And they don't get much bigger than this when it comes to...well, the Dayton Daily News.
Hal McCoy wrote last night at 6:06 PM that after 37 years, he's going to retire once the MLB's Cincinnati Reds' season ends. It's not a move he's ready for, he says.
Quoting from the above blogpost:
The newspaper told me today that it will no longer cover the Cincinnati Reds the same way it has in the past, beginning next season. And don’t blame the paper. It is the economic times and we’re all suffering. They just can’t afford the more than a quarter of a million dollars a year to send me coast-to-coast.
The Dayton Daily News has been nothing but great to me. How many companies would keep a legally blind employee and furnish that employee with a driver and/or a car service to get him to and from games? The paper did that for me and it certainly didn’t have to do it.
The DDN didn’t have to do that, but it did and I’m so forever grateful, just as I am for the 37 years they permitted me to do what I love to do so much.
Mr. McCoy has been a Reds beat writer in Dayton since about 13 years before yours truly was born.
As such, he is, like another legend that retired this year...well, legendary. His credentials speak for themselves. In 2002, he was forever enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in the writer's wing. He continued to cover the Reds, in spite of a 2003 stroke that left him legally blind, as he said in the above quote.
We ask the same question Mr. McCoy did: how many newspapers would allow a legally blind employee to continue writing? (Of course, we recognize that the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1991 could certainly come into play.) How many newspapers would offer the assistance that the Dayton Daily News has?
We could be wrong, but the answer is probably "unless the writer is well respected, not many." McCoy certainly was that...his entry into the Hall speaks for itself.
We tip our hat to Mr. McCoy...and we believe that even in the tough times, both for the Reds and in the media biz, McCoy will forever remain a Reds fan and a loyal alum of the Dayton Daily News...
2 comments:
i'm sad to hear that the "dayton daily news" is reducing coverage, but hal is right -- they gave him more than a fair shake.
on the other hand, i just found out a five guys burgers is opening up in crestwood -- now hal might have a little time to dip down there before the games.
Ya know, I STILL haven't been to the one in Clifton. It's been on my to-do list since it opened but I just haven't yet...
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