Monday, April 01, 2002
Major-league milestone for the Ol' Left-hander
50 years in the majors
By John Erardi, jerardi@enquirer.com.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[img]](http://reds.enquirer.com/2002/04/01/nux_150x200.jpg)
Joe Nuxhall shows off his "Big Stick-Joe Nuxhall" bat from the 1976 World Championship team.
(Dick Swaim photo)
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The realization dawns on Joe Nuxhall like the soft first light of morning.
“I've been at this ... it'll be ... what? ... yeah, first year back in '52 ... so, 50 of 'em ... wow!” says the Ol' Left-ander, who doesn't sit around and think much about this stuff.
But, it's true.
Fifty years ago, the now most-beloved Red of them all was in the big leagues for good.
It was Opening Day, 1952.
He hasn't missed one since.
Today — Opening Day for the Reds, their final one at Cinergy Field before moving into their new ballpark next year — also marks another anniversary for “Nuxie.” It is the 35th anniversary of his debut in the radio booth. He went straight from the mound to a higher calling on Opening Day, 1967.
“I never thought I'd be at it this long,” he says, shaking his head with a smile.
The Ol' Left-ander has come a long way since April 15, 1952, the day the Reds lost 6-5 in 10 innings at Crosley Field after Andy Seminick rallied the Reds with a 3-run homer to almost overcome a third-inning grand slam by the Cubs' Hank Sauer.
Cincinnati has come a long way, too.
Next year, it will open a new stadium, Great American Ball Park, whose black steel frame rises high above the outfield walls of Cinergy Field. Come 2003, Great American will be adorned with the Ol' Left-ander's signature radio phrase: “Rounding third and heading for home.”
Next year, at the grand entrance to the new ballpark, just as you make your way off Main Street and swing past the 50-foot high, 20-foot wide bas relief called “The Spirit of Baseball,” you will be in Crosley Terrace. Staring at you and batter Frank Robinson, with catcher Ernie Lombardi and on-deck hitter Ted Kluszewski looking on, will be none other than the Ol' Left-ander himself, in bronze.
Robby, Nuxie, Schnozz and Big Klu — immortalized.
“Talk about an honor ... geesh,” says Mr. Nuxhall, one of the four former Crosley Field Reds the fans voted to commemorate with statues on the terrace.
So, if you think Nuxie feels Opening Day in Cincinnati has lost its luster, forget about it.
Unlike the party-poopers and the late arrivals, Nuxie still believes.
Yes, baseball in smaller-revenue markets like Cincinnati is suffering. But it is not suffering on Opening Day. This city gave birth to professional baseball and gave holiday cachet to Opening Day. Cincinnati has seen worse.
Listen to Nuxie.
“You say, well, 50 years of Opening Day, same ol'-same ol'” Mr. Nuxhall says. “But you go to other opening days throughout baseball, and nothing compares to when you see that Findlay Market Parade come marching through. Maybe up until the time Opening Day arrives every year, you think it's going to be the same ol' deal. But, by gosh, when the fanfare starts, you get all revved up. Or at least I do.”
Nuxie has had many memorable Opening Days as a broadcaster.
On Opening Day 1967, he was in the booth with Claude Sullivan and Jim McIntyre and remembers thinking he should be down on the field, getting out the Dodgers.
He remembers 1971, the first Opening Day at Riverfront Stadium (the Reds lost, 7-4, partly because they made six errors, three of them by Woody Woodward at third base); 1975 (Reds beat the defending NL champions and archrival Dodgers, 2-1, in 14 innings on a day so cold the Reds were warming their hands on three hibachi grills set up in the dugout); 1980 (Frank Pastore filled in for the ailing Tom Seaver and pitched a three-hit shutout); 1985 (in snow, rain and high winds, Pete Rose drove in three of the four runs and scored the other in a 4-1 win), and 1993 (Jose Rijo beat fellow Latin great, Dennis Martinez, 2-1).
