My brother and I were trying to determine the batting lineup for the two Cincinnati Reds teams that won the World Series in 1975 and 1976. As I am 27 and he’s 24, we obviously don’t remember it live, and are having a hard time trying to determine who batted where based on stats, rep and production.
The lineup included Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Ken Griffey and Cesar Geronimo. We presumed that Concepcion batted 8th, Geronimo 7th, and Morgan 2nd, but we can’t agree on where anyone else would have gone. I seem to recall Pete Rose as a leadoff hitter, but my brother remembers Ken Griffey saying once that he’d have tagged many more stolen bases if Joe Morgan wasn’t batting behind him, as Morgan apparently hated hitting with a guy trying to take off on the basepaths.
At any rate. Presuming there was one given lineup (a fair presumption considering old-school Sparky was at the helm and that those guys were all professionals) for those two seasons, does anyone recall who batted where?
the Holy Avenger
I’m from Cincy! 35 years old.
Sparky changed a bit from time to time, but here’s their usual lineup (more or less):
Cesar Geronimo
Pete Rose
Ken Griffey
Johnny Bench
Joe Morgan
Tony Perez
George Foster
Dave Concepcion
Geronimo, a left-handed hitter usually hit leadoff against righties. He was a fair hitter, but nowhere near Rose, who was a switch-hitter. But he had an arm comparable to Larry Walker or Vladimir Guerrero.
With that lineup, it really didn’t seem to matter who batted where.
By the way, Cesar Geronimo was spotted by scouts in the Dominican Republic and had to be convinced to play baseball. He was a seminary student.
And Concepcion? The Reds had a Davey Concepcion Day last year for ol’ #13. He looked good. I remember how he took advantage of the artificial turf by skipping the ball on the turf on throws to first instead of just throwing it to the first baseman.
Here’s a funny story about Tony Perez. You know he’s Cuban and back then his English was not very good. Anyway, he had hit a game winning home run about 1973 or 1974 and was the star of the game.
During the interview, Joe Nuxhall asked him what the pitch was.
Tony: “Pecker-high fastball.”
People were dying laughing. So they went to commericial about four times because nobody could stop laughing.
After the last break, Tony said: “I sorry, Joe.”
Nuxhall always used to love picking Perez for interviews because he’d answer every question starting with “Oh, yah, Yoe”.
Concepcion only started bouncing throws late in his career (little-known fact: that guarantees topspin on the ball when the 1B gets it). Earlier, his strong arm made him able to make the same plays on Astroturf that most SS’s could make only on grass.
I must be getting old. I remember the usual lineup then as:
Rose
Morgan
Griffey
Bench
Perez
Foster
Concepcion
Geronimo
Well, the actual lineup for game 6 of the 1975 World Series was:
Rose
Griffey
Morgan
Bench
Perez
Foster
Concepcion
Geronimo
Usually, though, Concepcion batted 8th. I do recall clearly that Rose was their leadoff hitter. He didn’t have much speed, but had a great on-base percentage.
Others have gotten the basic 1975/76 lineup right, but don’t forget: in 1976, the DH rule was introduced to the World Series, and Dan Driessen was in the lineup for the Reds as DH (he had a good series against my Yankees, as I recall… so did pretty much ALL the Reds, for that matter).