Hal McCoy's run is ending...

I have no idea what this would cost, but there's always this:

 

Yeah, I considered that. But the difference is $180K, not including McCoy's salary. It doesn't add up.

Plus, you figure whatever they spent on a car service is minus what they would've paid out for mileage. Those are admittedly not equal expenses, but it's not as if he was getting 40 cents a mile to go to Cincinnati every day plus a car service either.

 

I was thrown by the quarter-million reference, too. From what his blog said, I just figured they had to send somebody with him, so every thing is double.
I've heard it's about $50,000-$60,000 to travel for a whole season. If you double that for two people and figure in their salaries, maybe the All-Star Game and postseason, it could get to $250,000.

 

Except, of course, those idiots are cutting too and, with only the occassional Hal Bodley, trying to get by with some kid with peach fuzz straight out of working for a weekly at Bumfuck Tech.

Never underestimate MLB.com making an exception here, though, and trying to cover itself in glory.

 

The extremely classy John Fay put up a blog about McCoy:

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=blog07&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3ae57bcc87-152a-4f72-96fb-cc08b1f396efPost%3a31d42af8-8635-41cc-b7fa-f14f806dd832&sid=sitelife.cincinnati.com

 

Even if Hal is ready to "retire", MLB could certainly use a writer of Hal's stature. They have writers like Dick Kaegel from Kansas City and others who used to work for newspapers.

 

I've never met Hal, or anything like that, but I remember reading a story somewheres where the Reds players all said that he was the sportswriter they respected the most.

And if I'm a Dayton newsroom employee, I don't ever want to hear anything again about any meetings on suggestions on how to improve the newspaper.

 

Holy shit.

Never met the guy, not really old enough to see a lot of his work, but when I did...it was a great read.

 

This brings up a new point ... beancounters see someone like McCoy covering the Reds in Dayton and say "that's not local, so therefore it's expendable."

We've seen that with a lot of regional beats -- however, it's minimized when another paper's resources can be used (e.g., Indy using Lafayette's coverage of Purdue; Louisville using Indy's coverage of Indiana). But we're beginning to see it when we can't share stories -- we're essentially replacing what was once considered vital regional coverage with the AP and stringers, and therefore removing a voice that the paper once had (and anyone in journalism knows that people connect with and become comfortable with that "voice", especially if he or she has been competently covering a beat for a number of years).

There's a question: What, exactly, is "local?"

To a beancounter, it seems to be "if it's happening in our circulation area. Anything else, we're paying the AP for, so we can use them."

To our readers, though, it's what's important to them.

As some have mentioned above, Dayton is a HUGE Reds town. It's not too far away, and the Dayton metro essentially runs into the Cincinnati metro. Dayton has no major-league teams of its own and only a mid-major commuter college (Wright State), but the one successful minor-league team they've had is a Single-A baseball team that routinely sells out. Its affiliation with the Reds is a part of the reason why. But it's 90 minutes from Columbus (with Ohio State, which a large part of the DDN's readership cares about) and 45 minutes from Cincinnati (with two major league teams that Dayton residents care about).

To the people of Dayton, the Reds are "local," even if they're not located in the area. The thing is, it's impossible to tell the beancounters that, because their neighbors don't have kids playing for the Reds and it's not as eas+y to have a big advertising/promotional relationship with a team in another market (as they might be able to develop with the Dragons or Wright State).

On a smaller scale, we dealt with this. I was at a suburban, and we did (what I felt) was really strong coverage of Indy pros for a small paper -- staffed home games of the Pacers and Colts, staffed the major races at IMS, combined coverage with other papers, and because we were a PM, provided second-day and featurized leads from games. We had a voice, and the community responded to it. And, for the eight years I worked there, I fought a publisher who thought crossing the county line meant covering stuff that wasn't "local." But the Pacers were local. So were the Colts. So were the local guys participating in the Indianapolis 500 that we wrote about. The readers considered those teams "local," and appreciated the unique voice that we had (it, psychologically, made our small town seem a little bit more big-time).

A more absurd story -- had a friend wanting to make a 4-hour drive to cover a local kid who happened to be quarterbacking one of the better teams in the NFL. Publisher nixed the trip because it wasn't "local."

That's the world of beancounters -- "what can I cut? Well, that's not local, so I can cut it." And then they find out when the cancellation notices come in that their readership did consider it local, but refuse to budge from their decisions to cut, cut, cut. They figure readers will adjust, and with no competition, they eventually will.

 

The University of Dayton is pissed you forgot about them.