MLB to release "Reds Memories" DVD

[OnBaseMachine]

Redsfest ideal for gathering 'Memories'
By John Kiesewetter • jkiesewetter@enquirer.com • December 5, 2009

He's making a list, checking it twice.

Jim O'Hara came to Redsfest with 24 names of current and former Cincinnati Reds to interview for a one-hour team history DVD and a half-hour show for the MLB Network.

"When we saw how many players were coming to Redsfest, we thought it would be a great opportunity to shoot many of the interviews we need," says O'Hara, 47, a producer with Major League Baseball Productions.

At 3 p.m. Friday, an hour before Redsfest opened, O'Hara and a two-man crew were set up next to the players' "green room" lounge on the second floor of the Duke Energy Convention Center.

As present and former Reds arrived, or took breaks from autograph sessions downstairs, O'Hara asked them to reminisce for two projects:

"Reds Memories," a 66-minute DVD for release in June for Father's Day, will recount the club's 140-year history. Interviews with Lee May, Jim Maloney, Pedro Borbon, Mario Soto, Brandon Phillips, Bronson Arroyo, Eric Davis, Tom Browning, Marty Brennaman and others will be augmented by film from the 15,000 hours in MLB Productions' archives, which dates back to 1909.

It will be the third "Memories" film, following Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox DVDs released last year.

"Baseball Seasons," a half-hour MLB Network program, will feature the 1990 wire-to-wire World Champion team that was saluted at Redsfest, and the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum next season. The show will air in the spring, O'Hara says.

Chris Sabo, Hal Morris, Todd Benzinger, Billy Hatcher, Joe Oliver, Lou Piniella, Davis and Browning were on O'Hara's list. He had met many of the guys 20 years ago while producing the Reds' 1990 season video.

"I spent a lot of time in town here getting to know the players. I know them pretty well. That was a fun team to watch," he says.

For MLB, Browning talked about his perfect game in 1988, the only one in Reds history, and the 1990 World Series sweep of the Oakland As.

Browning recalled how he left Riverfront Stadium during World Series Game 2 - he was resting for his Game 3 start - when told that his pregnant wife was headed to the hospital.

"When they (Reds employees) called the hospital, I just thought they wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl, so I told them to say we weren't there," Browning said. He was unaware the Reds had gone into extra innings, and that manager Piniella was desperately trying to find him to pitch, if necessary - until minutes before Billy Bates scored the winning run.

The "Reds Memories" DVD will include about 20 minutes of bonus video, O'Hara said.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...ing++Memories+

[reds1869]

I'm looking forward to this. MLB Network does a great job...I've really enjoyed their Baseball Seasons program.

[OnBaseMachine]

I don't know about you guys but I'm looking forward to this DVD coming out. It will be neat to see some video about the 1919 and 1940 Reds World Series squads...

Baseball weaves lifelong memories
Championships make indelible impressions on game's fans, especially younger ones
February 4, 2010

Basically, it was media day for the Major League Baseball Productions crew that was making a 66-minute DVD on Reds history, due out in June.

I showed up for my Wednesday spot in the interview room next to the visitors' clubhouse at Great American Ball Park.

The crew was filming here instead of at the nicely appointed Reds Hall of Fame and Museum because the Hall's warm-air system would have made for too much background noise. As it was, we had to stop filming several times because of carts growling through the tunnel, hauling gear to waiting trucks bound for the Reds new spring training site in Goodyear, Ariz.

It's that time of year. Only 13 days until Reds pitchers and catchers report.

Jim O'Hara, a producer for MLB Productions, asked me which Reds' eras I felt most comfortable discussing, and I said 1919, 1939-40 and 1990.

Everybody loves a winner.

"I could say I know quite a bit about the Big Red Machine, but that doesn't make me unique in this town," I told Jim and his two-man crew.

They laughed, which confirmed what I suspected: No need to re-hash the 1975-76 World Champions.

There aren't many Reds fans over the age of 45 who can't name the starting eight, position-by-position, of the Big Red Machine; in most cases, those folks can rattle off the batting order.

Most fans here over the age of 30 can name the starting eight for the 1990 World Champion Reds. My late father-in-law, Bob Boehmker, and a friend and colleague of ours, the late Dick Macke, could recite the batting order and positions of the 1940 World Champion Reds. So I know for a fact that most people over 80 can do the same. There's just something about World Champions - or teams when we were 12 years old or so.

When it comes to Reds baseball, we all - on both sides of the river - are historians. And when it comes to championship teams, (or, as you'll read momentarily, infamous teams) we all know our stuff.

I think what first piqued my interest in baseball history was when I pedaled home from a Syracuse Chiefs Triple-A game with my brother, Greg, and I mentioned to my father at dinner that there had been an oldtimers' game before the Chiefs game. A fellow who had played for the Chiefs in 1935 after an eight-year big league career with the St. Louis Cardinals was led onto the field by a seeing eye dog. The fellow was the first major league position player to wear glasses while playing,. He went blind in 1951 after his fifth operation to save his failing eyesight proved unsuccessful.

