Dateline: Cincinnati
Colorful manager Lou Piniella will join the Reds' Hall of Fame collecting a World Championship ring and a couple of dented water coolers.
Reds fans elected him to the team Hall of Fame.
"When they called and told me I was thrilled. I told him that he just made my year," Piniella, who is 82, said. "I will remember this the rest of my life. This is a historic franchise. The fans, everything are great."
The 1990 Reds won nine straight games to start the season and led the entire went wire to wire and never spent a game out of first place.
"I remember going to spring training and looking at my roster," Piniella recalled. "I was thinking to myself, these kids are vey talented. I looked at my pitching with Jose Rijo, Tom Browning, and a couple of young kids, if our pitching holds up, we can win. My message to them on opening day was: you guys are at the right age, the right experience and the talent to win everything. I said go out, play ball and good things will happen to us."
"We built up a big lead and I was able to rest the team, in the summer. We got into the playoffs. Pittsburgh was a good team. The team we beat in the playoffs was a good team. The Oakland was heavily favored but I felt that we would play very well. I didn't know we'd sweep them. I thought we'd be very competitive because Oakland was a fastball pitching team. Our kids hit fastballs well. At the same time Oakland had big sluggers where you could throw velocity at them."
Piniella was prophetic. The Reds swept the Oakland A's in four games.
"Pete Rose did a great job of putting the team together. We just tweaked it a little."
Rose was the manager in 1989 when he was suspended for life for betting on baseball.
Piniella took over after a 17-year career as a player and two years of managing the New York Yankees.
The Reds brought in outfielder Billy Hatcher to fit between Eric Davis and Paul O'Neil. They added Randy Myers to go with Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton to form the "Nasty Boys"
"They made the difference. We used to play a seven inning game. If we were ahead in the seventh inning it was shut the door, baby," Piniella explained. "We had some power but we also had some speed and athleticism. If we could tack on a run here and there in the middle of a game. It made it tough on the opposition."
In the post season, Jose Rijo caught fire. "He was unhittable," Piniella said.
The Reds have not been to the World Series since. Neither did Piniella in the remainder of his 23-year career. He did win three Manager of the Year Awards although he finished second to Jim Leyland of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1990. Piniella, known as "Sweet Lou" won 1,835 games as a manager and had a winning percentage of .517. Piniella managed the Seattle Mariners to 116 wins. The only other team to win that many was the 1906 Chicago Cubs although the Cubs did it in 155 games while the Mariners took 162 games to do it.
Piniella was known for his temper. He was ejected in 64 games, five in 1990 and 11 in his three years with the Reds. On August 21, 1990, one of the most famous ejections in baseball lore was Piniella, taking first base up by its "roots" and flinging it into the outfield. Not satisfied with distance, he went out to pick up the base and throw it farther.
https://youtu.be/Xwk6QsMve5g?si=KtqtH7H2PFXIUvJ5
"Truhfully, now that I'm 82 years old and hopefully a lot smarter, I wish I had toned it down some," Piniella said. "I really do. Truthfully, I'm an easy going guy but on the field, I'm very competitive. When I first started managing, Mr. (George) Steinbrenner said, 'when you get mad at the umpire put on a little show. The people enjoy it. I get the back page of the New York Daily News and the New York Post. I'll pay your fines.' I took it to heart but I wished truthfully, I had toned it down some."
The Reds owner the infamously, cheap, tight fisted owner of the Reds in 1990, Marge Schott, was different.
"Marge was a little reluctant but she eventually paid it," Piniella laughed.
Now heated arguments between managers and umpires have been largely removed from the game with replay review and the new ABS camera system for balls and strikes.
"Truthfully it would have suited me just fine," Piniella said. "I do feel like the fans miss a good argument once in a while. It's fun for them. Baseball is a sport. It's a business. But it's also entertainment. You gotta entertain the folks some too. Still it would have saved me a few ejections. "
"When most managers got kicked out the game the fines was three or four hundred. My fines started at a thousand plus," Piniella reminisced."
Most players he managed expressed fear for his disapproval. The real fear were gum ball machines and water coolers.
Piniella had gum ball machines on the desk in his office. After one tough loss, those machines felt the brunt of his anger. He released his rage before inviting the press in for the postgame conference.
"Watch out for the gum balls," Sweet Lou warned.
Water coolers weren't safe either. After a bad play or a base running mistake or anything else that didn't go the Reds way. He would kick the water cooler which was near the end of the dugout in the days before bottled water.
While he was with the Reds, a play brought him distress and he turned to kick the water cooler and whiffed, falling flat on his butt. Reds players surpressed a laugh.
"Go ahead and laugh," Piniella said. "It was funny."
"When I played the poor water cooler took a beating," Piniella said. "I'd swing at a bad pitch, make a stupid out. The water cooler took the brunt of it. In fact in Kansas City, I took a couple home. I paid for them two times over."
Piniella left the Reds when Marge Schott wouldn't maintain the team.
"We had a great organization from the front office to the scouts, to the talent in the system. This was the only job I took where the team had a chance to win. Pete Rose had some good teams with talent,"Piniella said.
"Marge told me I won with a $13 million payroll, I could win again with a $13 million payroll," Piniella remembered. "I told her the other teams are getting better. We have to increase our payroll. She said the same thing, $13 million, I said, 'you're not interested in winning. So I went home."
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