Historic and Current KTE - The Reds

[Edgy MD]

Eric Gregg during a leaner period.

[MFS62]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Nutritious CAN be delicious! This might be my favorite KTE thread ever.

Yes.
Too bad it didn't become what I intended it to be, a look back and look present at the Reds.

As Seawolf said, it's amazing how many of those 1961 Reds became Mets. I thought at least some of you would have commented about the Howie Nunn factoid.

Writing about those Reds of 1961, while a labor of love, was still a labor. I appreciate your entuhsuasm and research ability, but when I came back to this thread, the last thing I expected to see was a picture of Gary Carter's ass.

Can someone please do some editing and move some of this to a "Keith was a great fielder"- type of thread?
Thanks.
Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

If this was any first baseman other than Keith Hernandez, I would presumptuously write that this play was probably the greatest defensive moment of the first baseman's career. It would've had to have been. But for anyone here who was too young to see Hernandez live, I'm telling you that Keith pulled off these gems, seemingly every week. And in the mid-80's Keith's tactics were still revolutionary.

Revisiting Keith Hernandez's defense in that wild Mets Reds game strengthens, for me anyway, Keith's case for the Hall of Fame. Keith might not have slugged like the HR bashing first basemen that exist in any era, but he was a great hitter in his own right, winning an MVP with the Cards and finishing as runner-up with the Mets in the '84 MVP vote.

But his defense should've punched his ticket to Cooperstown. Hernandez was a revolutionary who reinvented the position. He might be the best fielding first baseman in the history of baseball. I know that I never saw anyone better, for whatever that's worth. I wrote that in the mid-80's, Keith's defensive tactics were still revolutionary even though Keith himself had been Keith for about 10 years. To tell you the truth, Keith's tactics are still revolutionary today, 20 years after Keith's retirement. Nobody pulls off plays like that, let alone with the kind of regularity that spoiled Keith's followers: we came to expect that whenever the situation called for it, Hernandez would field a bunt before the batter was barely out of the batter's box.

Derek Jeter has been immortalized, for just once, making a play on par with what Keith pulled off every week or so.