I grew up watching baseball on TV and playing it too, and for reasons I don’t recall my Dad’s favorite team was the Cincinnati Reds. Every Saturday afternoon was baseball time. I followed along a lot, loved learning the history and the stats, and of course right there in my formative years was when the Reds were at the top of their game. I got to see them play in person only once, at a spring training game in Orlando (back when Orlando had spring training!) and the part I remember most was Pete Rose getting a hit that hit the pitcher right in the helmet, knocked him down but no injury, Rose went out to check on him (though not a lot of sympathy I thought!).

Somewhere after that I moved away from the game, and I guess even today I’m not sure why. Was never interested in playing pro, but I think I developed different interests, game changing maybe. Since then I go to a game or two in spring training, but rarely watch during regular season. Live games are relaxing, on TV they try to entertain, and I don’t think it needs any help!

The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds

Anyway, as I’m apt to do I was checking the new book shelf at the library and ran across the book, thought it would be fun to read. It was fun, though if you didn’t have the connection probably not nearly as interested. I’d heard the stories over the years about the friction and rivalries, and most of those are illustrated here. Maybe the biggest surprise was Sparky Anderson, definitely more of a character than I had realized. Never realized Johnny Bench was as cocky as he was (helps if you can live up to it!), and was surprised to find that a lot of the supporting cast triggered vague memories as well. Lots of interesting stories, reasonably well written, and for a while I was transported back to less complicated days.

If you’re not familiar with them, Wikipedia has a pretty good set of notes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Red_Machine, and I found a picture of the team back then to include.

I also think – though it’s hard to know – that watching them play as a team helped create my own love for playing on good teams, for work or fun. I’ve never had the chance to work with a team with 8 superstars and I’m sure it would have it’s challenges, but also fun to see what that kind of team might accomplish