Cincinnati Reds Parade on Opening Day!
Photo by Jeffrey Gladish of Gladish Solutions
Cincinnati, also known as the Queen City, is a city rich in history and culture with exceptional visual and creative arts, professional sports teams and top notch museums. Whether you are a resident or a visitor there is always something to learn, see and do in Cincinnati and our neighboring cities of Covington and Newport. For those reasons and many more, it’s no surprise that in 2012 Lonely Planet Travel Guide named Cincinnati number three of the top ten travel destinations in the United States. Cincinnati offers all the benefits of larger cities like Chicago and New York while maintaining the small hometown hospitality. In this section we like to bring interesting facts and opinions. This is what we have for you in this month’s issue: And the countdown begins to one of the most celebrated days in Cincinnati, OPENING DAY! There’s lots of baseball history in our great city and we thought we would share some interesting facts about our home team.
Cincinnati Redlegs
During the McCarthy era the Reds officially changed their name to the Cincinnati Redlegs because they feared the shortened name would associate them with Communism. In 1956 they even removed the term “Reds” from the inside of the C of the logo for this reason although it returned and the traditional logo was restored in 1967.
Opening Day
Opening day for the Reds is always scheduled to be played at home. It has been this way since they joined the National League in 1876.The Reds are scheduled to open every season at home, they are the only team to be granted this privilege.
Perfect Season
The Cincinnati Red Stockings are the only team in baseball history to achieve a perfect season with a record of 65-0 in 1869. This team was also the first team to play on both the East and West coast in the same season.
The First Nine The 1869 team was composed of ten players, the first nine and a substitute. They also returned for the 1870 season.
- Asa Brainard, Pitcher
- Doug Allison, Catcher
- Charlie Gould, First Base
- Charlie Sweasy, Second Base
- Fred Waterman, Third Base
- George Wright, Shortstop
- Andy Leonard, Left Field
- Harry Wright, Centerfield/Manager
- Cal McVey, Right Field
- Dick Hurley, Substitute
Retired Numbers
Nine numbers have been retired from the Reds Franchise and can be seen behind home-plate outside of the press box.
- #1 Fred Hutchinson Retired 1965
- #5 Johnny Bench Retired 1984
- #8 Joe Morgan Retired 1998
- #10 Sparky Anderson Retired 2005
- #11 Barry Larkin Retired 2012
- #13 Dave Concepcion Retired 2007
- #18 Ted Kluszewski Retired 1998
- #20 Frank Robinson Retired 1998
- #24 Tony Pérez Retired 2000
Major League Baseball retired #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson and can also be seen.
Tony Perez #24 for Queen City
Dave Concepcion #13 for Queen City