Hal McCoy finds a new gig

[OnBaseMachine]

Hal McCoy, Extended Version: Received email from Hal McCoy, seemingly retired from the Dayton Daily News, saying after an offseason of courtship he will now be a featured contributor to Fox Sports Ohio this season. Said Hal:

"They are starting a web site and want me to do three columns a week, plus some selective TV work for them. They are also going to send me to spring training for a couple of weeks."

Hal had been negotiating with several media outlets during the offseason, including the Cincinnati Enquirer and MLB.com before accepting a contract role at the Daily News for writing three blogs a week plus his "Ask Hal" column on Sundays. However, if you were accustomed to seeing Hal in one of four daily newspapers or 18 weeklies in the Cincinnati/Dayton area, that ended with his exclusive agreement with the Daily News.

No word on Hal's book about his 37 years covering the Reds, which he promised to write once he retired. But, obviously, he's not really retired. In one way, he's busier than ever.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.../GVZJF9x8Vo%3D

[Chip R]

Good for him. I think writing columns is his forte.

[BearcatShane]

Thrilled he can stay close to the Reds.

[SirFelixCat]

This is good for all involved, imo. Good for FSO, Hal, and us fans.

[Blitz Dorsey]

Nice! He is great on the radio with Marty in the second inning breaking down all the latest rumblings about the team. He will be good on TV. Not everyone needs to be flashy to be good on TV -- Hal will bring the nuts and bolts info that Reds fans will appreciate. Love his brass tacks approach -- straight to the point, no PC BS. They would be smart to have him sit in the booth for one inning every series (roughly every three games). I would personally love that.

[Ron Madden]

Good for Hal, I'm happy for him.

He might not be the best with hard core baseball information but I always find his columns entertaining. A friend of mine calls him the Ronna Barrett of MLB.

[Vada Pinson Fan]

Good for Hal, I'm happy for him.

He might not be the best with hard core baseball information but I always find his columns entertaining. A friend of mine calls him the Ronna Barrett of MLB.

Same here. Very happy for Hal and we Reds fans are once again the lucky beneficiaries.

Hey Ron, had to let you know I hadn't seen or heard the name Rona Barrett in many years, LOL! She was a good looking woman and the Mary Hart (unfortunately, I watch too much of the wife's shows- argh!) of the Entertainment TV scene in the 70's and 80's IIRC. Sheesh....Rona Barrett ....I'm (gettin'???) old

[OnBaseMachine]

FOX Sports Ohio to teach an old dog new tricks

By Hal McCoy
FOX Sports Ohio
March 1, 2010

The saying is that one can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but in this case it may be a matter of Fox Sports Ohio teaching an old fox new tricks.

After 37 years of covering the Cincinnati Reds for the Dayton Daily News, this ol’ fox is hitching up with Fox Sports Ohio to do some things I’ve never done before, some interactive/internet work with the fans, some television work, some column-writing for the web-site – whatever they can find for me to do.

And I’m looking forward to it and I’m excited about it, a gigantic step for an old guy who started in this business with a typewriter, a pencil, a notebook and passionate love affair with baseball.

It has evolved to the internet and I’ll continue that, doing three columns a week for the new Fox Sports Ohio web-site.

It begins March 2 when I report, a little later than the pitchers and catchers, for spring training in Goodyear, Ariz., a three-week stop that coincides with the start of exhibition games.

And how apropos is it that I start a new part of my professional life at a new venue, the new spring training complex in Goodyear.

It all began in 1973 at old Al Lopez Field in Tampa, Fla., the long-time spring home of the Reds, an old ball park with a tin roof that clattered like hail stones on a cheap car’s roof when foul balls clanked off it.

We sat in a dusty press box at a wooden table fraught with inch-long splinters and typed our stories on portable typewriters.

A Western Union operator with a teletype machine sat in the press box to wire our stories back to the paper. If you were close to deadline, it migh help to slip the operator a ten-spot so he or she would send your story first.

Then we were equipped with cumbersome word processors, starting with something called a Porta-Bubble. The problem with a Porta-
Bubble was that if your electrical cord was accidentally kicked out, you lost your entire story and had to retype it.

