by As a kid in the 1970s, my baseball team of choice was the Cincinnati Reds. This was the era of the Big Red Machine, winners of two World Series, with roster of future Hall of Famers including Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Pérez; baseball’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose; and the rest of a starting lineup known as the “Great Eight” which in Davey Concepción, George Foster, César Gerónimo and Ken Griffey, Sr., all under the direction of manager Sparky Anderson.
So while in Cincinnati, a visit to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum at the Great American Ballpark was on my list of must-see sites. It did take two attempts in order to make it inside — I first tried to visit on a Sunday afternoon when it was closed due to a Bengals game that was being played at nearby Paycor Stadium. But the second time was a charm!
The museum honors Reds’ players from the team’s entire history dating back to 1881. Winner of five World Series and nine National League pennants, the Reds have enough history to fill up Major League Baseball’s largest single-team museum!
Fun fact: By complete chance, I was in the Cincinnati area in 2011 for a conference when I noticed that this statue of Johnny Bench was scheduled to be unveiled during Johnny Bench Night at the Great American Ballpark.
I was able to nab a last-minute ticket right on the third base line so I was able to see Bench throw out the first pitch to Joe Morgan, and witness the festivities.
Sparky Anderson once said, “I don’t want to embarrass any other catcher by comparing him to Johnny Bench.”
When we were in Oklahoma City in 2024, we also visited the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame which has inducted native son Bench into its roster as well.
Pete Rose
Pete Rose, nicknamed Charlie Hustle, is one of baseball’s major tragedies. He still holds many major league baseball records, including all-time hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215), and outs (10,328). In the late 1980s, it arose that Rose had gambled on baseball games, and he was banned from MLB and ruled permanently ineligible from being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Contentiously unrepentant for many years, Rose finally admitted that he had bet on baseball and on the Reds when he was managing and playing for the team. But no forgiveness would be forthcoming from MLB, though the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame had no such qualms and inducted him into their roster in 2016. The Reds retired his jersey number 14 in that same year.
Rose passed away on September 30, 2024, just a few weeks before our visit to Cincinnati. His statue outside the Great American Ballpark was still festooned with tributes and memorials to the player (see the cover photo to this post), and the entryway to the Museum included a memorial to his legacy.
Pete Rose was so popular in his time that he was a fixture in pop culture.
Did you know that in Billy Joel mentions Pete Rose in his song “Zanzibar” on the 52nd Street album? The 1978 release includes the lyric, “Rose, he knows he’s such a credit to the game / But the Yankees grab the headlines every time.”
In 1985, the Cincinnati Art Museum commissioned Andy Warhol to create a painting of Rose to commemorate his anticipating reaching Ty Cobb’s all-time hitting record of 4,192 hits.
The painting was hung in the museum’s gallery on September 10, 1985, and Rose broke the record before a hometown crowd the very next day.
Presidential Connections
The Museum take care to highlight connections with two of Ohio’s native son Presidents.
The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were a popular and successful team of the era. They undertook a national tour that year, playing teams around the country. On a stop in Washington, D.C., they were received by Ulysses S. Grant at the White House.
Benjamin Harrison attended an 1892 game in Washington, D.C., in which the Reds defeated the Senators. This is the first time a sitting President attended a professional baseball game.
