After 25 years, Reds’ season, World Series still memorable

Already standing for the seventh-inning stretch, most of the 37,000 fans in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium scurried for cover when a cloudburst began to drench the ballpark. The umps motioned for the infield tarp, and the visiting San Diego Padres left the field.

The Padres led 3-1 at the start of the rain delay that Saturday afternoon 25 years ago, Sept. 29, 1990. The lead was a nice change for San Diego, which had lost eight straight before beating the Reds the day before in the series opener.

The prospect of losing two in a row to San Diego didn’t completely discourage the Reds as players headed for the locker room to wait out the rain. The team had a five-game lead over the Dodgers with five games to go. A Los Angeles loss or a Reds win that day would clinch the division title and a berth in the National League Championship Series.

The Dodgers were playing in San Francisco that afternoon, and the Cincinnati players scoured the TV channels for scoring updates from Candlestick Park. And soon, there it was. The Giants had won, 4-3. The Reds clinch.

Quickly donning division-champ hats and tee shirts, the players streamed back to the dugout. The Reds’ star outfielder Eric Davis yelled at the umps, “Call this [game]. Let’s go get drunk!”

Right fielder Paul O’Neill charged past Davis and made a running belly slide onto the wet tarp. Pitcher Jose Rijo followed to the cheers of the fans huddled under the overhangs and umbrellas. Soon after the whole team paraded out onto the tarp, the umps called it a complete game. The Reds had become the first wire-to-wire winner in the National League since the start of the 162-game era.

Cincinnati had built an 11-game lead by July 24, but an eight-game losing streak cut their lead to five. The team played .500 ball from June through September, which prompted critics to claim Cincinnati had backed into the postseason.

“We started in first place and we are still in first place,” said Rob Dibble, one the Reds’ bullpen stars, after the clinching game. “All year long people have said we can’t do it ... Well, we did.”

Despite losing five of their last nine games of the season, the Reds’ division championship brought cheer to Cincinnati. The title was a huge leap from the team’s fifth place finish in 1989, a season terribly marred by the banning of Pete Rose, the club’s iconic manager, from baseball. Oddly though, Rose was in uniform as Dibble talked to the media, but that of a federal prisoner, number 01832061. The “Hit King” had entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Ill., nearly two months earlier to serve a five-month sentence for tax evasion.

WIRE-TO-WIRE

A 1989 investigation ordered by MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti concluded that Rose, while a Cincinnati player and manager, had bet on baseball games, including those involving the Reds. Giamatti banned Rose from baseball on Aug. 24, 1989, and the Reds immediately appointed coach Tommy Helms as interim manager.

In early November, Reds owner Marge Schott signed Lou Piniella to a three-year contract as manager. “Sweet Lou” had retired as a Yankee player in 1984 and climbed aboard George Steinbrenner’s merry-go-round as the Yankees manager, 1986-87. Piniella became the general manager in early 1988 when Steinbrenner hired Billy Martin for the fifth time as manager. The owner tossed Martin three months into the season, and Lou took over the team for the rest of the year, after which Steinbrenner fired him, too.

“This cleans the slate,” Schott told the news media, referring to the thorny Rose situation. “We can move onto the 1990s. I think we’ve got the right man, the best man.”

The Reds won the first nine games of the 1990 season and by the All-Star break, they had a record of 59-20. Five Cincinnati players were All-Stars—starter Jack Armstrong, relievers Dibble and Randy Myers, and infielders Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo.

The Reds players who got the most ink during the season were three bullpen aces—Myers, Dibble and Norm Charlton. If the starting pitcher had a lead after six innings, the trio could take it from there. They called themselves the Nasty Boys.

The name arose after the season opener in which the Reds beat the Astros in Houston, 8-4, in the 11th. The three relievers handled the last six innings without a score. Unfortunately, Cincinnati pitchers had hit Astro Glenn Davis three times during the game, which stirred up the Houston dugout. After the game, Myers answered a reporter’s question with a so-what response.

“That’s pretty nasty,” the journalist countered.

“Well, we’re pretty nasty guys,” Myers replied.

After their wire-to-wire finish, the Reds took on the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NLCS. At Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, the teams split the first two games, on Oct. 4 and 5. Three days later in Pittsburgh, the Reds won, 6-3, and the Nasty Boys delivered. Charlton, Dibble and Myers held the Pirates at bay in the final 3 2/3 innings, with starter Danny Jackson getting the win. The Reds took a 3-1 series lead by winning Game 4, but Pittsburgh won the next day to send the teams back to Cincinnati for the final two games.

