Cincinnati Reds Beat Writer Hal McCoy: Not Bad for a Blind Guy!
Hall of Fame Writer, Hal McCoy, is the longest tenured beat writer in the game today. Since 1973, Hal has covered nearly every Reds game for the Dayton Daily News. Since the spring of 2003, he's done it while being legally blind.
Recently, I ran across an article about Hal on CBS Sportsline from July of 2003. It tells all about Hal's career and is a good read for any baseball fan. It was written when Hal was inducted into the HOF.
I was also lucky enough to find an article written by Hal from the end of the 2007 season. Hal appoints himself as the Reds GM and describes how to fix the Reds. Fans that read the article should be amazed on how prophetic his words were.
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He missed on his first suggestion, which was to keep Pete Mackinan as manager, but he nailed most of the other moves. Here's a brief summary of his suggestions, and remember, he made them just after the 2007 season.
1. Take away the "Interim" tag and make Pete Mackinan the Reds manager. (Missed that one.)
2. Pick up Adam Dunn's contract option. (Nailed it.)
3. Trade Josh Hamilton for pitching. (Nailed it.)
4. Get rid of Ryan Freel (Nailed it, but they waited one year too long.)
5. Trade Encarnacion or Gonzales to make room for Jeff Keppinger (Missed it, but he does mention that they would be hard to move.)
6. Griffey trade talk should be hushed during the offseason because Griffey was a tenured player (Nailed it.)
7. Get a catcher (Nailed it, though they waited too long again.)
Then he goes on about the importance of finding pitching and more pitching. The guy is blind, but he sees a lot more than most GMs do.
The link to the CBS Sportsline article is:
The link to Hal's 2007 article is:
