Baseballminutia

“We got fired at Minnesota, we got fired at Detroit, we got fired at Texas.”

Art Fowler

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When we last kicked around the seemingly ever-present thought, “Have the Reds ever had any Pitching?” We were rolling around in the DeWitt/Hutchinson years in the early 1960’s. Seasons that found the Reds hitting feats garnishing most of the press in what in retrospect was largely a pitching era. When the Reds history is examined often the late sixties are glossed over and recede into the shadows of the success of the 1970’s, this is too bad, for those were some interesting teams, flawed at times, but teams that had rich personality and a hunger to feed the fans of Cincinnati a long relished championship.

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Despite what Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron or most baseball experts say, Joe Nuxhall predicted Thursday night the Reds’ starting rotation could well include Homer Bailey at the start of the 2007 season. Nuxhall was master of ceremonies at the 28th annual Knights of Columbus Sports Stag, held at the Father Butler Council in Hamilton.

“I’m saying right now, I think he’s going to be in the starting rotation,” Nuxhall said of the 20-year-old Bailey, the Reds’ most promising prospect who was almost untouchable at Class AA Chattanooga last season.

I’m not going to waste time challenging that assertion, running stats or conversions for Bailey. But I will note that his 1.19 whip and 1.59 era in AA look good. I’ll also have to note that the praise comes from Joe Nuxhall a man who toed the mound of Crosley at the age of 15.

That lead me to ponder two things, one what kind of 16 year old gets to play major league ball, and two what does history tell us about 21 year old pitchers and the Reds?

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