59 Fun Facts About Cincinnati Reds

The original Cincinnati club was expelled from the National League in 1880 for selling beer and what else?

Playing on Sundays and selling beer drew the city's large German population, and neither broke a league rule yet; the club refused to sign a pledge banning both, so the league expelled it.

The modern Reds were a charter member of which league in 1882, winning its first pennant?

American Association clubs sold beer and charged 25 cents, half the older league's price, so rivals sneered at it as the Beer and Whiskey League.

The Reds' first World Series title, in 1919, came against which team amid a scandal?

Chicago White Sox players took gamblers' money to lose; eight were acquitted in court in August 1921, and the new commissioner banned them for life the next day.

Which maker of radios and refrigerators bought the struggling Reds in 1934?

Powel Crosley Jr. bought the club in February 1934 and assured fans it would stay in Cincinnati; two months later the ballpark was renamed in his honour.

Crosley Field hosted the first what in Major League history, in 1935?

Night game history began when President Roosevelt pressed a button in the White House that switched on the lights in Cincinnati, and the Reds beat the Phillies 2–1.

Which Reds pitcher remains the only man to throw back-to-back no-hitters, in 1938?

Johnny Vander Meer almost let the second one slip: leading 6–0 in Brooklyn, he walked three straight batters to load the bases in the ninth before getting the final outs.

The Reds beat which team, led by slugger Hank Greenberg, in seven games to win the 1940 World Series?

Detroit Tigers hitters faced an emergency catcher: 40-year-old coach Jimmie Wilson was activated after the backup catcher died and the starter was hurt, caught six games and batted .353.

Who became the youngest major leaguer ever when he pitched for the Reds in 1944 at age 15?

He was on loan from a junior high school in Hamilton, Ohio, and later spent decades in the radio booth.

In 1953 the club asked to be called by what name, to avoid Cold War connotations?

Redlegs was the name from 1953, yet the jerseys kept the word Reds inside the C until 1956, and it was back by 1961.

Which former MVP did the Reds trade to Baltimore after the 1965 season?

Frank Robinson was dismissed by the Reds' owner as old for a 30-year-old, then won the AL Triple Crown and MVP the next season and carried his new club to its first World Series title.

Cincinnati women formed the Rosie Reds in 1964 to do what?

Stop the owner moving the team was the aim when talk spread in 1964 that the Reds would leave; the women called themselves Rooters Organized to Stimulate Interest and Enthusiasm, and men later joined too.

Which little-known manager took over the Reds for 1970 and led the Big Red Machine to four pennants?

Sparky Anderson was 35 and so obscure that a headline asked 'Sparky Who?'; he won 102 games and the pennant in his first season.

After Cincinnati stuffed the 1957 All-Star ballot box with Reds, the commissioner responded by doing what?

Taking the vote from fans was Ford Frick's answer after a Cincinnati newspaper printed pre-marked ballots; players, coaches and managers chose the starters until fans got the ballot back in 1970.

Which center fielder joined Cincinnati in the 1971 Houston trade for a Hall of Fame second baseman?

César Gerónimo's parents had sent him to a seminary to become a priest; he chose baseball instead and won four straight Gold Gloves in center for the Reds.

In 1975 the manager moved Pete Rose to which position so George Foster could play left field?

Third base was a position Rose had little experience at, yet he accepted the move, which opened left field for Foster's bat; the Reds won 108 games.

Whose RBI single won Game 7 of the 1975 World Series for the Reds?

Joe Morgan's ninth-inning single finished a comeback from 3–0 down and gave Cincinnati its first title in 35 years.

Which Red batted .533 and was named MVP as Cincinnati swept the 1976 World Series?

Johnny Bench homered twice and drove in five runs in the clinching game, after which his manager told reporters never to embarrass another catcher by comparing him to Bench.

As of 2025, the Reds have not lost a World Series game since which moment?

Carlton Fisk's foul-pole homer won Game 6 of 1975 in the 12th inning; Cincinnati took Game 7 the next night and then swept its next two World Series, nine wins in a row.

The 1973 Reds trailed which team by 11 games at the start of July before winning the division?

Los Angeles Dodgers led by 11 when reserve catcher Hal King, down to his last strike, hit a three-run pinch homer to beat them on July 1; the Reds went 60–26 from there.

Which slugger tied Babe Ruth's career home run record against the Reds on Opening Day 1974?

