Hal McCoy is a former beat writer for the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio), covering the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. He was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 as the winner of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, which is awarded annually "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." He has won 52 Ohio and national writing awards and was the first non-Cincinnati newsperson elected to the Cincinnati Journalists Hall of Fame. He also was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame and the Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame. He has a stone on Dayton's Walk of Fame and the press box at Dayton's Howell Field is named the Hal McCoy Press Box. McCoy has been the Cincinnati BBWAA Chapter Chair 22 times and was the BBWAA national president in 1997. He is the third writer from the Dayton Daily News to win the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, joining Si Burick (1982) and Ritter Collett (1991). Residing in Englewood, Ohio, McCoy is an honors graduate in journalism from Kent State University.
It took half the regular baseball season to manifest, but finally...some energetic readers with a inquisitive mind have sent baseball questions to our more-or-less expert (his opinion, not ours), Hal McCoy. Enjoy some Hal fun in today's inside feature...and see why Davey Lopes (below) is featured on the front page.
"It won't be major league baseball as you know, remember, and love it," says Hal McCoy. "Rather, it'll have overtones of a five-letter word that starts with ‘M’ and ends in ‘Y,’ and it isn’t messy. But it should be. MONEY! I'll stay at home!" Hal's 'state of the union' on the impending 'season' in today's Press Pros.
