The list below takes a look back at the franchise's legacy of "firsts" throughout the years. The Cincinnati club is the first to wear knicker-style uniforms. The Cincinnati Red Stockings are baseball's first all-professional team.
Charlie Dressen was my cabin mate. We headed on deck and for the dining room and the sitting rooms. Except for the stewards and crew, the whole ship seemed deserted.
Almost everyone was seasick. I was one of the fortunate ones. And the rough weather knocked out Whitey Wistert , a former All-American football player who was trying to make the grade as a right-handed pitcher, as well as most of the other players and the other passengers. At one point during the day I returned to our cabin and found Dressen in his bunk, fully dressed.
He knew that I knew he was lying. Time for another scotch and soda. The Atlantic calmed down gradually as we neared Puerto Rico. By this time it was warm, with tropical sunshine, blue seas and palm trees coming into view as we neared the old Morro Castle and our dock in San Juan. Numerous Puerto Rican officials and baseball fans greeted us. By noon we had checked into the old Condado Hotel and soon were taking refreshments in the colorful Garden-By-The-Sea, with salt air on our lips.
I knew this was going to be a most enjoyable spring training for me. My duties were light. All I had to do was to make a note of when players checked into the hotel to see that the bills were straight. During workouts I took pictures to send back to the Cincinnati papers. And I wrote feature articles.
Cabled stories were out of the question because of the heavy expense, so I air-mailed my pieces to papers in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and southwest Indiana. The rest of the players dribbled in from all over until we had about 35 veterans and rookies on hand.
Charlie ordered calesthenics to start workouts, followed by batting and infield practice, fielding bunts, pitchers covering first base, wind sprints and all the rest. A light lunch, a siesta and then many of us were swimming in the hotel salt water pool. We were told not to use the beach because the Atlantic was full of barracudas, which could slash even a wader to ribbons. That Garden-By-The-Sea was most attractive. We ate there, and many of us danced there under the stars night after night.
Tvvo orchestras took turns, providing a blend of American and Latin music. The intoxicating setting could hardly have been more romantic. In my job I felt it my duty to provide the newspaper men with drinks and put it all on the expense account.
And there were other attractions, including alluring Puerto Ricans and vacationing girls from the mainland. That combination of salt air, moonlight in the tropics and Latin music often kept me busy till 2 or 3 AM.
Next morning by dawn I was wide awake, refreshed, not wanting to miss anything. While MacPhail was still back in Cincinnati I had occasion to cable the home office, despite the stiff rates. So I got out my cable code book, which was designed to let me say a lot injust a few words. Instead, he yelled at Frances Levy, his secretary and a proper middle-aged spinster, to decipher it.
Miss Levy got out the code book and, blushing, read him the translation into plain English. MacPhail exploded, then dictated his reply in clear, uncoded English:. I fear the accommodations were not nearly as bad as MacPhail wanted for the sinner. He did recover to play in the Cincinnati minor league organization, but he never reached the majors. Our pleasant routine continued into early March. MacPhail had come to San Juan not too long after Larruscu left.
He rounded up Dressen and me and said we were going downtown to the office of the telephone company. There we found the Governor of Puerto Rico, phone company officials and other guests. The occasion was the initiation of the first telephone service between San Juan and the mainland.
By: Elizabeth Borja Archives Division. On April 1, the Major League Baseball season begins. Like most teams, they will take a chartered airplane to their destination. The Cincinnati Reds were the first baseball team to fly a chartered airplane to an away game. Six players opted to travel via train. General Manager Larry McPhail believed that the quicker air travel would give the players more rest between games. NBA 2hr ago Chicago Bulls vs.
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