magnetic, approachable, and (now) white-haired character named “Sparky” had become one of the most liked and instantly recognizable characters in all of American sports, an ambassador for his sport and a star in his own right. By the end of his first season, when he’d led the Reds into a World Series that they lost in five games to Earl Weaver’s fearsome Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati’smanagement insisted that their manager now sign all his autographs as “Sparky.” Contemporary marketing experts call the process “building the brand,” but his popularity came about in a much more organic way: Sparky simply liked every kind of people, and the impact he made on them was often profound. During the week they’d spent in Boston for this World Series, Sparky had already made a dozen friends for life, won over every tough Southie cabdriver he’d encountered, and had the notoriously cynical Boston sportswriting fraternity following him around like a pack of happy puppies. Sparky possessed the rare gifts of presence and poise, sincerity, good humor, and authenticity, and as his parents had taught him to do, he treated every human being he met as his equal. As much as Sparky always liked to downplay his contributions, there was a whole lot more to managing a big-league squad than writing out the lineup card. But you never heard him take credit for it—Rod Dedeaux and Casey Stengel had taught him that as well—another part of what made him such an exceptional leader of men.
The 1975 Cincinnati Reds had everything: power, speed, exceptional defense—at one point in 1975 they went fifteen straight games without committing an error, another major-league record—a strong and versatile bench, and a bulletproof committee bullpen that had led the National League in saves with fifty. No wonder their good starting pitchers never got the credit they deserved. But as great as the Reds were in 1975, and had been consistently for the six years since Anderson arrived, they hadn’t yet won the World Series that would validate their vaunted reputation. Cincinnati’s historical record in the Fall Classic, although not as operatic or lavishly lamented as that of the Red Sox, was every bit as dismal, and on the facts less than half as productive. After winning their first World Series championship in 1919, the Reds waited twenty years for their second and had captured just one more National League pennant since, in 1961, only to be steamrollered in a five-game Series by the powerhouse Yankees. Another decade of doldrums followed, but since Sparky had taken the helm, the Reds had climbed within reach of that elusive prize twice, only to come away both times empty-handed.So it hardly mattered now that they were only one game away from the championship again; Stengel had said it to him first decades ago and Dedeaux had repeated it ad infinitum, and Sparky kept saying it now in the same classically fractured baseball syntax until he was blue in the face: They don’t hand out no trophies for second place.
If his Reds didn’t close the deal this time, Sparky knew that the combustible mixture of talent, luck, and locker room chemistry that enabled any winning ball club to perform at its peak could blow apart on the first strong breeze. No one in Cincinnati’s front office had said as much to him, and they didn’t need to; he knew that his own job, the jobs of his coaching staff and almost every man on the roster, hung in the balance. Every championship team had to learn to win at this level, and by any fair measure the men of the Big Red Machine had all had more than enough postseason education. It was expected of them now. It was time.
One more win.
And so the question for tonight. He’d moved Morgan back up into the second spot for the first two games of the Series, on the heavy, wet grass of Fenway, dropping Griffey down to seventh. They’d split those games, an acceptable result. Back home on the turf at Riverfront for Games
The 1975 Cincinnati Reds had everything: power, speed, exceptional defense—at one point in 1975 they went fifteen straight games without committing an error, another major-league record—a strong and versatile bench, and a bulletproof committee bullpen that had led the National League in saves with fifty. No wonder their good starting pitchers never got the credit they deserved. But as great as the Reds were in 1975, and had been consistently for the six years since Anderson arrived, they hadn’t yet won the World Series that would validate their vaunted reputation. Cincinnati’s historical record in the Fall Classic, although not as operatic or lavishly lamented as that of the Red Sox, was every bit as dismal, and on the facts less than half as productive. After winning their first World Series championship in 1919, the Reds waited twenty years for their second and had captured just one more National League pennant since, in 1961, only to be steamrollered in a five-game Series by the powerhouse Yankees. Another decade of doldrums followed, but since Sparky had taken the helm, the Reds had climbed within reach of that elusive prize twice, only to come away both times empty-handed.So it hardly mattered now that they were only one game away from the championship again; Stengel had said it to him first decades ago and Dedeaux had repeated it ad infinitum, and Sparky kept saying it now in the same classically fractured baseball syntax until he was blue in the face: They don’t hand out no trophies for second place.
If his Reds didn’t close the deal this time, Sparky knew that the combustible mixture of talent, luck, and locker room chemistry that enabled any winning ball club to perform at its peak could blow apart on the first strong breeze. No one in Cincinnati’s front office had said as much to him, and they didn’t need to; he knew that his own job, the jobs of his coaching staff and almost every man on the roster, hung in the balance. Every championship team had to learn to win at this level, and by any fair measure the men of the Big Red Machine had all had more than enough postseason education. It was expected of them now. It was time.
One more win.
And so the question for tonight. He’d moved Morgan back up into the second spot for the first two games of the Series, on the heavy, wet grass of Fenway, dropping Griffey down to seventh. They’d split those games, an acceptable result. Back home on the turf at Riverfront for Games
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