true sense of the word. Revo was our leader.

We were successful for one simple reason. Bylines didn't matter. We didn't care who got credit. To this day I still hate those taglines at the bottom of the story that say: "T.R. Sullivan contributed to this story."

Who cares? That's the job. Just get the story. Two things are true...

1. There were a number of news stories that I got credit for breaking that emanated from information that Revo originally gathered. They were really his scoops but they were under my byline.

2. Revo wrote a number of great columns that were originally my idea. I fed them to him for a reason. I knew what was going on the Rangers beat, I knew exactly what needed to be written and I knew exactly what stories Revo would hit out of the ballpark. He always did.

We did our best work in Spring Training. Revo loved Spring Training. I'm not overly fond of it. I love 162. He only had to write one story a day. I had to write two or three. Give Revo one story to work on and give him all day to do it and he was going to take one deep.

Still remember the time in Surprise when Garth Brooks was working out with the Royals and Charley Pride was with the Rangers. Revo got the two country legends together in the dugout to talk baseball, music and life. Revo wrote about it and it was one of his best. A grand slam.

We went to dinner at Padre Murphy's that night with Kathleen. We were waiting on Revo and I told Kathleen, "Heads up, Revo is fired up about his column and he's going to talk about it non-stop all night."

He did, but not from egotism. Revo loved the newspaper business and he loved a great story. He is a dear friend but he is the best newspaper reporter I ever worked with.