subject: The Cincinnati Reds Tickets : The Reds Have Enjoyed Success Over Their 120 Plus Years [print this page] The Cincinnati Reds are a Major League Baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the Central Division of the National League.
The franchise originated in 1882 as the Cincinnati Red Stockings, using a name that dates back to baseball's first professional team in 1869. They settled on their current name by 1890, though they used the name "Redlegs" for part of the 1950s to avoid any perceived association with Communism during the McCarthy era. The franchise was a charter member of the American Association, then one of the two major leagues, and then joined the National League in 1890.
Relative to other teams in the National League, the Reds have enjoyed success over their 120-plus years. They are tied with the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates for sixth-most World Series victories, with 5. They are trailing the New York Yankees, who have 27 World Series titles, St. Louis Cardinals, who have 10, Oakland Athletics with 9, Boston Red Sox with 7, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have 6. The Reds won the AA's inaugural season in 1882, and did not win another championship until the Black Sox scandal-ridden 1919 World Series.
After struggling in the 1920s (starting in 1927) and 1930s, the Reds made it back to the World Series in 1939, and won it in 1940. They returned to the bottom half of the standings from 1941/1960, except for a third-place finish in 1956, until winning the National League pennant in 1961.
After losing to the Yankees in the 1961 World Series, the Reds were unable to piece together any consistent pennant-contending teams until the "Big Red Machine" teams of the 1970s. They won 6 National League West Division titles and four National League pennants from 1970 to 1979, including consecutive World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. Their most recent World Series championship was in 1990, and in 2010 the Reds clinched the NL Central, sending them back to the playoffs for the first time since 1995.
Since 2003, the Reds have played their home games in Great American Ball Park, a baseball-only facility built next door to their previous home, Riverfront Stadium, which has since been demolished. The Reds field manager is Dusty Baker, their general manager is Walt Jocketty, and their majority owner is Bob Castellini.
The original Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first openly all-professional team, were founded as an amateur club in 1866, and became fully professional in 1869.
The Red Stockings won 130 straight games throughout 1869 and 1870, before being defeated by the Brooklyn Atlantics. Star players included brothers Harry and George Wright, Fred Walterman, and pitcher Asa Brainard. The 1869 Red Stockings made an eastern swing of 21 games and went undefeated. According to Walter Camp, the team received a banquet and a "champion bat...this rather remarkable testimonial was twenty-seven feet long and nine inches (229 mm) in diameter".
The following year, the team lost only one game. They were defeated at the Brooklyn Atlantics' Capitoline Grounds. According to Camp, the Red Stockings lost 8/7 in 11 innings. The game apparently served as a precursor to today's unruly crowds because he wrote: "A crowd of ten thousand people assembled to witness this match, and so lost their heads in the excitement as to give the Western men a very unfair reception."
The best players of the Cincinnati Red Stockings relocated to Boston after the 1870 season, taking the nickname along with them and becoming the Boston Red Stockings, a team later dubbed the "Beaneaters" and eventually the "Braves", who are now based in Atlanta. A new Cincinnati Red Stockings team became a charter member of the National League in 1876, five years after the first Red Stockings team.
The second Red Stockings team was expelled from the league after the 1880 season, in part for violating league rules by serving beer to fans at games, and for their refusal to stop renting out their ballpark, the Bank Street Grounds, on Sundays.
A third Cincinnati team of the same name became a founding member of the American Association, a rival league that began play in 1882. That team (which is the same franchise of today) played for eight seasons in the American Association and won the Association's inaugural pennant in 1882.
The pennant winning club still holds the record for the highest winning percentage of any Reds club to date (.688). In November 1889, the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Brooklyn Dodgers both left the Association for the National League.
