Written back in 2002…
It was July, 1984. I was 14 years old.
My mom, grandmother and I were on a vacation. We had visited historic Madison, IN on the Ohio river, and eventually snaked our way up some riverside road into Cincinnati. We stayed at what would become my all-time favorite hotel, a round building just across the river in Covington. We had a room on the very top floor facing the river that gave us a breathtaking view of downtown Cincinnati.
We lived in Indianapolis, but I’d been to Cincy lots of time. We had family there. But this was the first time I’d ever stayed downtown, and I spent the time standing on our hotel balcony and staring at what still is my favorite place in the entire world… Riverfront Stadium.
We decided to venture down to the river one afternoon, and we made our way up to the plaza of the stadium. While they were gazing over the edge at the water, I was snooping around the outside of the stadium itself. The Reds weren’t in town that day, but I eventually found an open door and walked in.
I’d only been to the stadium once before – four or five years earlier to see the Reds play the Astros-- but I was in love with the place nevertheless. I walked around in wonder for awhile, and eventually sat down in one of the green seats and just stared, imagining my heroes were lighting some poor team up out there on that field. Someone in a red jacket – I still don’t know who it was – was jogging around the warning track, and he was the only person I saw in the stadium for nearly 20 minutes.
I had a picture in my pocket of the girl I’d just fallen in love with, and I was sitting in the Taj Majal of the baseball world, at least to me. I was in heaven.
Finally, some guy came by and asked me what I was doing there. I told him I’d found an open door, and now I was sitting there looking at the field. He said I’d need to leave soon, and he walked off. I left a few minutes later.
I’m not kidding when I say that experience changed my life.
I’d been a Reds fan since I was little. When I first remember watching baseball, it was the mid 70’s, and if you watched baseball back then, you more often than not were watching the Reds pound somebody. My dad and my older brother were Reds fans. I guess I didn’t have a chance.
My dad, who wasn’t around much, would buy four or five packs of ball cards. We’d open them together and look through them, so we kinda knew who was in there. Then, he would turn them upside down and shuffle them like a regular pack of cards, and then deal them, one at a time, to me and my brother. It was like digging through a bucket of dirt to find the gold nugget when he got through. Which Red players did we each get!? Man, I used to love that! I couldn’t have cared less about the other cards. I wanted the Reds! To this day, I really only collect Reds baseball cards.
I was a Johnny Bench fan for awhile, but as I grew older and began to play the game myself, I became a Dave Concepcion fan. And boy, did we play baseball. My brother and I would play from the time we woke up, to the time it got too dark to play. If other guys from the neighborhood showed up, so be it. If not, then just he and I would play. I was number 13, and my brother was number 14.
The only thing that mattered more to us than actually playing was how the Reds did themselves that day. When Marty would say, “And this one belongs to the Reds,” all was right with the world.
I was as destroyed as anyone to see that team taken apart, one at a time. First Perez, then Rose, Morgan, Geronimo. The last to leave was Griffey and Foster. Bench retired. Oh, but Davey kept on. That kept me alive during the 80’s.
I was in my uncle’s Cincinnati living room later that summer when Rose returned. I was the teenager jumping up and down on my uncle’s couch when Pete got a hit in his first at bat and did a head first slide into third base. I was watching the tube when Tony Perez returned and became the oldest man to ever hit a grand slam home run.
I taped the game on September 11, 1985, because I was at a school function. I told everyone to keep their mouths shut so I could watch the game for myself. I didn’t have to watch long. A clean base hit to left-center field in the bottom of the first.
I was destroyed again in August of 1989.
I got to actually go to only a few games growing up, but my heart and ears were in that magical place every night.
In the 90’s, when I married, and eventually had kids, I made it a point to trek my family to several games a year. The Bible says to raise your children in the way they should go, and when they get older, they will not depart from it. I’m raising my kids to love God and be Reds fans! They don’t stand a chance.