In Game 6, Jackson and the Boys combined for a one-hit, 2-1 win and the National League pennant. Myers and Dibble were named the NLCS co-MVPs,

In the ALCS, the powerhouse Oakland Athletics, 103-59 for the season, swept the Boston Red Sox, 4-0. The team was stacked with stars led by MVP-to-be Ricky Henderson. The “Bash Brothers,” Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, together hit 76 homers, and pitchers Bob Welsh, 27-6, Dave Stewart, 22-11 and closer Dennis Eckersley, 48 saves, anchored the mound staff.

This would be Oakland’s third straight World Series and the team wanted a second consecutive title to go with the 1989 win.

In baseball’s Small World Department, Oakland manager Tony La Russa and Piniella had been childhood friends and competitors in West Tampa, Fla. While attending separate schools, the two were on a team that went to the 1960 Colt League World Series. They also played together on the West Tampa American Legion Post 248 team.

Speaking of Tony to reporters before Game 1 of the Series, Lou said, “All I could do better than him was hit.”

THE SWEEP

In the days before the start of the series, scheduled for Oct. 16 in Cincinnati, predictions and posturing blossomed in the news media. “Ain’t nobody intimidated by Oakland,” the Reds Eric Davis said to a reporter. “We know they’re world champs. But we don’t fear anybody.”

His teammate Barry Larkin steered a safer line: “We have to be aggressive,” the shortstop said. “We have nothing to lose.”

The Oakland players’ talk matched the odds makers’ backing of the defending champs. “I said when the playoffs began that we’d sweep our way all the way through, and I’m sticking to that,” Canseco declared. “We’re really nicked up, sure, but this is no time to back off your predictions.”

The Bash Brother was right about the injuries. Shortstop Walt Weiss had sprained his left knee in the ALCS and was not on the World Series roster. Canseco had a bruised finger, Henderson a sore thumb, and several others had nagging ailments.

At a morning rally in downtown Cincinnati before Game 1, Marge Schott offered a screeching version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” While holding the leash of her pet St. Bernard, Schottzie, she shouted to the crowd, “I just want to have one of those big, old rings on my fingers like the boys wear.”

Schott’s clumsy and often imperial mannerisms had not endeared herself to the Reds players. For example, the media reported that she had unsuccessfully tried to make the players wear floppy Schottzie hats adorned with dog ears in Game 1.

Oakland’s Dave Stewart, usually an intimidating presence on the mound, found that his widely noted “death stare” had no effect on the Reds in the first inning of the first game. With Hatcher on base with a walk, Davis, who was playing with an injured left shoulder, hit a line shot over the 404-foot sign in center and put Cincinnati up 2-0. The Reds added two more in the third, and La Russa yanked Stewart after the fourth. “He wasn’t right,” La Russa said after the game.

Jose Rijo, 14-8 in the regular season, blanked the Athletics through seven innings. He throttled McGwire, who stranded two runners in the third and popped up in the fifth with the bases loaded. In the eighth, Dibble came in with the Reds up 7-0 and blanked the A’s. Myers did the same in the ninth.

President George H. W. Bush had been scheduled to toss out the first pitch on Wednesday evening in Game 2. But the Persian Gulf crisis and a Washington budget standoff kept him in the White House. In front of another sold-out crowd of 55,832, his wife Barbara came off the bench and in low heels, wool skirt, neutral warmup jacket and pearls. She lobbed the ball to Reds catcher Joe Oliver. Play ball!

Cincinnati got to Bob Welsh early in Game 2 and led 2-1 going into the top of the third inning. Canseco ignited a threerun burst with his first home run in a month and chased Reds starter Danny Jackson. Trailing 4-2, Cincinnati added a run in the fourth while relievers Scott Scudder and Jack Armstrong chalked up scoreless innings.

In the seventh, Reds pitcher Tom Browning, who was scheduled to start Game 3 in two days, bolted from the dugout. His very pregnant wife Debbie had gone into labor in one of the players’ boxes, and Tom rushed to accompany her to the hospital without telling anyone. An unknowing Piniella, who was on his third pitcher of the game, told pitching coach Stan Williams to alert Browning that he might have to warm up.

According to media reports, Williams asked Reds radio broadcaster Marty Brennaman for help finding Browning. “Tom Browning, if you’re out there and you hear this,” Brennaman said to his audience, “Lou wants you to return to the ballpark.”

