The Old Lefthander must be smiling on his hometown.
Nearly 18 years after his death, a new Ohio Historical Marker has been erected for “Hamilton Joe” Nuxhall at the North End Ball Park where he was discovered as a teenager by the Reds in 1943.
And the Joe Nuxhall Scholarship Fund — which son Kim feared could not be sustained after Joe’s death in 2007 — will top $1 million in total scholarship awards to high school seniors next spring, Kim says. At the 40th annual golf outing at the Hamilton Elks Club on Aug. 14, Kim also announced the Nuxhall Foundation will increase scholarship awards to Butler County high schools from $28,000 to $42,000 next spring.
The Ohio Historical marker has been in the works six years for Nuxhall, the former Reds pitcher-turned-radio announcer. Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller announced in October 2019 that the Ohio History Connection had approved the Nuxhall marker. It was installed this summer without fanfare.
Moeller says an official dedication ceremony will be held in late September or early October.
“I was surprised by how big it is. I thought it would be something small. It is nice,” Kim says.
The sign for “Joseph Henry ‘Hamilton Joe’ Nuxhall” has text on both sides, and includes his famous radio sign-off, “Rounding third and heading for home.”
The front, headlined “Rounding Third…,” states how Joe was discovered by the Reds at age 14 in 1943, when Major League Baseball team rosters were depleted during World War II, and how Nuxhall made his historic debut with the Reds at age 15 on June 10, 1944.
The back side, “… And headed for home,” details his MLB pitching career, his 40 years in the Reds radio booth, and his “love of community and generosity . . . through the Joe Nuxhall Scholarship Fund, the Joe Nuxhall Character Education Fund and the Joe Nuxhall Miracle League Fields.”
The scholarship fund was the first charity created in 1985 by Nuxhall, who never attended college. It was “his baby,” Kim says.
Next to Opening Day, there was nothing Joe Nuxhall enjoyed more than awarding the scholarship checks each May to the Butler County high school seniors.
“That’s my favorite day of the year, when we give out the scholarships,” Joe Nuxhall told me in 2007, eight months before he died of cancer on Nov. 15, 2007. He was 79.
The foundation has given $2,000 to each of the 14 Butler County high schools for 40 years, Kim says. School administrators have the option to select one $2,000 recipient or two $1,000 winners. Next spring each school will receive $3,000.
The scholarships are funded by the annual golf outing. The Aug. 14 event was attended by two Reds pitchers, Andrew Abbott and Brent Suter, who did not play and left after the golfers teed off.
Golfers included Nuxhall’s longtime radio partner, Marty Brennaman, and his wife, Amanda; former Reds Doug Flynn, Ron Oester, Corky Miller, Sam LeCure, Jeff Shaw, Scott Williamson, Dave Miley, and Larry Luebbers; Hamilton native and former MLB manager Jim Tracy; and former Bengals Anthony Munoz, Doug Pelfrey, Jim Breech, Robert Jackson, and David Fulcher.
Nuxhall has been honored with statues at Great American Ball Park and Fairfield’s Waterworks Park; a mural on Clark’s Sporting Goods on 15 S. B St. in Hamilton; and streets renamed for Nuxhall in Cincinnati, Fairfield, and Hamilton, including the Joe Nuxhall Boulevard address for Hamilton’s North End Ball Fields.
