Rose receives an award at Crosley Field in 1969.
Barry Larkin applies a tag during the 1990 run to the World Championship.
Playing for the Reds hasn’t put every local boy in a bar fight, but it creates an extra layer of pressure, especially for a young guy who’s just trying to figure things out. Even if a player doesn’t much care what people think, he worries about family and friends, who might have to hear more than they want about a ninth-inning error or a strike out with the bases loaded. As much as we as fans identify with a local player and root mightily for him to succeed, when he doesn’t, our disappointment and frustration is all the greater. After all, they’re representing us on the field.
The higher the player’s potential, of course, the higher the expectations—and demands. A hustling player who lacks great gifts will get a longer leash than a player who arrives packed with potential. Ken Griffey Jr. suffered this fate, as fans expected him to win the city a World Championship. Hampered by injuries during much of his time with the Reds, Junior didn’t deliver as expected and heard plenty of heckling from fans in the stands. With so much talent, if the player fails, he must not be trying hard enough.
In the 1950s, Western Hills High School grad Herm Wehmeier probably had it even worse than Junior. A big handsome fellow with enormous raw pitching talent, he often struggled to throw strikes. Fans howled and booed, which made him struggle all the more. Family and friends stopped coming to the ballpark when he pitched to avoid witnessing the abuse.
Even Joe Nuxhall, so beloved while in the radio booth, took plenty of heckling, which usually just made him mad. “The fans were unmerciful,” recalled Reds catcher Ed Bailey after Nuxhall was traded. “Seemed the Cincinnati fans were harder on their own—guys from that area—than they were on any of the rest of us.”
Local sportswriter Lonnie Wheeler believes that Cincinnatians are more willing to embrace a certain kind of player—one who embodies their view of themselves. “The kind of player the city gets behind is the overachiever,” Wheeler says. “Pete Rose is the classic example.” We like a player with a dirty uniform, a guy who hustles and will do anything to win, who plays better than he is. “Cincinnati likes to see grit,” Wheeler adds. “If a local produces that, he’s got it made.”
Despite the pressure and the unwanted extra attention, the hope of being part of that special fraternity has inspired local kids almost since Charlie Gould took the field on the first Reds team. As a teenager in 1882, Billy Clingman, who would later play for the Reds, climbed poles near the Bank Street Grounds to catch a glimpse of a game. In the early 1960s, Dave Parker hung around Crosley Field in hopes of talking to Frank Robinson, his idol, who one day gave him a glove. And legions of boys slid headfirst into second like Pete Rose or affected Barry Larkin’s cool composure at the plate in hopes of someday being like them.
If not all members of the fraternity brought glory to the hometown team, if more are forgotten than celebrated today, they all played a special role in Reds history, and their stories deserve to be told. They carried on a tradition and kept alive a dream that is etched on the wall of the team’s administration building, where we can see it every time we stroll up to Great American Ball Park for a game. The 50-foot-tall limestone bas relief titled “Spirit of Baseball” depicts a boy gripping a bat amid iconic Cincinnati structures—the Roebling Bridge, Union Terminal, the city skyline—while high above him stand three Reds players, tall and proud among frothy clouds and shafts of sunlight. A romantic notion, no doubt, but one that has kept many a local boy up at night and helped many others to sleep.
Red Dooin
Jim Brosnan
Skeeter Barnes
Chris Sexton and Mike Bell
The Player Profiles
ETHAN ALLEN
JANUARY 1, 1904–SEPTEMBER 15, 1993
Major League Career
1926–1938
Time as a Red
1926–1930
Position
OUTFIELD
WITH A NAME LIKE “ETHAN ALLEN,” a boy has to meet pretty high expectations. And Ethan Allen (the ballplayer, not the Revolutionary War hero) did just that. Born in Cincinnati, he grew up on the east side of town, in the Mt. Washington area. He graduated from Withrow High School (called East High School at the time), where his outstanding athletic ability first began attracting the city’s attention. He then attended the University of Cincinnati, where his local fame quickly grew. Tall, handsome, and an excellent student, Allen would be tough to top if you were looking for an All-American Boy circa the 1920s. At UC, he starred in three sports—baseball, basketball, and track. In 1926, his senior year, he captained the baseball team and hit .473, which stood as the school record until, with the gradual addition of more games to the college season, his number of at-bats fell below the minimum required.
The Reds knew a local star when they saw one and signed him that summer (giving him, according to Lee Allen’s The Cincinnati Reds, a signing bonus of $8,598.43) and placed him immediately on the major league roster, obviously feeling he needed no minor league seasoning. The move wasn’t a desperate effort by a struggling team; the Reds spent 75 days in first place in a close pennant race with the Cardinals that year, eventually finishing second by two games. After the season, the team thought highly enough of Allen that they traded Hall of Fame centerfielder Edd Roush, who had been their biggest star for a decade, and gave Allen the job.
Though he lacked power, he quickly established himself as an excellent contact hitter and all-around polished player. Given his good looks, affable nature, and growing reputation as a smart player who rarely made mistakes, he became a fan favorite. Unfortunately, Reds owner Sidney Weil lost much of his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, and had he to sell off or trade his best talent to pay the bills. He traded Allen and star pitcher Pete Donohue to the New York Giants for mediocre infielder Pat Crawford, who appeared in just 76 games for the Reds. Allen played eight more seasons, hitting an even .300 in a 13-year career. His lack of homerun power (he hit only 47) during that long-ball era kept him from being considered one of the top players in the game, but he was known as a tough out and often was slotted near the top of the batting order.
While a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, he came back to town to become the second player ever to bat in a major league night game, held at Crosley Field on May 24, 1935. After retiring in 1938,
