What is the most powerful baseball memory from your childhood?

[cincrazy]

So many memories from 1999. Pokey and his walk-off shot, Eddie Taubansee had a huge game late in the season against the Cards that I recall fondly, and on and on. That season was just one late inning win after another for the Reds.

[dfs]

1972 game five of the NL playoffs. Johnny Bench's leadoff home run in the 9th inning of the deciding game five. This home run tied the game and the Reds won it later in the inning. This was my first big moment of being a Reds fan. I can remember getting really excited and when Bench hit it out my dad jumped up out of his chair and gave a big clap of his hands. He rarely got this excited over a sports event. I knew then it must be big!

I'm glad somebody else brought this up before I wrote about it. Mine would have been much longer.

After the loss to the Orioles in 1970, this brought the majesty of playoff baseball home to me. My sister and I just sat there on the couch screaming at the television in joy. Of course those damned A's with all that facial hair brought us back to reality a few days later. Gene Tennace? You've got to be kidding me. Who the heck is Gene Tennace anyway?

Sometime in game 4 of the 1990 series, Dave Stewart was cruising with a lead and he stepped on a balloon that had randomly made it's way to the pitching mound at the coliseum. For some reason this act of violence offended my sister and I and we sensed this as some turning point in the game. Sure enough the reds got just enough runs to get the job done. You can queue up the X-files music and I won't be offended. Yes, it makes no sense at all.

You want to talk about obscure series heroes, I'll take your Gene Tenace and raise you with a Billy Bates.

I was very young in 1972 and of course older in 1990. My sister made a special trip home to watch those 1990 games. Before writing this, I don't know that I had ever realized how connected those moments are in my mind.

[mth123]

7 in 1990! I was graduating college!

Oy!

Mine is Pete Rose's hit streak. I remember the BRM in 75 and 76 but Rose's hit streak seemed to garner a lot more publicity. I remember when the streak, there was a video montage with Bob Seger's "Still The Same" playing as accompaniment.

I remember that video with Still the Same playing. I loved that.

[mth123]

My Dad's boss gave him tickets occassionally and the seats were right next to the walkway from the clubhouse to the Reds dugout at Crosley Field. We were about four rows back and maybe only 10 feet or so from the Reds dugout. It seemed like we could hear everything going on.

One day, Billy McCool was getting rocked in a game and Dave Bristol yanked him in the second inning. The fans were booing McCool pretty hard. As McCool walked off the field and down the runway to the clubhouse (just a couple feet from my seat) he threw his arms up and screamed at the crowd "I'll take you all on."

[RedsBaron]

Selecting only one memory as the most powerful is almost impossible for me.
As a spectator, I can quickly run down those memories which I stuck with me the longest, including:
1. Attending my first major league baseball game at Crosley Field in 1965. We took the train from Huntington to Cincinnati, and the train trip itself was a huge highlight for a ten year old. I can recall the thrill of seeing Crosley Field for the first time; it seemed so huge. I was a Cardinals fan then and got a photograph of Steve Carlton posing for me before the game.
2. After I became a Reds fan, I got Reds players autographs, especially Pete Rose's on several ocassions. I still have a 1969 scorecard with Rose, Perez and Bench's autographs. I can recall one visit in either 1966 or 1967 when I am convinced that Rose was hitting fungoes to a bat boy; I am convinced that he tried to hit one ball into the stands to me.
3. There were plenty of great moments as a fan watching the Big Red Machine, but none is better than game seven of the 1975 World Series when the Reds finally brought home a World Championship.
As a player, I can still recall striking out to end a little league loss, 16-13, with two runners on base at age 10. That failure hurt. I can recall the best year I ever had as a player, batting .565 as a 15 year old in my only season of Babe Ruth play. Just passing ball with my sons is a joy now.

[princeton]

that feeling that you got the moment that you realized that the ball that you were running in to catch was actually hit over your head.

life is baseball and baseball is life.

[KoryMac5]

Going to Yankee Stadium with my dad when I was in 3rd grade, nothing like a Yankee Stadium hotdog and a nice day of baseball.

[_Sir_Charles_]

This one's easy. My first time walking through the tunnel up to our seats at Riverfront back in the mid 70's. My first glimpse of that bright green "grass". It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. I've been hooked ever since.

Cut me some slack, I was like 5 or 6 years old....I had no concept of what turf was. To me, it was a beautifully manicured lawn. :O)

[Roy Tucker]

I've got 3...

10/4/64 - Watching the last game of the Reds' season on TV. If the Reds win, they are NL champs. Top of the 6th, the Reds are down 4-0. Tony Gonzalez rolls one into LF with the bases loaded to score 2 and then Dick Allen hits a 3-run HR to bust the game wide open. I'm 12 years old, watching with my dad, and I say "damn" which is something I have never ever said in front of my dad. Thinking I was going to get beat, instead he just says "yeah". Broke my young heart that day.

7/7/65 - Reds-Dodgers at Crosley, Sandy Koufax vs. Sammy Ellis but both get shelled. Leo Cardenas hits one into to LF screen in the bottom of the 9th to win the game 7-6. I can still see it hit the screeen and the vibrations ripples out. First time I've ever been at a game with a walk-off HR (wasn't called that then). I kinda lose my mind for a minute.

10/4/99 - Reds-Mets playoff game - we're sitting behind the Reds dugout and the stadium thunders like it hasn't in 20 years. The crowd is primed like I can't believe. Edgardo Alfonso hits a 2 run HR off Steve Parris in the top of the 1st and you could hear a pin drop. The only sound I hear is all the Mets whooping it up in their dugout. The air whooshes out of the stadium Al Leiter pitches a gem. Idiots run on the field all game. I haven't been this disappointed since 1964.

[George Anderson]

1) When I was about 5 I used to stand out in my back yard, throw the ball up and TRY to hit it. Out of the 100 or so times I threw the ball in the air I may have hit it once but it was a GREAT feeling when I did.

2) Seeing Cesar Geronimo catch the final out of the 75' Series. Seeing that and the celebration afterwards hooked me to the BRM and the Reds franchise.

3) If age 17 is youth then it has to be winning the Sectional Championship in HS baseball when it was back in the days of single class sports. I played on a small Catholic HS team (Scecina) that has a little above .500 record. We were in the same Sectional as the #2 (North Central) and #10 (Cathedral) ranked teams in the state and also the team that won the Indianapolis City Tourney (Chatard). With the help of a great draw we ended up winning the Sectional. We ended up getting spanked by Jeff George and Warren Central in the Regional but winning the Sectional was hands down an amazing thing and a driving force in why I stay active in the game today thru umpiring and past coaching

[jmcclain19]

The 1989 San Fran/Oakland series getting interrupted by an earthquake. I'd say it's one of the most powerful because I was 10, it was my first real baseball memory that I can remember experiencing in live time, not watching it on TWIB or reading about it in the paper the next day.

[westofyou]

I can remember experiencing in live time

Me too... me too.

[SMcGavin]

As a spectator: The '99 pennant chase. I grew up identifying as a Reds fan but that was when I started to take it seriously.

As a player: The first time I got to pitch. I loved pitching because I got to be involved in every play. I will also always remember the day in middle school when I saw my first curveball. I stood there frozen for a called strike three... then quickly realized that it was time to start concentrating on basketball.

[RollyInRaleigh]

Attending my first game in Crosley Field in August of 1969 with my Dad, my Grandfather and my Uncle. It was like a little piece of heaven for an 8 year old boy.

Too many good memories from my playing days to even pick one.

[GAC]

Have many. But running into Pete Rose at Crosley Field in 1966, as he was coming in for the game, was one of the best.