More than once a writer was working on his last paragraph when his cord was kicked out and sometimes the kicker was an opposing writer and, well, maybe it wasn’t an accident.

Then there was the Radio Shack and the Texas Instrument. The Shack had rubber ears to fit around a telephone’s receiver to transmit your story, but it was so ssensitive to noise that you had to tightly squeeze the rubber cups tight around the telephone with both hands or it would cut out and you would have to re-send and re-send and re-send.

And even that didn’t work at times and it often took four or five times before you successfully sent your story, with appropriate epithets.

The Texas Instrument had no screen and worked like a typewriter. You typed your story on paper, then hooked a phone to the machine and hit a couple of buttons. Your story printed on the paper as you sent it and you prayed the paper didn’t jam. It always did.

Earl Lawson of the old Cincinnati Post & Times-Star, my mentor in the early 70’s, had one of those electronic monsters. He was having difficulty sending from his hotel room in St. Louis one night and finally called me, of all persons, for help. I walked into his room to a disaster scene – curtains torn away from the windows, chairs turned upside down, bed torn up. He had quite the temper.

Later, he was involved in an accident while riding in a taxi and his machine, sitting on the front seat without a belt, hit the floor and was destroyed.

Lawson called his office and without preamble said, “The monster is dead.”

Then came laptop computers and the internet, making the job so easy, except when the laptop blows or the internet goes down.

Now I’m getting into unfamiliar territory with interactive stuff and TV stuff. Being pretty much an internet idiot, I’ll need a lot of help with this interactive stuff, but Fox promises me plenty of help. I’ll need it.

But I am so looking forward to this new opportunity, a chance for me to continue seeing baseball, feeling baseball and writing baseball.

It has been my life and my passion for my entire life and I’m not ready for the retirement Barca-Lounger. Somebody once asked me when I would retire and I said, “When my head hits the laptop.”

Hopefully, FOX will furnish me with a cushioned computer.

-- Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy covered the Cincinnati Reds for the Dayton Daily News for 37 years.

HAL MCCOY'S REDS SPRING TRAINING COVERAGE

Hal McCoy will be in Goodyear, Arizona covering the Reds for FoxSportsOhio.com from March 2-23. Below is a list of what to expect during his time at spring training:

• Daily columns and notebooks surrounding the team.

• 2 video updates (one in the morning, one in the evening).

• Player and coach video interviews.

• One interactive chat with Hal from Goodyear per week where fans can submit question to be answered in real time. (Check back this week for an updated chat schedule).

• In-game chats from every Reds Cactus League game.

• Watch Hal on FOX Sports Ohio's telecast against the Indians on March 5 at 3:05 pm ET. Hal will join the broadcast team during the contest.

• Plus much, much more!

http://www.foxsportsohio.com/pages/l...17&feedID=3717

[bucksfan2]

Hal became very good, and critical, during the last few months of the year last year. I hope he continues to follow that path. I am looking forward to what Hal can bring to FSN. Without George Grande and with Hal in the fold it may be much more enjoyable to watch the Reds.

[REDREAD]

I'm glad Hal was able to find work. Looks like he wasn't quite ready to retire.

[penantboundreds]

Any chance Jim Day won't be back?!?

[Joseph]

Any chance Jim Day won't be back?!?

I think you meant Jeff Piecoro.

[Redsfaithful]

Great news, love Hal. I have no idea why the Dayton Daily News let him go, seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me. Papers like that don't deserve to survive.

[Heath]

Great news, love Hal. I have no idea why the Dayton Daily News let him go, seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me. Papers like that don't deserve to survive.

The Dayton paper is basically stale standings with AP and "shared content".

Sometimes the Flyers home games are only covered by AP writers.

[bucksfan2]

The Dayton paper is basically stale standings with AP and "shared content".

Sometimes the Flyers home games are only covered by AP writers.

There was a section in the Sunday Enquirer about Cincinnati and Dayton becoming one big Metro city. I think they were saying by 2012 it will be considered that with the expansion of West Chester there is little undeveloped area between Cincinnati and Dayton anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Enquirer and Dayton Daily News consolidate into one paper within the near future. Both Hal and Chick Ludwig have been let go and the Dayton sports reporters continue to diminish.