Hank Aaron hit number 714 off Jack Billingham in his first at-bat of the season; Atlanta had wanted to sit him out in Cincinnati so the record would fall at home, but the league made him play.

Which pitcher's only career no-hitter came as a Red against St. Louis in 1978?

Tom Seaver had lost no-hit bids in the ninth inning as a Met, and finally finished one a year after New York traded him away.

Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak was the longest since whose record run in 1941?

Joe DiMaggio's 56 stayed safe when Atlanta's Gene Garber struck Rose out to end it; Rose complained that Garber had pitched as if it were the seventh game of the World Series.

Whose career hits record did Pete Rose break in September 1985?

Ty Cobb's record officially fell on September 11 to a single off San Diego's Eric Show, who sat down on the mound while the celebration held up the game.

Which commissioner banned Pete Rose from baseball in 1989 following the Dowd Report?

Bart Giamatti, a former president of Yale, announced the lifetime ban in August 1989 and died of a heart attack barely a week later, aged 51.

Who mockingly gave the young Pete Rose his nickname 'Charlie Hustle' during a spring training game?

Whitey Ford meant it as a jibe, in most tellings after Rose sprinted to first base on a walk; Rose adopted the insult as a badge of honour and made it his trademark.

Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench was raised in which state?

Oklahoma raised him in tiny Binger, where he was valedictorian of his high school class and his father told him catching was the quickest route to the majors.

The Reds left Crosley Field in June 1970 for which new stadium?

Riverfront hosted the All-Star Game just two weeks after it opened, and in December 2002 it was brought down by implosion beside the new ballpark that replaced it.

The 1970 All-Star Game is remembered for Pete Rose's collision with which catcher?

Ray Fosse's X-rays showed nothing that night, so he kept playing; only the following year did doctors find that his shoulder had been fractured and separated.

Which Hall of Fame reliever retired in 1986 rather than shave his handlebar mustache to join the Reds?

Rollie Fingers had grown it in 1972 to win a cash prize that Oakland's owner offered for the team's best facial hair, and it became his trademark.

Which Reds pitcher threw a perfect game in 1988?

Tom Browning nearly did it twice: the next July he retired the first 24 Phillies he faced before a leadoff double in the ninth ended his bid for a second perfect game.

Which Red in 1987 became the first player ever to hit 30 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season?

Eric Davis needed only 129 games to do it, finishing with 37 homers; three years later he lacerated a kidney making a diving catch in the World Series.

The 1990 Reds were the first NL team in a 162-game season to do what?

Lead the division wire-to-wire they did under Lou Piniella: they won their first nine games and started 41–21, then only split their last 100 games without ever giving up first place.

The 1990 Reds bullpen trio of Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton and Randy Myers was known as what?

The Nasty Boys played up the menace with T-shirts of their own, and two of them, Dibble and Myers, shared the 1990 NLCS MVP award, the first ever given to a reliever.

Which Reds outfielder had seven consecutive hits in the 1990 World Series sweep of Oakland?

Billy Hatcher hit .750 for the Series, breaking a record Babe Ruth had held since 1928, yet the MVP award went to pitcher José Rijo instead.

Why did baseball twice ban Reds owner Marge Schott from running the team in the 1990s?

Racist remarks and praising Hitler brought her a one-year suspension in 1993 and a longer one from 1996; in 1999, under pressure from the commissioner's office, she sold her controlling interest.

What breed were Marge Schott's beloved dogs, Schottzie and Schottzie 02?

Saint Bernard Schottzie served as the club's mascot and had the run of the ballpark before games; when the dog died in 1991, it was buried at Schott's home wearing a Reds cap.

Which shortstop won the 1995 NL MVP as the Reds took the division and an NLDS?

Barry Larkin beat out the slugger Dante Bichette, who had led the league in homers and RBIs, to become the first shortstop to win the NL award since Maury Wills in 1962.

The Reds' riverside home that opened in 2003 is called what?

Great American Ball Park sounds patriotic but is named for an insurer: Great American Insurance bought the naming rights for $75 million over thirty years.

The two smokestacks in right-center at the Reds' home ballpark evoke what?

Ohio River steamboats inspired the stacks, which launch fireworks after every Reds home run; each is topped with seven bats, so the pair adds up to Pete Rose's No. 14.

Which first baseman won the 2010 NL MVP as the Reds took their first division title in 15 years?

