Ken Wahl was injured during filming when a camera dolly ran over his foot. Vinnie was written out by having him get hit by a taxi and Tony Denison as Raglin replaces him for the rest of the arc.
When John Henry Raglin mentions a reporter blown up in Phoenix, he may well have been referring to Don Bolles (1928 - 1976), a real life journalist for the Arizona Republic. On Sunday the thirteenth of June, 1976, Bolles died after being blown up eleven days earlier by a car bomb at the age of 47, which incident is also mentioned in an episode of Lou Grant, given that series was about news reporters. Mr. Bolles was investigating organised crime out of Chicago at the time, but it was discovered later that his murder was in fact related to his blowing the whistle on Phoenix area real estate scammers.