I've already posted once on this thread, but I wanted to add that I don't believe you can ever replace the players you rooted for as a kid in your list of favorite players; it is like a first love.
I enjoyed the Reds 1990 World Champions, but I was 35 years old by then, older than the Reds players. 35 year old men don't ordinarily worship 25 year old baseball players. You cheer for them, but that's it. I think if I met Barry Larkin or Eric Davis or Jose Rijo, I could talk to them. I'd be respectful, but I would know they were just men.
Ah, but when you are a kid of 10 or 11, those players are virtually gods. If I met Pete Rose or Johnny Bench or Tony Perez, I'd be speechless at first, even now. They are the players whose photos hung on my walls as a kid, whose baseball cards I thrilled to get. I started rooting for the Reds in the spring of 1966. Rose was starting his fourth year in the majors, Perez his second. No one else who later made up the Big Red Machine was even on the scene yet. I got to see the first at bats, the first pitches of Bench, Nolan, Gullett, Concepcion, Griffey Sr.. I was already "there" when Foster, Carroll, Morgan, Billingham, Geronimo, Borbon, Norman arrived via trades. I saw them come, I saw them go. I saw them fail terribly (the 1972 World Series and 1973 NLCS) and I saw them win gloriously (the 1975-76 World Series).
The Big Red Machine was the greatest team in Reds history, but even if some future Reds team would surpass the BRM in wins and championships, no team, in no sport will ever surpass what the BRM are to me--the greatest, the most loved team of my life.
I still recall my reaction when I was at Riverfront Stadium in the summer of 2000 for ceremonies honoring Sparky Anderson's induction into the Hall of Fame. Highlights of the Big Red Machine in its prime were shown on the Stadium's screens, and then the individual members of the Big Red Machine, much older than they appeared to be in those highlights (other than Perez, who seemed not to have aged) came onto the field, one by one. Chills ran down my spine and tears came to my eyes, surprising me. That reaction expressed my love for a team and I guess my sense of what had been lost, theirs and my youth.
My ten favorite Reds of all time? Pretty much any player who wore a Reds uniform between 1966 and 1976.
Originally Posted by RedsBaron
It's easy to love the star players like Rose, Bench, Perez, and Davis. I have my ten, some I can't explain why, but will always hold a place as Reds whom I really liked for one reason or another...