Before the eighth, La Russa thought about going to Eckersley with a onerun lead but didn’t. Welsh gave up the tying run, a score keyed by Hatcher’s seventh straight Series hit. La Russa later explained his decision-making, saying he didn’t want “to go to Eck in a tie game on the road.”

Charlton and Dibble shut out the A’s from the eighth through the top of the 10th. With Eckersley finally on the mound, pinch hitter Billy Bates and Chris Sabo each singled. Catcher Oliver, book-ending his time in the spotlight with the First Lady, smacked a hard grounder over third base and out of reach Carney Lansford. Bates scored the winning run and the Reds won 5-4 and led the Series, 2-0.

“What this says,” Piniella boasted afterward, “is that our ball club can play this game.”

Debbie Browning had a successful delivery, and Piniella congratulated Browning the next day before the flight to Oakland. But he added, “And damn it, if you ever have to take off like that again, just tell someone.”

Game 3 started on a sunny evening on Friday, Oct. 19 in Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mike Moore started for the anxious Athletics, and the brandnew dad, Tom Browning, for the Reds.

Oakland gained needed momentum by taking the lead after the second inning, 2-1, but it was short lived. In the third, a fielding error by McGwire triggered a seven-run onslaught by the Reds, with eight of the next nine batters reaching base. They hit four singles, a double, a triple by Hatcher and a home run by Sabo. By the time La Russa pulled Moore, Cincinnati led, 8-2. Oakland added a run in the bottom of the third, but Browning settled down and shut out the A’s through the sixth.

True to form, Dibble and Myers throttled the A’s in the last three innings, and the Reds won easily 8-3.

“We’re just outplaying them,” Larkin said afterward. He added, “They’re not losing it, we’re winning it.”

The next morning the media was jammed with talks of a “sweep,” and the Reds were as happy as witches in a broom factory.

Authors John Eradi and Joel Luckhaupt write in “The Wire-to-Wire Reds” about a conversation between Schott and Piniella before Game 4. The Reds owner suggested that the Reds tank the next two games so they could win the Series at home.

“What?” Lou yelled. “Marge, you can’t be serious.

“It would be for the fans, honey,” she said.

“We’re not going to try to lose—forget it.”

The Game 1 starters, Stewart and Rijo, got the call for Game 4 on another balmy Oakland evening. La Russa juggled his lineup hoping for some magic, hitting McGwire seventh and benching Canseco.

The second Reds batter in the first inning was Hatcher, who to that point was nine for 12 in the Series. On an 0-2 count, Stewart threw heat high and tight and hit Hatcher square on the back of his left hand. He collapsed and broke the no-touch rule. After several moments, Hatcher trotted down to first. He quickly tried to steal second and was thrown out.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Willie McGee hit a soft liner to left. A sprinting Eric Davis dove to his left and momentarily caught the ball a foot from the ground. He braced himself with his right arm for the collision with the field, and the arm collapsed. He rolled to his left and landed with a thud with his right elbow wedged between his right-side ribcage and the ground. The ball popped out of his glove, but he somehow flipped it backhand toward shortstop Larkin.

Davis writhed on the ground as the TV replays showed the ungainly crash. He finished the inning as the A’s took a 1-0 lead, but the trainers had to help him off the field. Soon both Davis and Hatcher were in an ambulance headed for a nearby hospital.

Davis ended up in intensive care with a lacerated kidney and remained hospitalized for a week. X-rays showed no fractures in Hatcher’s hand and he returned to the ballpark, but stayed on the bench. With two productive starters out after the first inning, Lou Piniella wasn’t thinking sweep.

Rijo and Stewart did not allow any more runs through the seventh inning. During that stretch, the Reds went zero for eight with runners in scoring position, and Stewart entered the eighth with a 1-0 lead.

But Cincinnati quickly loaded the bases with no outs, courtesy of a single, a beatout bunt and Stewart’s throwing error. Glenn Braggs, in for Davis, grounded out, but a run scored. La Russa quickly visited with Stewart, but elected not to bring in Eckersley. The next batter, Hal Morris, hit a sac fly to right that scored the second run. Reds, 2-1.

When Piniella pulled Rijo with one out in the ninth, the pitcher had allowed only two Oakland hits for the evening and had retired the last 20 hitters he had faced. Myers got pinch-hitting Canseco on a ground out and Lansford on a foul popup. Reds sweep.

Rijo was voted World Series MVP, and Hatcher’s .750 batting average broke Babe Ruth’s 1928 Series record of .625. The Reds became the 15th team to sweep the World Series, and their nine straight winning games—the last game in 1975, the 1976 sweep, and 1990—wasn’t too shabby either.