The Big Red Machine lives on

Rose, Foster, Concepcion, Geronimo, Morgan, Griffey, Perez; Front: Bench

Note: We pause somewhat from the AL Central pennant race to review a great new baseball book. Be sure to check here throughout the weekend and see if the Twins can make up some ground on Detroit's three-game lead in the AL Central before the two teams meet on Monday for a four-game set. - BP

Full disclosure: Joe Posnanski is my favorite sportswriter. He is my favorite columnist (most recently with the Kansas City Star and now exclusively with Sports Illustrated), my favorite sports blogger, and his pained entries about the Kansas City Royals are simultaneously side-splitting and gut-wrenching. When I became aware he had written a book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, I virtually sprinted to Amazon to order a copy.

The Machine is a diary of the Cincinnati Reds' magical 1975 season. Posnanski captures the essence of that season by talking to actual participants, players such as Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Ken Griffey, and Tony Perez. Through the sports pages of the Cincinnati Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer, along with legendary sportswriters like Si Burick, Tom Callahan, Hal McCoy, Ritter Collett, and Earl Lawson, he chronicles the day-to-day grind of the regular and post-seasons, with what was transpiring in America at the same time as a background. The result is sheer mastery.

The Cincinnati Reds had been good prior to 1975. The team won 102 games in 1970 but lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. In 1972, the Reds won 95 games but lost a seven-game World Series to the Oakland Athletics. The 1973 version won 99 games, but was defeated in the National League Championship series by an inferior New York Mets' squad. In 1974, the Reds won 98 games, but finished second to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West Division. The "Big Red Machine" was fearsome, especially its lineup, but was entering baseball middle-age in 1975 without a World Series title. That was beginning to wear on manager Sparky Anderson.

Posnanski's portrayal of the youthful Anderson is masterful. Anderson was a complex baseball man given the enviable task of managing a team with an embarrassment of riches. He believed in the star system, citing that Rose, Bench, Morgan, and Perez were stars and the rest of the team was a collection of "turds." He had little use for pitchers and was a pioneer in the frequent use of his bullpen long before contemporaries such as Tony LaRussa championed the "situational" use of relievers. He projected a calm exterior persona but slept little at night and battled painful ulcers during the season. 

The Reds' clubhouse was rife with constant ribbing of players, especially among the stars. Perez played the part of cop, approving, and often instigating, pranks on others. Other players like Dave Concepcion, George Foster, and Griffey, went about their business in different manners. Griffey was often bitter about what he perceived was an under-utilization and lack of respect from his manager and the star players. Foster was quiet, often times sitting by himself in front of his locker, reading his Bible. Concepcion viewed himself as someone who belonged in Anderson's star system. However, it was Anderson who coaxed this squad of strong personalities and egos from a slow start to one of the finest seasons in baseball history.

The 1975 Reds ended up winning 108 games and finished 20 games ahead of the second-place Dodgers. The margin of victory was the greatest of any National League team to that point.  The Reds dismantled the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NLCS, and went on to face an unlikely Boston Red Sox team in the Fall Classic. The 1975 World Series was truly epic.

The Reds knew that their season would be for naught if they did not win the World Series. Anderson knew this, and so did Rose. Sparky's uneasiness was present all throughout the season, but was ever-present in the World Series. After the teams split the first six games of the series amid controversy, drama, and an emotionally-draining Game 6, the Reds were faced with a 3-run deficit in the 6th inning of Game 7. Rose was livid.

"'What the hell is wrong with this team?' Rose shouted, dusting off the dirt from his kamikaze slide. 'What the hell is wrong with you?' He paced back and forth, choking in the dust of the dugout, a lion in his cage. He slapped the knees of players. He pumped his right fist. The din outside grew louder, the howls of those desperate and bundled-up Boston Red Sox fans. Fenway Park seemed to be dressed in black wool. And the noise sounded like a wave crashing over a junkyard - all roar and rattle and squeak.

"'We're not going to lose this game,' Rose shouted. 'No way. You hear me? We are not losing tonight. You know what people are going to say about us? We're nothing. They'll say we're losers.'

"Pete walked up and down the bench and looked hard at each player's face.

"'We not (expletive deleted) losers,' he shouted."

The Reds did come back in that Game 7 and won the epic 1975 World Series and assumed their rightful place as one of baseball's all-time elite teams.

The Reds won the World Series again in 1976, but the free agency era helped necessitate the break-up of the team. Perez was traded away, along with pitcher Will McEnaney. Sparky Anderson was fired after the 1978 season, and Rose departed for Philadelphia via free agency at the same time.

Posnanski captures the fiery emotion and leadership displayed by Rose. Pete Rose was a complex man, for certain, but nobody's desire to win burned hotter. He constantly challenged players to be better, especially Morgan, who was Rose's best friend on the team. Some found stars Morgan and Bench as very stand-offish, but they led with their performance on the field.

The author does a splendid job characterizing the various splits on the team: stars versus turds; position players versus pitchers; Reds versus Dodgers, among others. The Reds were not unlike a lot of clubhouses today. Certainly there are various factions and rivalries on every team. Not everyone has to be best friends. However, the 1975 Cincinnati Reds were better able to battle together than most teams. Posnanski says it best in his Afterword:

"The Reds played a four hour drive away (from where he grew up), and they were perfection. They took the field with their hair cut short, with their shoes polished black, with their uniforms pristine white and worn just so. They could beat you, in the words of Joe Morgan, any way that you could be beaten. They were too brilliant to love, and too unassailable to hate. But being a good Clevelander, I tried to hate them anyway.

"The last thing anyone wants in another book claiming another team was the greatest ever. The shelves are filled with the greatest - the greatest match, the greatest game, the greatest player, the greatest team, the greatest sports book, and so on. I do believe the 1975 Cincinnati Reds (and the '76 Reds that followed) were the greatest team in baseball history. I don't believe any other team - not the 1927 Yankees, not the 'Boys of Summer' Dodgers, not the Casey Stengel Yankees, not the Oakland A's of the early 1970's or Derek Jeter's Yankees of the late 1990s - could match those Reds for power, speed, defense, star power, innovation, and personality. We can sword-fight with statistics and logic forever and never come up with a correct answer. I believe the Reds were the best."

Joe Posnanski has done yet another masterful job in telling a story about a team which will never be forgotten from a bygone era which doesn't seem so far away. The "Big Red Machine" lives on through this work.