The Reds hold this wonderful event every year called RedsFest. And you can get autographs from and have your picture taken with your favorite Red. My son’s favorite player is Aaron Boone, and he now has a couple of pictures of him and Aaron together. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will grow to treasure those. If I’d had a picture of me and Dave Concepcion together when I was a kid, it would be my most prized possession today.
They have this great game there called Reds Jeopardy. Four Reds players pick one person out of the crowd, and then they all compete in a Jeopardy contest of Reds trivia. Me and Brett Tomko won three years ago. And each session I’ve watched, I would’ve won hands down if I would just have gotten picked to play.
Why am I telling all of this? Because last Monday night I went to the last game ever held at Riverfront/Cinergy Field. Oh, it was just a softball game, but for one final time, they were all there. Rose, Griffey, Morgan, Perez, Bench, Foster, Concepcion and Geronimo… in that order. Along with other great Reds names like Billingham, Sabo, Davis, O’Neill, Oester, Dibble and Browning.
I got to see “Mr. Perfect” Tom Browning pitch again, and “Nasty Boy” Rob Dibble throw one over some guy’s head, and “Eric the Red” hit one out to center field. But the real show was that for one last time, I got to watch Davey make a backhanded stop. I got to see Foster hit a homerun. I saw Bench behind the plate, and Morgan flap his arm. And yes, I got to see Charlie Hustle do a headfirst slide into third base.
It was an historic event. This was not just a bunch of old-timers from somebody’s favorite team. This was a lineup that boasted FIVE legitimate Hall of Famers, with a couple of above .300 hitters and a league MVP thrown in the mix. There are enough gold gloves on this team to start a mint. There’s four home run champs, three batting titles, three Rookies of the Year, five RBI winners, six MVP’s, six division championships, four National League champs, and two World Championships! This was a team who was nearly unbeatable, at 69-18, in 1975 and ’76 when they played together.
No, this was not just another team. They were quite possibly the best team of all time. And we will very likely never see them all together ever again. For one last moment, they weren’t old guys who can barely move anymore. They were the heavy hitting, slick fielding, ever exciting, greatest baseball team that ever played. And every person in the stands was a kid again.
In the movie City Slickers, a girl asks the rest of the guys what the big deal was about baseball. I really don’t remember their answer. But I can tell you what it is for me.
Baseball is about being a kid and not having to worry about the stock market or Iraq. The Cincinnati Reds shaped my life. Watching Davey make a throw on the run like nobody’s business gave my life meaning during a time when my parents were divorcing and when I was a teenager discovering the path I was going to take.
Watching the Reds was about spending time with my brother, and making him proud every time I made a great play in a high school game. It was about collecting cards and putting my favorite player on my wall. Listening to Marty and Joe as I fell asleep at night, and pouring over the newspaper the next morning to see if they won. Winning the World Championship in 1990 helped kick off my marriage and my wife, the poor girl, is now a Reds fan whether she wanted to be or not.
Plus, she thinks Aaron Boone is pretty cute.
Now, being a Reds fan is going to games with my family. It’s staying in that round hotel and sleeping out on the balcony just so I can fall asleep looking at the stadium. It’s standing on the bank just across the river from the stadium and throwing rocks into the water with my boys just because we like the view. It’s getting a hot dog with my sons, something my dad and I never got to do. It’s watching my 7 year old son grab a bat and swing it nonstop during the entire Reds telecast on Fox Sports Net. It’s hearing him explain how Larkin could’ve avoided making that error if he’d just made the play this way and high-fiving him when Aaron hits one out. And being Reds fans is coaching my little number 17 over there at third base, even if we are the Carlisle and Son Funeral Home Cubs.
Yes, my family and I share special times together now because of the Big Red Machine all those years ago. I’m gonna miss the old place, but I didn’t care about the carpet, or how round it is, or whether its called Riverfront or Cinergy. Call it what you want. It’s where the Reds play baseball.
I know now that there are more important things in life than baseball, but when your wife and kids are standing there with you cheering on another Reds homer, I really can’t think of anything better.
There were over 41,000 people there last Monday night. But for one last time, I was all alone in the stadium, staring at the field, watching my heroes, and being a kid again.
