Just learned today that our old friend Kevin Reid died last Friday and now one of the strongest/most diehard Chicago Cubs fans in the history of the team, is gone…
The Cubs win the World Series just one season ago, for the first time since what 1908 and after many years of hoping and cheering the team on, Kevin Reid has said goodbye, and he has joined the Chicago Cubs’ angels in the outfield….
Hate to lose Kevin, he was a baseball-first purest….He wrote the book on former St. Louis Cardinals’ Hall of Famer, Enos “Country” Slaughter, from Roxboro, N.C., and Kevin loved his Chicago Cubs…
He was part of the old writing team at The Sports Page, a weekly Triad sports newspaper that ran back in the mid-80’s….He also published a baseball periodical known as the Piedmont Ballpark News and it was on the street back in the mid-90’s….He also wrote for ESP, YES! Weekly and the O Henry Magazine….
Kevin had just completed his Triad Baseball Preview for YES! Weekly and he had his annual forecast coming out on the Greensboro Grasshoppers, the Winston-Salem Dash, the Hi-Toms and the Burlington Royals, in YES!….If it was baseball Kevin Reid was on it at any level…His Piedmont Ballpark News publication covered baseball on all levels including the pros, college, high school and youth baseball…
I wrote for Kevin back when he had the Piedmont Ballpark News and he wrote baseball articles for us, here at GreensboroSports.com….
Back in The Sports Page days along with Kevin, you had Ogi Overman, Charlie Harville, Ad Penfield, Gene Overby, Al Thomy and a list of Who’s Who sports reporters and announcers writing for that publication…I was in there with those scribes too and was following their every move, back when I was in my 20’s….Wow, time really does fly…..
Kevin Reid gone and his memory will live on…I used to see him up the Benjamin Parkway library just about every day up until about two-three weeks ago and now we learn that Kevin Reid passed away last Friday….Sad and bad news all rolled into one….
The word first hit, from what I am hearing, on a Tweet sent out by Jeff Mills, from the News and Record….Jeff always with his ear to the ground, or with all eyes on his trusty cell phone..
When you think of Kevin, you almost think of Al Thomy at the same time…Kevin was a huge fan, follower and friend of Al Thomy…They were almost like ‘Two peas in a pod’…..
Kevin Reid, gone but for sure not forgotten….He and I both got excommunicated from one of the local college libraries on the same day and that never set well with Kevin, but he kept on rolling, then turning his technology attentions toward the local Greensboro neighborhood libraries…When you need to pop the post or get the article done/completed, the high speed internet is your open road/information highway….
Kevin Reid and you think of Al Thomy, Ogi Overman, Kevin enjoyed talking about the background of Enos Slaughter and Larry Sorenson and anything to do with the Chicago Cubs…During baseball season, Kevin would come to library, and track the Cubs’ games at MLB.com and you have to be a diehard to sit there and watch and read as the scores change there, at MLB.com…Kevin did not have cable TV at home, so he lived on the net and that was a safe way bet, to keep up with his Cubbies…
Everybody that knew Kevin knew he loved the Cubs and for those that knew him even better, they knew he was born in Chicago and moved to Greensboro, when he was about two-three years old..
I had not seen Kevin in about two-three weeks, as he had gone missing from the local library, but I was driving past his home over off of Holden Road, near Friendly Avenue yesterday, and saw someone other than Kevin out in his front yard, and that seemed a little strange…But, as you well know, everything seems to be coming up strange these days….
Kevin Reid, a Grimsley grad, from I thinks back in the early-to-mid 60’s and then later on Kevin attended and graduated from Guilford College and he still had fond memories of when the Guilford College Quakers won the NAIA National Basketball Championship back in 1973 and even though that was Guilford taking the title in basketball, instead of baseball, he loved his Quakers all the same…There was nothing like it back then, when Guilford College was going to Kansas City, for the NAIA Tournament…..
Kevin was big on writing his books and he had the one on Enos Slaughter, that I think came out back in the early 80’s and his other book was a tabletop photo book on the city of Greensboro, that came out back in say, 2014…..I just published my first book and I sure wish I would have had a chance to show it to Kevin, but he never made it back to the Benjamin Library in time to get a look at that book…
We all will probably get a look at a few Chicago Cubs games this season, or at least parts of a few Cubs’ games and when you watch the Cubs’ games this year, be sure to look real close, you might just be able to see Kevin Reid among those Cubs’ angels in the outfield, there at Wrigley Field, in Chicago…
RIP, Chicago Cubs Fan, Kevin Reid….A good friend to all, and especially to all, involved in baseball….
*****Tweet from Jeff Mills at the News and Record:*****
Jefe Mills? @JeffMillsNR 2h2 hours ago
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Saddened to hear about Kevin Reid, Greensboro author and baseball savant, who died Friday at 69. @GSOHoppers media day won’t be the same.
CLICK HERE for Jeff Mills on Twitter….