"Specs Toporcer?" my old man asked. "I watched him play when I was a kid."

Pretty cool, I remember thinking. I believe my dad's remark is when I first realized that athletes (especially, for some reason, baseball players) connect the generations. Our memories of these players are touchstones in our lives; they "date" us. It isn't just who these guys were when we watched them play; it's who we were.

In my interview for MLB Productions, I was fine discussing the 1940 and 1990 Reds. But I went blank when O'Hara asked me about the starting pitchers for the 1919 team.

And, yet, for some reason, the names of Chicago White Sox pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams were on the tip of my tongue. So, too, were the names of four of the other six Chicago players (later known as the "Black Sox") who were banned from baseball for life: Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Swede Risberg and Buck Weaver.

The only 1919 Reds I could remember were future Hall of Fame center fielder Edd Roush, the guy with the bottle bat (third baseman Heinie Groh) and second baseman Morrie Rath, but only because he was the leadoff hitter who Cicotte drilled to start Game 1 at Redland Field to signal to gambling kingpin Arnold Rothstein that Cicotte would deliver on the fix.

Funny how that is. The Reds got the trophy, but the Black Sox got the movie, the books (90 years later, no end in sight) and the recollections.

O'Hara had heard of an Enquirer story I'd written a few years ago about several downtown locations that figured prominently in the 1919 scandal. He asked if I'd be willing to conduct a tour for an already underway 1919 program by MLB Productions. Sure, I said.

(Several months ago, I was delighted to read that the building that houses the Metropole Apartments - just up the street from the Aronoff Center - is being saved. That building once housed the Metropole Hotel, in front of which Roush got word after Game 2 that the fix was in.)

When I packed my grip to leave Wednesday, I remember thinking how cool it was that all these various Reds' DVDs and programs are being made.

The only downside is that pretty soon there won't be any new Reds stuff about which to watch, read and remember.

It's time the team brass made some memories for our kids and grandkids so they have some lineups and batting orders to recall as clearly as oven aromas when they turn 80.

Mercy, it must be rough being a Cubs fan.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...CtuLzPK1Nk0%3D

[Heath]

Erardi couldn't remember Slim Sallee and Hod Eller?

[BearcatShane]

When will this DVD be avaliable publically?

[OnBaseMachine]

When will this DVD be avaliable publically?

June.

[westofyou]

Erardi couldn't remember Slim Sallee and Hod Eller?

NAME                   W  L   PCT   G    GS  CG  SV  GF  IP     H    R    ER   BB   SO
Hod Eller             20   9  .690   38  30  16   2   8  248    216   80   66   50  137 
Dutch Ruether         19   6  .760   33  29  20   0   3  243    195   69   49   83   78 
Slim Sallee           21   7  .750   29  28  22   0   1  228    221   63   52   20   24 
Jimmy Ring            10   9  .526   32  18  12   3   7  183    150   53   46   51   61 
Ray Fisher            14   5  .737   26  20  12   1   3  174    141   55   42   38   41 
Dolf Luque             9   3  .750   30   9   6   3  15  106     89   35   31   36   40 
Rube Bressler          2   4  .333   13   4   1   0   7   42     37   19   16    8   13 
Roy Mitchell           0   1  .000    7   1   0   0   3   31     32   16    8    9   10 
Ed Gerner              1   0 1.000    5   1   0   0   4   17     22   10    6    3    2 
Mike Regan             0   0          1   0   0   0   0    2.1    1    1    0    0    1 
TOTALS                96  44  .686  214 140  89   9  51 1274.1 1104  401  316  298  407

Bolded guys threw illegal pitches (well they were legal then)

[Heath]

NAME                   W  L   PCT   G    GS  CG  SV  GF  IP     H    R    ER   BB   SO
Hod Eller             20   9  .690   38  30  16   2   8  248    216   80   66   50  137 
Dutch Ruether         19   6  .760   33  29  20   0   3  243    195   69   49   83   78 
Slim Sallee           21   7  .750   29  28  22   0   1  228    221   63   52   20   24 
Jimmy Ring            10   9  .526   32  18  12   3   7  183    150   53   46   51   61 
Ray Fisher            14   5  .737   26  20  12   1   3  174    141   55   42   38   41 
Dolf Luque             9   3  .750   30   9   6   3  15  106     89   35   31   36   40 
Rube Bressler          2   4  .333   13   4   1   0   7   42     37   19   16    8   13 
Roy Mitchell           0   1  .000    7   1   0   0   3   31     32   16    8    9   10 
Ed Gerner              1   0 1.000    5   1   0   0   4   17     22   10    6    3    2 
Mike Regan             0   0          1   0   0   0   0    2.1    1    1    0    0    1 
TOTALS                96  44  .686  214 140  89   9  51 1274.1 1104  401  316  298  407

Bolded guys threw illegal pitches (well they were legal then)

Forgot Dolf Luque who pretty much was the Reds pitcher of the early 20's.

The ol' Shine ballers.