Born in Indiana and educated in Georgia, Greg Hoard came to Cincinnati in the winter of 1979 as a columnist for the Cincinnati Post sports department, and joined the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1984 as the beat writer for the Cincinnati Reds. He has received numerous awards for his work.In 1990, he left journalism for television. Hoard worked for WLWT-TV from 1990 through 1993 as sports director and spent 12 years as sports director at WXIX-TV.His written work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Baseball America, Baseball Digest and NFL Game Day. He has appeared on ESPN and NBC’s The Today Show.Greg is the author of three books: Joe, Rounding Home and Heading for Home; Gary Burbank, Voices in My Head; and, most recently, Hannan’s Way, An Unlikely Trek Through Life. He is currently working on a baseball memoir, parts of which he will share here.
His ability to hit a baseball, run like a deer, and catch anything that flew were just the baseball attributes of former Red, Vada Pinson. Later in life I was to find out that there was much, much more. He was one of the good guys, too. Remembering one of the Reds' greats as only Greg Hoard can do, in today's inside feature.
We grew up as kids who entertained ourselves. It wasn't always pretty, or safe by today's standards...and it wasn't appreciated by the local evangelicals. But in the end it's what we did for fun, and most of grew out of busted lips and chipped teeth...grew up to be just fine! Warm up for Sunday's Super Bowl with one of columnist Greg Hoard's best.
