By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Reds manager Sparky Anderson receives the traditional bouquet and addresses the crowd at Opening Day 1971. The Cincinnati Enquirer file

For former Reds CEO Marge Schott, who died March 2 at age 75, Opening Day was always a festive event. The Cincinnati Enquirer file

Every city has its claim to fame, and Cincinnati has several. One of the big ones is that it is the home of professional baseball.

It is why the Reds are anointed by Major League Baseball to open every season at home. This wasn't always the case.

At first, Cincinnati opened at home because it was the southern-most location in the National League. But ever since the Pittsburgh Pirates tried to wrest a home opener from Cincinnati in 1935 - prompting a spirited economic rebuttal by the Reds and an impassioned pitch that Cincinnati had given birth to the first professional team in 1869 - the home inaugural here has been secure.

Even in the early 1950s, when other NL teams began clamoring for more frequent home openers to begin the season, the league protected the Reds by giving them one home game a day early before sending them on the road. This, in turn, began to give rise to the belief that not only did the Reds always open at home, but they got the first game of the season.

Through it all, the fans here have treated Opening Day as their birthright. In the early 1900s, after NL teams had ceased sponsoring parades to the Opening Day game, only Cincinnati fans began holding their own parades and were able to sustain them. By 1920, the Findlay Street Market got in on the act and has been in on it ever since.

Former Reds pitcher Tom Browning won Reds openers in 1990 and 1991, back in the days when the Reds brass was still encouraging the Findlay Market Parade organizers to have some floats and a hitch team take a loop around the inside of Riverfront Stadium on Opening Day. Browning visited the parade on his own soon after he had retired.

"I came down to check out the hoopla," he said. "They go schizo here. It's awesome!"

Opening Day in Cincinnati is still awesome.

From the new book, "Opening Day: Celebrating Cincinnati's Baseball Holiday."