Lots of stories — and books — have been written about the Cincinnati Reds’ “Big Red Machine,” which played in four World Series in seven years, culminating in back-to-back championships in 1975-76.
Sportswriter Terence Moore, a 1978 Miami University graduate who began his career at the Cincinnati Enquirer, says he has many previously untold stories 50 years later in his new book, My Big Red Machine: The Tales, Drama and Revelations Of A Fan Turned Journalist Covering Baseball’s Greatest Team. (He’ll sign copies 6-7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, at the Hamilton Lane Library, 300 N. Third St., Hamilton 45011.)
At the heart of the 241-page book is Moore’s 2006 recorded conversation with Bob Howsam, the Reds president who assembled the Big Red Machine in the early 1970s and returned to Cincinnati in 1983-84 to bring back Pete Rose as player-manager.
“My eyes were, like, wide open all the time listening to that old cassette tape. ‘Whoa! Did he say that?!?’ That’s when I called Marty Brennaman and asked him, ‘Have you heard this?’ “ Howsam died in 2008 at age 89.
My Big Red Machine includes Howsam’s regret for trading Tony Perez after the ’76 World Series; Manager Sparky Anderson juggling the Big Red egos in the clubhouse; General Manager Dick Wagner firing Anderson after the 1978 season; and Moore’s experiences as the first Black sportswriter covering the Cincinnati Reds.
Moore became a Reds fan — and huge Rose fan — when his family moved from South Bend, Indiana, to the Mount Healthy area in 1968, when Moore was 13. He fell in love with Miami University attending high school basketball tournament games at the new Millet Auditorium with his father. He interned at the Enquirer the summer of 1977, and was hired full-time after graduating in May 1978.
Moore only covered the Reds part-time in 1979. But he kept in contact with Rose, Joe Morgan, and Sparky Anderson while a sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner (1980-84) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1985-2009). He lives in Atlanta today and writes a national sports column for Forbes.com, is a contributing editor for Atlanta Magazine, teaches journalism at Georgia State University, and does a weekly TV show in Atlanta.
I won’t spoil all the fun for longtime Reds fans, but here are a few of Moore’s greatest hits about:
Sparky Anderson
The Reds manager shocked Moore by saying the Big Red Machine would not have won another World Series: “You could have kept those guys together after those championships in 1975 and 1976, and they still wouldn’t have won. It was over. They found out it didn’t mean as much anymore…”
Howsam disagreed. He says the Reds could have had a three-peat if he didn’t trade Tony Perez after the ‘76 World Series: “This, I admit, was a terrible mistake, the worst mistake I ever really made in baseball, and I think it cost the Reds being in the 1977 World Series, where we might have won three in a row.”
Pete Rose and Johnny Bench
Anderson “had to tightrope across the daily Rose-Bench friction for nine seasons . . . It wasn’t always a lovefest happening in the Reds clubhouse despite the public thinking the opposite,” Moore writes. He quotes Anderson as saying, “That’s why the presence of Doggie (Tony Perez) was so important for us . . . He could smooth out the rough edges between guys. There was no love lost between a lot of them guys, so my toughest job as the Reds’ manager was trying to do my best to keep the guys who hated each other away from each other as much as possible.”
Why the Reds let Rose leave for free agency after the 1978 season
Howsam explains that Rose was allowed to leave by General Manager Dick Wagner (Howsam’s successor) because a police report said Rose “owed $30,000 to gamblers in Cincinnati, and the police were supposed to have said that if he doesn’t pay up, then they’ll find him in the Ohio River when he gets out of baseball.”
Rose’s gambling
Howsam says he would not have brought Rose home to manage in 1984 if he knew about Pete’s baseball gambling. “Anybody who gambles on baseball should never be in the Hall of Fame. I feel that strongly, because there has to be rules, and you have to abide by them,” Howsam said in 2006, at age 87, two years before his death.
Joe Morgan
Moore says he had long conversations about the lack of Black players, scouts, and general managers with the Reds Hall of Fame second baseman, who played for San Francisco in 1981-82.
“If you’re a Black Joe Morgan right now, you would last a year in the Major Leagues, and then you’re gone,” said Morgan, called “Little Joe” because he stood 5-feet 7-inches. “But you have the white guys like that, and they’re around for 10 years hitting around .190 or .200 all of their life. It’s always been like that.”
Racism in the press box
When the baseball beat writers realized that Moore, the Enquirer’s first African American sportswriter, was covering his first game in early 1979, one white writer said, “This ought to be (expletive deleted) interesting!” As the writers laughed, Dayton Journal Herald writer Paul Meyer walked over and put his arm around Moore, he says.
“I was in my early 20s when the average age of the majority of the journalists writing frequently about the Big Red Machine ranged between twice my age and slightly shy of deceased. Second, I was the only one darker than a baseball,” Moore writes.
Reds fans will love the stories about how Howsam discovered George Foster while scouting another player with San Francisco’s Triple-A affiliate; why he wanted Cesar Geronimo from the Houston Astros; and how the Big Red Machine’s notoriety changed baseball teams’ security protocols. Moore also tells how he was snubbed by future Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, acquired by the Reds in 1977, in the Reds clubhouse.
As a 40-year Enquirer veteran, it was fun seeing the names of Moore’s (and my) colleagues — Jim Schottelkotte, Bill Ford, Dick Forbes, Jim Montgomery, Frank Hinchey — though they won’t mean much to most readers.
My Big Red Machine, available from Moore’s website, is his third book. He has also authored The Real Hank Aaron: An Intimate Look at the Life and Legacy of the Home Run King (2022) and Red Brick Magic: Sean McVay, John Harbaugh and Miami University Cradle of Coaches (2023). Moore is working on a biography of former University of Kentucky basketball coach Tubby Smith to be released late next year.
Moore says he remained a Reds fan while covering more than 30 Super Bowls, multiple Final Fours, numerous Olympic, World Series, and college football bowl games, golf tournaments and other sporting events for the Atlanta and San Francisco papers.
While in town for the Hamilton book signing he’s visiting his brother, Dennis, who lives in the Mount Healthy area.
“For all of us, Cincinnati is in our hearts. We all love Cincinnati,” he says.
Book signing details
Terence Moore will sign copies of My Big Red Machine 6-7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, at the Hamilton Lane Library, 300 N. Third St., Hamilton 45011.
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