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I'm not Red-y. I've been wanting to do the Reds for years but JCL always grabs them. This time they were available so I called "Reds!" forgetting for a moment they were the second series of the year...and crap, is it KTE time already?
I won't pretend I know anything about their contemporary selves except but what most of you do: no closer at the moment; a new manager who was a pitcher; a really fast guy who doesn't get on base; a first baseman who walks a lot but seems to be hitting already; a cranky second baseman whose better days seem comfortably behind him; a third baseman from those Little League champs from New Jersey everyone feted a generation ago but when the Mets invited them to Shea, via local boy Al Leiter, they were like, "nah, we're tired"; assorted injuries; a lousy first series; and weariness from bad weather, which maybe will play to our advantage as they trudge into town.
This is all without looking at Adam Rubin, who per usual, beat man on the spot with all the details. I suggest you dig in if you want a lot more current Reds.
So why did I want them?
Because they're the Reds. They're the flagship franchise of the National League, sort of. Cincinnati was first with professional baseball, where the NL convened officially after the Dodgers and Giants vamoosed. They were the team that was in the playoffs almost every year, the team that a big machine named after them, the team that went it tightened its last critical gear rolled over everybody and everything in 1975 with frightening efficiency, the team that didn't lose a single postseason game in 1976.
The team that lost to the Mets and swept the MFYs. The team that provided safe harbor for Seaver when Shea was too toxic. The team that greeted me as quasi-home team when I went to college in Tampa because they trained there and kept a single-A club there. A team that moaned about having the best record in baseball but not getting a sniff in 1981. A team that fell as far and fast in 1982 as the Mets did in 1977, compelling them to -- what else? -- trade Tom Seaver.
A team that refound its mojo with our old villain, Pete Rose. A team that could not get the last out against one night in 1986 and thus opened the door to the epic signature game of that Met regular season, the best regular season any NL team had put on the board since the Reds of 1975. Except we had better pitching and couldn't wait to rid ourselves of George Foster.
And there they were, back in the spotlight four years later, our closer exchanged for theirs. With nasty boys and a kooky lady owner, they went wire to wire and Randy Myers led them through ninth innings to a world championship and Eric Davis nearly killed himself and Jose Rijo made George Steinbrenner look bad and so did Lou Piniella. And then the Reds faded into the shadows of the Braves in the last years of the authentic NL West of our youth.
The Reds of the National League Central had their moments in the '90s. They wore their own 125th anniversary patch. They brought Kevin Mitchell to Riverfront Stadium, but not as an enemy combatant. They got screwed in 1994 like the Expos but didn't bitch about it. Marge Schott got crazier and crazier and sold out. The Reds hired Jack McKeon and decided to make the Mets' lives miserable from afar during the precipitous Wild Card collapse of 1999, but then they stutterstepped and we regrouped and, as in 1973, they succumbed to the Mets when it counted -- with Al Leiter of Toms River blowing them and their rapidly obsoleting stadium into the Ohio.
No Rose in sight, but a new stadium in the 21st century. The team we see now coalesced while the Citi Field era was getting us down. They've been to the playoffs three times in four seasons under Dusty Baker yet came away perceived as failures because, well, that's what happens with expanded, extended playoffs. And this year is probably a rebuilding year or a descending year. They might be who we need to play right now. (Bite my tongue for saying that.)
Forty years ago today, Hank Aaron homered off Jack Billingham at Riverfront for career No. 714. The 1974 Reds, coming off their defeat to the 1973 Mets, would go on to win 98 games but lose their division. You wouldn't see a situation like that for eleven years, when it happened to the 1985 Mets in the NL East.
Thirty years ago today, the Mets won their first game of the Davey Johnson era at Riverfront after an embarrassing Opening Day loss. Before that road trip was over, the Mets be 6-1 and on their way to better days. Tonight would be a good starting point for better days, too.
Mejia vs. Leake. Gee vs. Cueto. Niese vs. Simon. Duda is your everyday first baseman. Wear a coat and bring an umbrella is your best advice.
Hope the short version of the KTE was adequate. Enjoy the long version of the song that wouldn't leave my head the one time I visited Cincinnati.
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