Unpopular Opinion: Marge>the Castellini group.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(12-17-2022, 10:17 AM)samhain Wrote: I liked Jack McKeon.  They has a nice season under him in the year that they got knocked out by the Mets in the 1 game playoff.  They had a duct-tape and zip tie pitching staff and a fun offensive group gelling at the right time.  It was one of the most fun Reds teams I can recall watching.  The rumor was that when Griffey got here, he and Larkin ran McKeon out of town.  As much as I loved the Griffey move when it happened, it was undeniably a bad thing for the team in the long term.  They sent a bunch of solid team guys with great chemistry to Seattle or a guy that was expected to be Willie Mays in his prime.  Well, that guy got hurt, gained weight, and proved to be less that awesome for the clubhouse.  The team basically had two HOF players whose HOF days were behind them and it sold off a promising group to get one of them.

Meanwhile, Trader Jack went on to win a WS title in Miami.  Ugh.

Yep, my bad. He was also in the class of 'awesome'. After he was sent packing, I was getting deeper into MLS and US Soccer and kind of blew off the Reds among other sports. Seriously. There is no off-season with soccer. European clubs play into May and start having pre-season friendlies in July. Well, June and July has most of the FIFA tournaments or qualifiers with all of the National Teams, which are like All-Star games that actually mean something.

So being swept away by Footy Mundo, I had completely forgotten that Bob Boone and Dave Miley managed after McKeon. I kind of remember Jerry Narron and have no idea who Pete Mackanin is. Then we got Dusty, who was great outside of handling a pitching staff. It took a phenomenal roster for him to finally win his WS title this year. Bottom of the barrel Price led us to a slight upgrade with Bell.

Looking at the entire list, a couple of Hall Of Fame players managed in Cincinnati.

Christy Mathewson went 164-176 from being the third manager of the 1916 season to being let go with 10 games to go in 1918, just before their 1919 WS win over the Black Sox.

Rogers Horsnby was also the third manager of the 1952 season before being relieved with eight games left in the following season after going 91-106 overall.