Fairfield Chamber of Commerce award-winners
Business Person of the Year: Paul Avance of Avance Funeral Home.
President’s Award: Jack Wessler of Fairfield.
The Community Appearance Award: Landform of Fairfield.
The Student of the Year: Fernanda Rivera, a senior at Fairfield High School, for her business project called Chefs on the Go.
FAIRFIELD — Baseball fever was in the air Thursday night as Hall of Fame Sports Writer Hal McCoy told tales about the Cincinnati Reds and, particularly, Joe Nuxhall at the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce’s 56th annual dinner.
At Receptions Banquet & Conference Center, McCoy spoke fondly of the late Nuxhall, a Reds player and longtime broadcaster who lived in Fairfield.
“Joe Nuxhall was one of the nicest men on the face of this Earth,” said McCoy. He noted that he himself is in the Baseball Hall of Fame along with Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman. And if they are in the Hall of Fame, “Joe Nuxhall belongs in the Hall of Fame,” McCoy said. “Joe should have gone in with (Marty.)”
McCoy marveled at the fact that Nuxhall was 15 when he pitched his first Major League game, a feat not accomplished before or since.
“When I was 15, I was trying to figure out how to talk to girls,” McCoy said.
McCoy began covering the Reds in 1973, when he was also offered a chance to cover the Bengals.
Nuxhall’s son Kim was on hand to talk about work progressing on the Joe Nuxhall Miracle League field for disabled players. Its ribbon-cutting is scheduled for June 10, the 68th anniversary of his dad’s first Major League appearance.
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