The Big Red Hybrid (One Sixty-Two: Day 23)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Twenty-Three: Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds

I’ve been enjoying Joe Posnanski’s The Machine, a deliciously detailed book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Posnanski, who writes for Sports Illustrated, has crafted a vibrant chronicle of one of the great seasons any team has had in baseball history. The Big Red Machine, as the Cincinnati club was called at this time, was a thoroughly dominant club, yet had to win one of the closest World Series of all time in order to claim the championship it craved.

As I read The Machine, I’m inspired to learn of the belief that so many Reds players had in one another, as well as the tremendous confidence that manager Sparky Anderson had in his club. As the team struggled in mid-May, Anderson unloaded on his players before a game in Montreal: “I’m sick and damn tired of hearing that the Big Red Machine is dead,” Posnanski quotes Anderson as saying. “That’s what they’re saying out there. That we’re dead. Well, let me tell you something, we ain’t dead. We’re gonna win this thing. We’re gonna win because this is the best damn team in baseball.”

Star players such as Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez responded to Anderson’s leadership in a big way, leading the Reds to 108 wins on the year, including 90 wins in their last 125 games, followed by that classic seven-game World Series win against the Red Sox. The Reds would follow their amazing ’75 season with another championship in 1976.

From 1970-76, the Cincinnati Reds won four pennants, claimed two titles, and made the playoffs five times. Yet in the 34 years since then, the Reds have made the playoffs just three times. Cincinnati has not been a part of the postseason at all in the past 15 years, and has not finished with a winning record since 2000. They don’t use terms like Big Red Machine when speaking of this ballclub anymore.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball’s first professional team in 1869, and the city of Cincinnati has played an essential role in the history of the game. Part of baseball’s greatness lies in its tradition and history, and it is time that the tradition of winning returns to the city of Cincinnati.

Joey Votto is where it all begins. The 26-year-old first baseman is one current Red who would have done just fine on the Big Red Machine. Votto hits over .300, drives in runs, hits homers over the wall and smacks doubles off the wall. He takes his walks, steals the occasional base, and fields his position. As with so many stars of the post-steroid era, Votto is more of a hybrid than a diesel engine – he quietly, steadily, and efficiently gets the job done.

The Reds are not yet a team full of Joey Vottos. But one can only hope that sooner rather than later, the franchise will find a way to surround Votto with a roster capable of winning it all. It can be done. As Votto himself proves, these modern times don’t require a machine. Just a lot of clean, energy efficiency. Like doubles off the wall.