Cincinnati Reds Baseball Quotes

...it was one at bat during October 1975 that defined his [Joe Morgan's] place in baseball history and secured the legacy of the Big Red Machine, all with one swing.

Sparky Anderson wasn’t just my favorite manager … he was my mom’s favorite manager.

It took exactly one month of regular season play for fans to accept Sparky [Anderson]—posting a 16-6 record out of the gate has that kind of effect.

...the Big Red Machine was exactly that—a freaking machine.

Rose worked and played so hard that kids all across the country—not just in Cincinnati—were emulating him on sandlots everywhere, proud to dirty their jerseys doing a headfirst “Pete Rose” dive into cardboard boxes used for bases … whether they needed to slide or not.

Dave Concepción exceeded everyone’s expectations—everyone’s except, perhaps, his own. That’s because as a kid, Concepción idolized Major League Hall of Fame shortstop and fellow-Venezuelan Luis Aparicio, and he aspired to become that same caliber of player.

October 1976 was the penultimate performance of Bench’s Hall of Fame career. All the early success and awards and accolades thrown in his direction had prepared him for this moment—when the Big Red Machine became a dynasty by defending it’s World Championship from the season before.

[Tony] Pérez stood out because he was a clutch hitter. And like Bench and Morgan and Rose, it was a clutch October hit that immortalized him in baseball’s postseason lore. The powerful first baseman hit three home runs against Boston during the 1975 World Series, but none bigger than his blast against Bill Lee.

Very few who manage a big league club are successful, fewer still are the ones who experience success over an extended period of time, but to achieve a level of success so extraordinary that it is given a category all it’s own—“The Big Red Machine”—places Sparky [Anderson] in one of the most exclusive and elite clubs in baseball history.

[George] Foster lacks the name recognition outside of Cincinnati that other members of the Big Red machine maintain, but that doesn’t diminish his contributions to the club—he followed his MVP campaign with three more seasons of 20-plus home runs and 90-plus RBIs, never mind the fact he batted .326 during three trips to the World Series. And just like Rose and Morgan and Bench during their MVP seasons, Foster can say, if only for that one summer, he was the best in the game.

True, [Gary Nolan] might not strike fear into the hearts of all you free-swinging power hitters out there—at least not in the same way as, say, Tom Seaver … but without question he was one of the most talented pitchers in baseball during the Big Red Machine era, and except for countless injuries that plagued him year after year he’d have the numbers and awards to back up that claim.

After being maligned for his lack of offense for much of his career, [César] Gerónimo batted .280 with two home runs, a triple, three runs, and three RBIs vs. Boston during the 1975 World Series, and then he batted .308 with two doubles, two steals, and three runs vs. New York during the 1976 World Series. The man who’s defense Sparky Anderson called 'ungodly' became an offensive star on baseball’s biggest stage.

It’s Curt Schilling and his bloody sock staring down the Yankees in the Bronx. It’s Derek Lowe taking the mound the very next night to complete the most improbable comeback in baseball history—and then seven days later clinching the World Series. It’s Pedro Martinez and his six hitless innings of postseason relief against the Indians. Yes, it is also Cy Young and Roger Clemens, and the 192 wins in a Red Sox uniform that they share—the perfect game for Young, the 20 strikeout games for Clemens—but it is also Bill Dinneen clinching the 1903 World Series with a busted, bloody hand, and Jose Santiago shutting down Minnesota with two games left in the season to keep the 1967 Impossible Dream alive, and Jim Lonborg clinching the Impossible Dream the very next day, and Jim Lonborg again, tossing a one-hitter and a three-hitter in the 1967 World Series, and Luis Tiant in the 1975 postseason, shutting out Oakland and Cincinnati in back-to-back starts. They are all winners.

It’s much easier to remember the World Series heroics of Tony Pérez, Pete Rose, and Joe Morgan than it is to recall who set the table for Rose during Game 7 of the 1975 World Series vs. Boston. The Red Sox led 3-2 in the seventh when [Ken] Griffey drew a free pass. Not nearly as memorable as the home run Pérez hit against Bill Lee that made it a 3-2 ballgame, not nearly as memorable as the hit Rose got to tie the game, and for sure not as memorable as the hit Morgan got to win it in the ninth, but … it’s a shame people forget Griffey stole second base with two outs to get into scoring position.

The train lurched and I saw my face in the window again. I wanted to calm the scared kid who was looking back at me, but didn’t know how.

Beautiful day for a funeral, I thought.

isn’t frowning on the new craze. It’s actively promoting sports gambling with corporate partnerships and in-game graphics broadcast on national television, giving viewers live betting odds of the current batter’s chances of hitting a home run in that very moment. There’s simply too much money in play not to be involved. In 2023, fans in America wagered more than one hundred billion dollars on sports, enough money that they could have pooled their cash to buy the Cincinnati Reds a hundred times over or purchase every single Major League Baseball team—and still have billions of dollars left in their pockets.

Chicago Black Sox eight members of the Chicago White Sox, a Major League Baseball team, accused of intentionally losing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money

Felipe Alou once told me a story that crystallized the state of Expos baseball, and of Olympic Stadium, in the late '90s. "I have a friend from the Dominican Republic who's a team owner there," said Alou. "My friend is a very successful man in business and baseball, a very rich man. One year he came to Montreal to talk with me and to see the Expos' operations. He came with some friends from the Dominican Republic and stayed at the hotel downtown, the Queen Elizabeth. He told me that he went around the city to see if he could buy an Expos hat. He couldn't find a store downtown that would sell him one. Then, he and his two friends took a taxi to go to Olympic Stadium. When they arrived, the driver knew where Olympic Stadium was, but didn't know where the entrance was. "He told me that for the one week he was in town, he never saw one person with an Expos hat. The day he went to see a game the first time, we had 12,000 fans. He told me those 12,000 fans had to be the best fans in the world. When he arrived at the stadium-let's say we were playing the Cincinnati Reds-he and his friends got out of the taxi and walked around the stadium, and there were no signs anywhere that said, 'Tonight, the Expos play Cincinnati.' How could they even get 12,000 fans, he wanted to know, if he couldn't find a hat, he doesn't see a store downtown that sells hats, and when he comes to the ballpark, you can't find the door, and there are no signs advertising the game? My friend said, 'No wonder they don't have any fans here!