Seth's 50 Centers

On the day of the trade deadline, I thought I’d revisit a trade the Reds made that initially devastated me, but ended up being one of a few moves that jump-started the franchise. Also check out my other recent column, An Open Letter to Reds GM Wayne Krivsky.

November 10, 1998

The Reds hadn’t contended since 1995 and appeared to be OK with the idea that they’d be bad until the new stadium opened in 2003.

I was a sophomore at Ohio State at the time and Antwaan – AKA Randy. He didn’t like the nickname Randle, a take on Randy, so I took to calling him Antwaan for Antwaan Randle El, who was playing quarterback for Indiana at the time – and I were living at Riverwatch Tower on Lane Ave.

Word came down about the trade of Bret Boone and Mike Remlinger to the Braves for Denny Neagle, Michael Tucker and Rob Bell late in the afternoon and I was stunned.

At the end of the day, literally and figuratively, I realized that this was a good move. GM Jim Bowden had just gotten a guy who could win 15 games a year and a very capable third or fourth outfielder for a middle reliever and Boone, a guy who had struggled with hitting throughout his career.

When the trade was announced, however, I was devastated. I had supported Boone through hitting .233 in ’96 and .223 in ’97. I touted him as the best defensive second baseman in the National League and, despite the fact offense somehow usually entered into the picture when they pick the Gold Glove winners, Boone broke through and won it in ’98. Ironically, Boone’s averaged jumped to .266 that year.

That was my biggest problem with the move at the time. Boone had struggled for three or four years and now, just when he finally hit and finally got noticed across the league for his defense, they ship him off?

But that’s when it made the most sense. They never could’ve gotten a No. 2 or 3 pitcher and a solid outfielder who’d hit as well or better than Boone back when he was batting around his weight, OK not his weight at the time, just his weight when he hit 37 homers for the Mariners years later!

The day they made the trade I moped around, my Reds hat pulled over my eyes, the entire evening. It hit me as hard as any trade had before. Eric Davis had been my favorite player growing up, but when they trade him it was in the midst of a lot of bad will from the Cincinnati fans toward him and I was only 13 or so, so I was worried about other things that November.

Not this night. My friends tried to cheer me up. We went out to eat and went to Best Buy, but it took hours for me to even crack a smile. I was sure Bowden had screwed up.

RESULT: Fast forward a year and I’m wearing a Pokey Reese jersey. Reese took over for Boone at second and promptly won the Gold Glove in his first year, batting .285 and stealing 38 bases for the surprise team of the year.

The Reds won 96 games that year, just one short of making the playoffs. This from a team that only featured a few veteran position players, but a later trade for Greg Vaughn – they traded Reggie Sanders, another guy I’d loved for years, for Vaughn, but Vaughn had just hit 50 homers for the Padres, so I was excited about that deal – gave the Reds some added leadership.

They also added Mike Cameron, who played a solid center field. Add in Dmitri Young, Sean Casey, Aaron Boone, Reese and Tucker and a young group of players got the job done.

Also among that group were young pitchers like Scott Williamson (rookie of the year that season) and Danny Graves.

The only thing that seemingly upended the upswing of that young team was the fact the Reds couldn’t pass up on the chance to get Ken Griffey Jr. to come home.

It seemed like the final piece of the puzzle at the time, but the truth of the matter was that in the short term the Reds lost too much pitching to afford Junior, and in the long term they couldn’t afford to sign all the players like Young and Reese, and eventually Williamson and Aaron Boone, when they became eligible for arbitration and long term contracts.

As upset as I was by the trade of Bret Boone, it jumpstarted what ended up being my favorite year as a Reds fan. I loved the ’90 team that won the World Series, but was only 11-years old when it happened.

The ‘95 team was the only playoff team I followed every day either by watching or listening on the radio, but the ’99 team came along at the perfect time for me. The ’97 and ’98 teams were bad at a time when the Indians were off and running. In ’98 a friend of mine was a Braves fan and it was agonizing hearing her talk about all the championships her Braves were winning.

The ’99 Reds validated my fanaticism. They won in ways you couldn’t believe, like Ron Villone giving up a double to open the game only to go the next seven innings before giving way to Williamson and not give up another hit. They beat Randy Johnson 1-0 in a game where I believe the Reds’ only hit was a Young homer.

And they were still winning when classes started in September, which was about the same time I started dating the CPA. We went to a few games late that summer, including one that saw Reese hit an unlikely home run to beat the Cardinals in the 11th inning. Picking her up and swinging her around as Pokey rounded the bases is a memory I won’t soon forget.