Portal:Cincinnati/Sports/1
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The Cincinnati Reds are a Major League Baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of the National League. The original Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first openly all-professional team, were founded as an amateur club in 1863, and became fully professional in 1869.
In 1970, little known George "Sparky" Anderson was hired as manager, and the Reds embarked upon a decade of excellence, with a team that came to be known as "The Big Red Machine". Playing at Crosley Field until June 30, 1970, when the Reds moved into brand-new Riverfront Stadium, a 52,000 seat multi-purpose venue on the shores of the Ohio River, the Reds began the 1970s with a bang by winning 70 of their first 100 games. Johnny Bench, Tony Pérez, Pete Rose, Lee May and Bobby Tolan were the early Red Machine offensive leaders; Gary Nolan, Jim Merritt Wayne Simpson and Jim McGlothlin led a pitching staff which also contained veterans Tony Cloninger and Clay Carroll and youngsters Pedro Borbon and Don Gullett. The Reds breezed through the 1970 season, winning the NL West and captured the NL pennant by sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates in three games. By time the club got to the World Series, however, the Reds pitching staff had run out of gas and the veteran Baltimore Orioles beat the Reds in five games.
