‘One of the realest’: Marty McNeal, former Bee Kings beat writer and true character, has died
Marty McNeal has passed away? Those words just don’t seem plausible because anyone who knew the former Kings beat writer for The Sacramento Bee would agree that Martin McNeal was timeless.
He was a life force. He was pure New York swagger. He was not tall but had the intellect and bravado to cut NBA players down to size with his hilariously profane style of “conversating” that was so funny, you couldn’t get mad at him even when you were his target.
McNeal died Thursday in a hospital in Dallas, where he and his family had moved recently after nearly 30 years in Sacramento. His wife Beverly and his son Phillip were at his side. McNeal was 64 and had been battling leukemia.
That’s too young. The end came too soon and the news of his passing hit hard, spawning Twitter tributes from some of the great sports writers of recent years – a close-knit fraternity in which McNeal served as a kind of sergeant-at-arms for years.
“RIP to my friend and one of my mentors, Marty McNeal,” tweeted Jason Jones, also a former Bee Kings beat writer who now covers the team for The Athletic.
“Oh no, this is devastating news. Marty was an all-time great co-worker, super fun, supremely cool and wonderfully profane. I loved him, as did all who knew him. Rest in peace, my friend,” tweeted Susan Slusser, the venerable Oakland A’s beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. She began her distinguished sports writing career at The Bee in the early 1990s when McNeal first blew into Sacramento.
“RIP Marty McNeal one of the realest!!!,” tweeted Doug Christie, the former Kings guard from the early 2000s and current Kings color commentator.
Marty Mac’s World
McNeal started at The Bee in 1990. I remember when he flew in for his interview from Dallas. I was a brand new hire at The Bee and I was immediately taken with him. He wore glasses and scruffy facial hair. He not only looked you in the eye, but up and down, sizing you up. If you had an opinion about sports, he had a counter that left you thinking, “Man, he’s right.”
I was working on a weekend and Marty came up to me and declared that he needed a ride to the airport. I immediately got up and chased a clerk down to drive him. The clerk objected. I called a boss at home who got on the phone and told the clerk to do it. The clerk shot me a dirty look on the way out the door.
And I wondered: “Why did I jump to Marty’s command?”
Because as Christie said, he was one of the realest.
By 1992, he was the Kings beat writer. He would hold that job until 2005, when he became a columnist under the moniker “Marty Mac’s World.” That was his Twitter handle as well and it was accurate: While he was writing for The Bee, it was Marty Mac’s world.
McNeal covered the Kings for The Bee during their golden era. From 1999 to 2006, they made the playoffs eight straight seasons and came within an eyelash of reaching the NBA Finals in 2002.
The term “OG,” or original gangster, could have been coined for McNeal because, as an African American NBA beat writer, was a kind of pioneer in a largely white press. McNeal walked in door, set his laptop down and immediately became the strongest personality in any press room he entered.
Whenever he would see veteran Southern California NBA writer Kevin Ding, Marty would bellow “ Ding! Ding! Ding!” in a loud, high pitched voice.
You could not be in that room with McNeal without laughing – hard.
No one was immune. And yet McNeal was as kind as he was tough and biting.
An insider and mentor
Today, Sam Amick is one of the premier NBA writers in the country. A Sacramento State graduate, Amick took over the Kings beat in the fall of 2005 from McNeal. Some veteran writers might have resented a young kid taking his slot, a fate that awaits most if not all of us.
But McNeal became a kind of mentor to Amick.
“He never made it personal. He never made it uncomfortable,” Amick said. “He helped me whenever he could. ... Marty was one of the true originals who was embedded with the team he covered.”
How embedded? Once, Amick said a Bee copy editor had a question for McNeal about Corliss Williamson, the former Kings forward. The editor reached McNeal on his cellphone. McNeal said, “OK, I’m playing video games in Corliss’ hotel room. Let me ask him.”
“In those days we would sit (court side) and Marty would have conversations with Kings players in real time. If (former point guard) Mike Bibby missed five shots in a row, Marty would say, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ as Bibby was coming off the court. And then Mike and Marty would talk. I’m not real sure Rick Adelman liked this too much because he was trying to coach. Marty was damn near an assistant coach.”
Larry Hicks, a former Bee reporter and close McNeal friend, recalled traveling with him on assignment and being awestruck by how revered McNeal was by the greatest players of the 1990s NBA.
An authentic sports personality
“Once I tagged along with Marty to a pro-am golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, where he was to interview Michael Jordan,” Hicks wrote in a Facebook post.
“At a casino, Jordan sat a high-stakes blackjack table – roped off from the rest of we commoners. He looked up, saw Marty and ushered him inside. I, having no such standing … was left to watch from the fringe.”
As tough as he was, McNeal had a soft spot for dogs and for his friends.
“One night in 2014, about 2 a.m., I heard a yelp down the hallway. I rushed from my bedroom to see my 16-year-old Lab-Chow mix, Bear, splayed on the floor,” Hicks wrote.
“He couldn’t get up and when I tried to lift him, he cried in pain. I didn’t know what to do. I called Marty. He was at my house in 20 minutes. We gently slid a blanket under Bear to act as a stretcher and carried him to my car. I drove Bear to a vet hospital and Marty followed in his car.”
These stories and remembrances barely scratch the surface.
Marty McNeal was the kind of personality you rarely see in newsrooms or press boxes anymore. He was authentic. He spoke truth to anyone, no matter how rich or famous they were. He mentored a generation of NBA writers – African American and non-African American – who will remember him as long as they live.
So will those of us from Sacramento who had the pleasure to be around him, to laugh uproariously at what he said and to be touched by his undying humanity.
“Being from New York, Marty and I had such a great bond,” said Grant Napear, the Kings TV play-by-play man.
“I loved being around him every day. … Marty was just a fun-loving guy who loved sports and he was living his dream job every day covering the NBA.”
Rest in peace, dear friend. We’re going to miss you.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 1:10 PM.
