Some baseball thoughts
If you're old enough to remember Crosley Field or have an Uncle Riley who does, some of these names will make you smile. The rest: W.G.A.F. That's not the objective. Google "slow, dull baseball players" and come up with your own list. The point is: How champions are made, one Aaron Miles at a time.
The 1950s were the years when "big," "red" and "machine" were usually associated with Soviets, tanks and old communists waving to the crowd while standing atop Lenin's tomb. Cincy baseball was a second-division team, seldom in the hunt. Hunt for Red October was a movie. By 1960, the whole thing bottomed out.
So begins the story. On Dec. 15, 1960 (or so legend has it) the most unpopular three-way trade in history occurred. The Redlegs sent the awesome shortstop Roy McMillan to the Milwaukee Braves for pitchers Juan Pizarro, a lefty, and Joey Jay, a righthander who was the first Little Leaguer ever in the big leagues. So we had that going for us. Pizarro saw on a map where he was headed, got adjusted and spent the next five minutes being traded to the White Sox for a lumbering third baseman named Gene Freese.
Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuscahoma McLish was in one of those deals.
A few months earlier, the team had seen the error of its ways and managed to get Wally Post back in a trade with the Phillies in a series of deals that included Walls, Haddix, Gonzalez, Anderson, Hopke, Dewey, Cheatham, Howe, Butcher, Baker, Candelaria ... the list is endless. "Wally, you and Gus Bell will play left field. Corey Patterson will play center next to that Robinson guy."
Corey quit the team and we hired Vada Pinson.
A bunch of other stuff happened and Ed Bailey, the greatest catcher in history, was traded to San Frankinsoco, thus pi$$ing off the rest of the Reds fandom. But we got Don Blasingame and eventually Roadblock Sherman in exchange. Then we told Elio Chacon to suit up.
So on and on we go and Hutchinson says, "OK, it's time to win a gosh-darned pennant here."
And off we went.
If for those of you who have never experienced a pennant season, I can safely say that my fondest baseball memory ever was the day the Redlegs won that 1961 pennant.
How? Nobody knows. It was a team that would not lose. Forgotten for Reds fans was the awesome year of Maris and Mantle and the Yankee steamroller.
This was a team put together by front-office genius (or luck) or something. Bits and pieces blended, long before the days of computers and acronymns defining real value vs. perceived replacement value or comparative worth, grass or turf, day or night.
The point: Ya kneffer nose.
The 1950s were the years when "big," "red" and "machine" were usually associated with Soviets, tanks and old communists waving to the crowd while standing atop Lenin's tomb. Cincy baseball was a second-division team, seldom in the hunt. Hunt for Red October was a movie. By 1960, the whole thing bottomed out.
So begins the story. On Dec. 15, 1960 (or so legend has it) the most unpopular three-way trade in history occurred. The Redlegs sent the awesome shortstop Roy McMillan to the Milwaukee Braves for pitchers Juan Pizarro, a lefty, and Joey Jay, a righthander who was the first Little Leaguer ever in the big leagues. So we had that going for us. Pizarro saw on a map where he was headed, got adjusted and spent the next five minutes being traded to the White Sox for a lumbering third baseman named Gene Freese.
Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuscahoma McLish was in one of those deals.
A few months earlier, the team had seen the error of its ways and managed to get Wally Post back in a trade with the Phillies in a series of deals that included Walls, Haddix, Gonzalez, Anderson, Hopke, Dewey, Cheatham, Howe, Butcher, Baker, Candelaria ... the list is endless. "Wally, you and Gus Bell will play left field. Corey Patterson will play center next to that Robinson guy."
Corey quit the team and we hired Vada Pinson.
A bunch of other stuff happened and Ed Bailey, the greatest catcher in history, was traded to San Frankinsoco, thus pi$$ing off the rest of the Reds fandom. But we got Don Blasingame and eventually Roadblock Sherman in exchange. Then we told Elio Chacon to suit up.
So on and on we go and Hutchinson says, "OK, it's time to win a gosh-darned pennant here."
And off we went.
If for those of you who have never experienced a pennant season, I can safely say that my fondest baseball memory ever was the day the Redlegs won that 1961 pennant.
How? Nobody knows. It was a team that would not lose. Forgotten for Reds fans was the awesome year of Maris and Mantle and the Yankee steamroller.
This was a team put together by front-office genius (or luck) or something. Bits and pieces blended, long before the days of computers and acronymns defining real value vs. perceived replacement value or comparative worth, grass or turf, day or night.
The point: Ya kneffer nose.
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