Media Power Rankings for August

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Hall of Fame writer Hal McCoy on the beat. AP Richard Deitsch's Mailbag Submit a question or comment for Richard. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Richard Deitsch on Twitter

1. Hal McCoy, Dayton Daily News Reds beat writer: If Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully is the sound track of summer, McCoy is its keyboard. A wordplay artist respected by peers and subjects alike, McCoy has covered the Reds for the Dayton, Ohio, newspaper for the past 37 years. Last month he took a buyout after the newspaper decided it would not assign a reporter to cover the Reds in 2010.

"I'm weighing my options, with the hope there is a lot of weight to them," said McCoy, who was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 with the Spink Award. "I am not going to make any decisions until after my retirement/buyout on Sept. 30, but I'm not ready to pull the plug on the laptop. I still want to write. And I will. I've had some contact about continuing to write, which I will explore. And there is a book lingering inside me."

The 68-year-old McCoy -- who is legally blind as the result of stroke -- estimated that he had covered 7,000 games and written 25,000 stories. When he announced his decision to leave the paper full time, he was besieged with strong reaction from his readers and peers, including Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski.

"I'm probably the last of the baseball beat writer dinosaurs," McCoy said. "Nobody covers a baseball beat for 37 years. Few handle it more than three or four. The travel is too tough and the daily haggle and hassle with the players is demanding. Newspaper beat writers are a dying breed, but with the Internet there will always be a need for baseball writers to provide content."

That brings up a relevant question: How receptive would McCoy be to working for a Web site that allowed him to cover the Reds?

"Would I like to write about baseball for a Web site or do a blog? Absolutely," he said. "I may be 68, soon to be 69, but I think I still have my fastball at the keyboard and can handle the breaking stuff and the off-speed stuff."

2. Jerry Remy, Red Sox analyst, New England Sports Network: The Boston Globe called Remy "one of the most universally beloved men in New England" upon his return earlier this month from an infection following his lung cancer surgery. After missing the first four months of the season, Remy received a standing ovation at Fenway during a half-inning appearance on Aug. 12. He returned full time Aug. 21 For diehards of Red Sox (and RemDog Nation), his Twitter page is a must.

3. Andrew Wolfson, investigative and legal affairs writer, Louisville Courier-Journal: "I usually cover lawyers, and sometimes lawyers who are criminals," said Wolfson, the C-J's lead reporter for coverage of the Rick Pitino sex and blackmail story. Wolfson's dogged and evenhanded work on the story deserves praise. "It's definitely been the hottest story of the summer and the hottest I have worked on in terms of national interest," said Wolfson, who has been at the paper since 1983 and previously worked at the now-defunct Louisville Times. "It involves basketball, which is the No. 1 interest in Kentucky, sex and Rick Pitino."

Wolfson was assigned the story early spring; he anticipates he'll stay on it if Karen Sypher goes on trial on charges of conspiring to extort money from Pitino. Given his current assignment, he has a unique perspective on how the Pitino story has played nationally.

"Obviously, people nationally are more interested in Pitino than the details of the story," Wolfson said. "The national coverage has focused on Pitino's misjudgment more so than the fact he has allegedly been the subject of extortion and blackmail. Our coverage has probably been focused more on exploring the truth and falseness of the allegations that this woman has made against him, although more recently we have written about Pitino's decision-making."

4. Ato Boldon, track analyst, NBC Sports and Versus: Following his exemplary work last year in Beijing, Boldon provided engaging commentary at the 2009 world track and field championships in Berlin, carefully explaining to viewers why Usain Bolt ("The best thing to happen to track and field in my lifetime," Boldon said) is so ahead of his peers. Best of all was Boldon's genuine expression of disbelief (U.S. TV viewers heard him scream into his microphone, "Oh ... my ... God!") when Bolt broke the 200-meter world record.

"I was in the Michael Johnson race when he ran the 19.32 [at the 1996 Summer Games] so I naturally have a lot of respect for that time," said Boldon, a four-time Olympic medalist. "We have a running joke at NBC. When Michael set the 19.32 record, [then-announcer] Craig Masback started to talk all over [the call of announcer] Tom Hammond, which is a big no-no. He was screaming, 'He set a world record, he set a world record.' So there's a joke about not doing that because it ruins the call for history. My screaming was purely unintentional on my part. I'd been warned, 'Don't talk over Tom,' but it literally was what I was thinking at the time. I just happened to have a mic on. Since NBC used it in their promos, I didn't get a scolding!"

Asked if he was signed through the 2012 Olympics, Boldon ran away from the question diplomatically: "I'm not positive but I love where I am and they seem to enjoy my work." Let's lock up this dude, Ebersol.