Recah Trinidad, veteran sports journalist and poet, dies at 83
Veteran sports journalist and columnist Ricardo “Recah” Trinidad has died. He was 83.
Trinidad passed away peacefully in his sleep last weekend, his daughter-in-law Nice Trinidad announced on Facebook.
“Our hearts are heavy as we say goodbye to our beloved Dad, Ricardo ‘Recah’ Trinidad who peacefully joined our Creator at around 6AM today, 83 years of a life well lived,” Nice wrote in a post on Saturday. “He passed peacefully in his sleep, free from pain and suffering,”
Trinidad was born in Mandaluyong on June 9, 1943. A graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, he began his journalism career in the 1960s and went on to write for publications including The Manila Times, Daily Express, Tempo, Champ, Sports Flash, We Forum, Malaya, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
He became best known for his Bare Eye column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, where he covered sports with a distinctive style that blended reportage, commentary, and literary prose. His work took him from basketball courts and boxing rings to international sporting events, where he chronicled athletes including Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Manny Pacquiao, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Efren “Bata” Reyes, and Paeng Nepomuceno.
Trinidad covered several Olympic Games, beginning with the 1972 Munich Olympics and ending with the 2008 Beijing Games. He also reported on major boxing events, including the 1975 Thrilla in Manila, and was recognized for his deep knowledge of boxing and Philippine sports.
Beyond sports journalism, Trinidad was also an accomplished writer and poet. He won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature for poetry in 1978 and later published Tales From My Lost River, a book inspired by the Pasig River. He also wrote Pacific Storm: Dispatches on Pacquiao of the Philippines, which won a National Book Award in 2007.
Trinidad held important editorial roles throughout his career. He was the founding editor of Tempo and later edited the anti-dictatorship publication We Forum from 1984 until the end of the Marcos regime. Under his editorship, Tempo went on to become one of the country's most widely read tabloids, reaching an average daily circulation of 280,000 in the late 1980s and 1990s.
In 2016, Trinidad received a special citation from the Philippine Sports Association for his contribution to Philippine sports as a writer and columnist. He was also recognized with the Lifetime Award in Sports Journalism by the Philippine Sportswriters Association in 2023.
Trinidad is survived by his wife, Maria Fe “Fe” Trinidad; sons Paolo and Baste; daughters-in-law Babs and Nice; and six grandchildren.
A public viewing will be held at Chapel 7 of Garden of Life Memorial Park on Aglipay Street in Vergara, Mandaluyong, starting Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 1 p.m. His cremation is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19, at 9 a.m.
