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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2010 > March > 02
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Returning to Tombstone Territory
BACK IN ARIZONA (Barely) - After donating an extra $60 to Delta to carry my two bags in their spacious luggage compartment, I headed for the security lines at Dayton International Airport.
As I stood in line, an alarm went off. Somebody set off the fire alarm. All activity came to a screeching stop. They talked about evacuating the building, but a silver-haired TSA agent who looked like my grandpa Wilderman said, “We know it’s cold outside. We don’t see or smell smoke. We don’t see any flames or sparks. So everybody can just stay inside and stay in line. We think some toddler yanked the alarm.”
It took 20 minutes of standing around until we got the all-clear and it was time to bolt through security and sprint for the gate for my connecting flight to Phoenix through Detroit.
But, of course, first we had to board the plane in Dayton and taxi to the de-icer truck. The plane sat at the gate two hours before we boarded. Couldn’t they de-ice the plane then? Of course not.
Then we taxied for 20 minutes to the runway. I thought we had turned on to I75 and were taxiing to Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati International airport for our takeoff. The flight took 39 minutes, then we taxied 20 minutes to the gate in Detroit. That’s 39 minutes in the air, 40 minutes taxiing on the ground.
The flight to Phoenix was a posterior-numbing four hours. They gave us two cookies and a soft drink. Of course you could purchase a soggy, stale sandwich for $7.
But both my bags made it - always a 50/50 proposition for me. Maybe it is worth it to pay almost as much for my bags to travel as I pay for the ticket. That way we both make it to the same place at the same time.
As you can tell, I just love flying these days.
BUT WE MADE it and after checking in to my hotel about five minutes from Goodyear Stadium, I headed for the spring training headquarters of the Cincinnati Reds, the start of a three-week stay.
I was too late for the day’s workout, but I immediately ran into two of my favorite ballplayers of old - Tom “Mr. Perfect” Browning and Eric Davis. Browning had his set of lefthanded golf clubs and when I asked, “Where you headed?,” Browning smiled and said, “Not into a bunch of sand traps, I hope.”
As I looked around, I thought, “Hey, this whole area is one huge sand trap.”
Davis was sitting at a picnic table and I introduced him to my cohort as, “One of the best baseball players I ever saw and an even better person.” My grandson, Eric McCoy, is named after Davis.
My current cohort, by the way, is a new wave gadgets geek and spent most of his time fondling his iPhone apps and telling me, “We’re going to teach you to tweet.”
No, you’re not.
THE REDS have one more boring day of workouts before they actually start playing baseball. They have an intrasquad game scheduled Thursday, a game in which most of the participants are names you won’t hear much about the rest of the spring.
Then on Friday the Reds play their first official Cactus League game against the Cleveland Indians, the team they share Goodyear Stadium with. On Friday the Reds are the home team. Then on Saturday they play again and the Indians are the home team.
How does that work in the pressbox? The home team writers get the front frow and the visiting team writers get the second row. So I’ll be in the front row Friday and the second row Saturday - whatever that means. Usually during spring training the second row is better because you don’t get broiled as much by the sun blazing through the windows.
Anyway, it’s back to work tomorrow - a daily 8 a.m. briefing by manager Dusty Baker.
Yonder Alonso liked the blog I did on him last week so much that when he spotted me today he said, “Got something coming for you in the next week you’ll love. My mother is sending them.” When I interviewed him he said his mother had access to some Cuban cigars.
I knew I loved Yonder Alonso.
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