The Toronto native then spent his whole 17-year career in Cincinnati and led the club in career walks.

Which pitcher no-hit the Reds in Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS?

Roy Halladay had pitched in twelve seasons for Toronto without reaching the playoffs; in his first postseason start he allowed only a fifth-inning walk.

Which pitcher threw no-hitters for the Reds in both 2012 and 2013?

Homer Bailey nearly lost the 2013 one in the seventh inning, when he was late covering first base; his first baseman threw out a runner at third instead, so the batter reached on a fielder's choice, not a hit.

Which team began 1988 even worse than the 2022 Reds' 3–22?

Baltimore Orioles fired manager Cal Ripken Sr. after six straight losses and lost the next fifteen too; when the 2022 Reds reached 3–22, no other club since 1901 had started worse.

Which rookie hit for the cycle in his 15th career game in 2023, the first Red to do so since 1989?

Elly De La Cruz completed it with a sixth-inning triple as the Reds rallied from 5–0 down to win their twelfth game in a row.

Which veteran manager was hired by the Reds in October 2024?

Terry Francona came out of a year's retirement and took the Reds to the playoffs in 2025, the third time he had reached the postseason in his first season with a club.

Which broadcasting Hall of Famer debuted with the Reds in 1974, replacing Al Michaels?

Marty Brennaman stayed in the booth through 2019 and coined his trademark victory call, 'This one belongs to the Reds!', within his first two weeks on the job.

The Reds' mustachioed, pillbox-capped logo mascot has what for a head?

A ball for a head, stitched like a baseball, tops an old-time player first drawn by a newspaper cartoonist in 1953; he lost the mustache in 1968 and got it back in a 2007 redesign.

The Reds' 1961 pennant winners lost the World Series to which team?

New York Yankees sluggers Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle had spent the summer chasing Babe Ruth's home run record, and their club needed only five games to beat the underdog Reds.

The Big Red Machine's 'Great Eight' lineup included which right fielder?

Ken Griffey sat out the last day of 1976 to protect his lead in the batting race, but Bill Madlock went 4-for-4; Griffey entered late, went hitless and lost the title, .339 to .336.

The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the Reds' namesakes, made history by doing what?

Paying every player a salary let them win all 57 official games in 1869; when the club broke up a year later, Harry Wright took its name and several players to Boston.

When the Reds moved spring training to Goodyear, Arizona, in 2010, which team did they join there?

Cleveland Guardians, then the Indians, had arrived a year earlier, so Ohio's two clubs share one Arizona camp. The Reds had trained in Florida nearly every spring since 1923.

Which muscular 1950s Reds slugger cut the sleeves off his jersey because they were too tight on his arms?

Ted Kluszewski took scissors to the jersey himself, and when the front office got upset he said it was either that or change his swing.

Which Reds general manager of the 1930s later ran two New York clubs and reached the Hall of Fame?

Larry MacPhail, once in charge in Brooklyn, brought the Reds' radio voice Red Barber there in 1939.

The 96-win 1999 Reds missed the playoffs after a one-game tiebreaker loss to which team?

New York Mets left-hander Al Leiter threw a two-hit shutout in Cincinnati, a 5–0 win that took the wild card and ended the Reds' season.

Which Reds reliever threw a pitch clocked above 105 mph in 2010, then the fastest ever recorded?

Aroldis Chapman had defected a year earlier by walking out of the Cuban national team's hotel in Rotterdam and into a friend's waiting car.

Cincinnati's steel-and-concrete ballpark that opened in 1912 was originally called what?

Redland Field was renamed in 1934, and in the great flood of 1937 pitcher Lee Grissom rowed a boat over its outfield fence.

Which businessman led the buyers of Marge Schott's controlling stake in 1999?

Carl Lindner stayed in the background as owner, except in 2000, when he collected the superstar centre fielder he had just traded for from the airport in his own Rolls-Royce.

Which Reds pitcher, nicknamed 'The Whip', was the staff's mainstay in the 1940s before arm trouble?

Ewell Blackwell threw a no-hitter in June 1947 and carried another into the ninth inning of his very next start before Eddie Stanky broke it up.

In 1884 the club lost its Bank Street Grounds lease to a rival Union Association team called what?

The Outlaw Reds were bankrolled by former Reds owner Justus Thorner, who secured the lease for them, so the older club had to build a new park a few blocks away.