OKLAHOMA CITY (Feb. 23, 2016) – Mike Baldwin sat down recently to figure exactly how many major-league sports venues he'd visited during a journalism career that spanned nearly four decades.

The answer was staggering. Of the 90 venues used by the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball, Baldwin had been to 80 of them, mostly because of his work at The Oklahoman, where he spent the bulk of his career.

In the media world, one doesn't receive opportunities like those afforded to Baldwin unless a reporter has proven over time that they are deserved. That certainly was the case for the 59-year-old Baldwin, one of seven members of Oklahoma Christian's Athletic Hall of Fame class for 2016, which will be inducted Tuesday.

"I tell people I hit the lottery," Baldwin said. "If you would have told me at OC that you could cover Super Bowls, Final Fours, see almost every NFL and Major League Baseball Stadium and 30 or 40 college campuses, I'd be like, 'Where is my lottery ticket? I want to go cash it.'"

"Looking back, I have nothing but thanks for a career taking me on an adventure I thought I'd never have and meeting tremendous athletes. You name them, I've met them – Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, A-Rod, (Troy) Aikman. I've covered Kevin Durant and Bob Stoops and Mack Brown and Bob Knight. When you look back on it, I was so blessed."

Baldwin, a 1978 OC graduate from Okmulgee, pioneered what became a tradition of strong sports writing and media work among the university's graduates. Numerous other OC alums – including Erik Stinnett, Kevin Ward, Wes McKinzie, David Cathey, David Hartman, Allan Stanglin, Craig Davis and several others – have worked in the professional sports media ranks.

But Baldwin led the way, thanks in good part to a dogged reporting style and a strong sense of loyalty. Murray Evans, OC's current assistant athletic director for media relations, worked alongside Baldwin at The Oklahoman for 15 years and said he owes his sports media career to Baldwin.

Baldwin had never met Evans, but had seen his work in The Talon, as a copy of OC's student newspaper ended up in Baldwin's mailbox at The Oklahoman most weeks in the late 1980s. When an entry-level job at the newspaper came open in early 1988, Baldwin mentioned Evans' name to the newspaper's sports editor. Evans was hired while still a junior in college – something that would not have happened without Baldwin's intervention.

"I will always owe Mike a debt of gratitude for that," Evans said. "He didn't have to do what he did, but he helped give a college kid a life-changing break. That foot in the door turned into a long career in media and I've been able to enjoy wonderful experiences as a result. Ever since, I've always tried to pay it forward, just like Mike did."

While at OC, Baldwin worked for both The Talon and KOCC, OC's on-campus radio station. He spent two years doing play-by-play for OC basketball on KOCC. As a senior, he worked as an intern at what is now KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City and was leaning toward pursuing broadcasting – either television or radio – as a career.

"I realized that in TV, you've got to promote yourself," Baldwin said. "That just rubbed me wrong. It was never a slam dunk, but the further I got into mass media, I realized there was more opportunity in newspapers and it fit me better."

After graduating, Baldwin worked briefly for United Press International in Dallas before he found a job as a sports writer for the Seminole Producer in a small town about an hour's drive east of Oklahoma City. Within a year, he was named as the sports editor of the Edmond Sun, a job in which he not only covered OC, but he served as its sports information director. He also worked for a time as the SID for NAIA District 9, which included all of Oklahoma's NAIA members at that time.

In 1982, the Edmond newspaper sent him to Kansas City, Mo., to cover OC's first NAIA tournament appearance since 1968. The Eagles were upset in the first round by Hampton Institute (Va.) 65-64.

Also in 1982, he joined The Oklahoman's sports staff. By the time he left the newspaper last February, he was the sports department's longest-serving employee. In his early years, he teamed with the newspaper's current sports editor, Mike Sherman, on covering high school and small-college sports.

"He was an extremely hard worker, volume wise," Sherman said. "He used to crank out 70 inches of high school notes for three or four different parts of town. He would write for the main section and then for the Metro sections."

Anyone who has worked around Baldwin will note his keen organization.

"He has a system for everything," Sherman said. "His multicolored pens. How he did football stats. He had a system that enabled him to recall the stuff he needed to know on deadline very quickly."

One of the most important aspects of being a prep writer at The Oklahoman was producing rankings for football and boys and girls basketball. In hoops, the newspaper's rankings were used to seed the state's postseason tournament, and Baldwin took that responsibility seriously.

"The way he approached his rankings, it was as if he were taking a college board exam," Sherman said. "His rankings were so precise. He would pour over that stuff. That really bred a part of loyalty of coaches and players, because he knew their teams as well as they knew their teams, all because he was extremely organized. Into that, he poured a work ethic that has seldom been seen."

Baldwin later moved on to major-college beats covering both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. When the newspaper decided to station a reporter in the Dallas area to cover the Dallas Cowboys during the 1990s, its editors tabbed Baldwin for that assignment, one that led to his coverage of multiple Super Bowls.

After he moved back to the Oklahoma City area, he again covered major-college sports, and when the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder arrived in 2008, he was a beat writer for that pro team.

"Not only was he good at his job, but he made people who had the same beat as him work harder to keep up," said Jimmie Tramel of the Tulsa World, who often competed with Baldwin to break sports news. "I don't know if there's a bigger compliment you can give in the business."

Baldwin had a simple philosophy to reporting.

"I don't care what my boss thinks," he said. "I don't care what the team I'm covering thinks. If I'm doing my job, I represent the guy paying his money, sitting on the 20-yard-line or sitting in the bleachers. I tried to ask the questions he wanted ask, because I've got access he doesn't. How good are we? How hurt is he? How bad of shape are we in? How good could we really be? If I'm doing my job well, the reader is happy. I represent the reader, not the paper, not the team."

Baldwin was covering Oklahoma City's minor-league sports teams when he was caught up in layoffs at The Oklahoman last February. He called his sudden departure from the newspaper a blessing in disguise, as it has given him time to dive into his new career as a novelist, something he'd dabbled in but never seriously pursued while working for the newspaper.

His first e-book, "Smashed Tater," was released last year and his latest mystery novel is "Dream Killer." A third book, "Slam Dunk," is set for release next month. His specialty is fast-paced mysteries with female lead characters, sports backdrops and plots with ample twists and turns that lead to a surprise ending. Baldwin self-publishes the books, which are available for purchase on his website www.mikebaldwinbooks.com .

Baldwin also had plenty of time last fall to enjoy watching his beloved Kansas City Royals – a team he's followed since its inception in 1969 – win their first World Series title in 30 years.

Even four decades after his time as a student, Baldwin still fondly recalls his days at OC. He said his biggest influences from that era included now-retired professor of speech Ron Bever and then-intramural director Tom Heath, who's now OC's softball coach and will join Baldwin in this year's Hall of Fame induction class.

"It was just a different day and time," Baldwin said. "The campus was different, but it was almost more like a small-town atmosphere. It's kept getting bigger and bigger. But what was cool about it then was the athletic programs were nationally ranked and doing big things. It was a cool time to cover OC sports, to write about it and broadcast it. They were some salad days."