“But the openers I've been the most keyed up about (as a broadcaster and fan) are the ones that have followed the World Series seasons,” Mr. Nuxhall says. “You knew what the successes were of the previous year, and you wondered, "Are they gonna be that good this year?' Those are the special ones.”
In no city, in no ballpark, is there an Opening Day like Cincinnati's.
And when you learn it as a player, it never leaves you.
Nuxie learned it the hard way when he was traded to Kansas City in the American League after a disastrous 1960 season (1-8, and you could hear the boos at Crosley back in Hamilton). When Mr. Nuxhall returned as a Red in 1962, he had missed a World Series (the Reds lost to the Yankees in five games) and the gutting of Crosley Field's character by way of removing its distinctive “landmarks” — the Superior Towel & Linen building and Siebler Suit sign in left field — to make room for parking.
“Sometimes you don't know what you've got till it's gone,” Nuxie says.
He was speaking of Crosley Field and Opening Day.
In the past, when the city and the Reds were the first opener on the baseball calendar, Opening Day was at its best. The Reds' Opening Day pitcher felt the most honored. He was throwing the first pitch of the major-league season.
Nuxie felt that way when he made his lone Opening Day start in 1956.
But Cincinnati's being “first” was never really a tradition. It just seems that way.
But always opening at home? Now, that's a tradition that goes way back.
“I'm really looking forward to this,” says the Reds' Adam Dunn, who will experience his first Reds' Opening Day today. “But 50 of 'em? Mercy. That's a lot.”
Mr. Nuxhall, 73, was born and raised in Hamilton and saw his first Opening Day in uniform from the Reds dugout in 1944, as a courtesy from the ballclub. He debuted two months later as a 15-year-old phenom, when so many of the Reds regulars were serving in the military in World War II.
Mr. Nuxhall gave up his first hit to St. Louis Cardinals great Stan Musial that day. Twelve years later, it was Musial who ruined what would have been Mr. Nuxhall's greatest Opening Day: 1956.
That was the year Gus Bell and Wally Post and Frank Robinson and Ted Kluszewski and the rest of the Reds (yes, even Nux, who hit two home runs) slugged 221 homers, tying the major-league record, nearly winning a pennant and drawing 1 million fans for the first time. The amazing Redlegs so congested West End streets that talk turned really serious for the first time about the need for a new ballpark.
Anybody who was at Crosley Field on Opening Day 1956 will never forget it.
Mr. Nuxhall had been accorded the honor of opening the season, because he'd been the ace of the staff in 1955 (17-12) and had had a good spring. He continued it on Opening Day when, locked up with Cards pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell in a 2-2 pitcher's duel, he muffed a two-out, ninth-inning nubber off the bat of Red Schoendienst. That brought Stan the Man to the plate. Mr. Nuxhall had gotten him out on sliders the first four times up. Nuxie was nothing if not loyal. He threw another slider.
“I can still see that pitch,” Nuxie says. “It was a hanger. Right there. ”
It was his oh-no pitch.
“Oh no, as in what you say — "Oh, no!' and maybe a few other things — when the ball leaves your hand,” Mr. Nuxhall says. “Stan knew what to do with it. He hit it about half-way up the Sun Deck (the right-field bleachers).”
It had been some kind of a day.
Twenty-year-old rookie Frank Robinson had doubled off the center field wall at Crosley in his first major-league at-bat. (And who knows, maybe he'd have gotten a triple, but back in those days, so many people wanted to come to Opening Day in 30,000-seat Crosley Field, that folding chairs were set up in front of the fences, and anything hit in there was a ground-rule double). The Reds also debuted their sleeveless uniform tops that day. Bulging-bicep Klu no longer had to scissor off the sleeves as he had been doing in years past. Despite the loss, Mr. Nuxhall had pitched superbly.
Robby, Nuxie and Big Klu.
They'll be statues soon.
One more Opening Day to go.
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![[img]](http://reds.enquirer.com/2002/04/01/nux_zoom.jpg)
Major-league milestone for the Ol' Left-hander
