Look at me: I traded my Opening Day pitcher the day before Opening Day. I got Sean Casey for Dave Burba. Casey is a living legend in Cincinnati. Where's Dave Burba now? I got Ron Gant for peanuts, because you wouldn't take a chance on him recovering from a broken leg. I got Pete Schourek from the recycling bin and he won 18 games. I got Pete Harnisch and Denny Neagle. I brought in Kevin Mitchell and Deion Sanders.

Say what you like about Prime Time. But wasn't it fun having him in center field in li'l ol' Cincinnati? Damn right it was.

Baseball named the Reds' erstwhile general manager to the same title in Washington. Bowden will run the Expos, or whoever they choose to be, until Baseball selects an ownership group. Given Baseball's speed on doing things - and its intention to shake down every nickel from those hoping to own the Washington franchise - Bowden could be in charge for more than a few months.

What fun that will be for D.C.

"It came out of nowhere," Bowden said Wednesday, from his Los Angeles home. I had e-mailed him requesting an interview. He called two minutes later. "I hadn't pursued it, but I'm excited about how it turned out."

The day after Bowden returned from the World Series as a correspondent for the ESPN2 show Cold Pizza - Baseball called him. He said he would do it if he didn't have to give up the TV. (As unfortunate as Cold Pizza can be, Bowden's performances aren't half bad.)

Baseball said he could do both. ESPN, citing a potential conflict of interest, offered a leave of absence. And off Bowden went to D.C., to meet with Expos manager Frank Robinson.

"I get to make all the baseball decisions, within the budget," said Bowden. "To be the first GM to carry the baseball torch back to Washington is very exciting."

Some of us are going through a little D.C. envy now. Admit it: Wasn't life just a little better around here with Ol' Leatherpants behind the big desk?

The Reds are a timid bunch now. They don't think big thoughts, they don't try big things. They don't dare greatly. They don't dare at all. With one of the country's richest men owning more of the team than anyone, the Reds seek only to be "competitive." The Eagles wrote a lyric to describe the current Reds:

"You don't care about winnin'/but you don't wanna lose/After the thrill is gone."

Jim Bowden was the last Can-Do man in Cincinnati's major-league office. Say what you want about "Bodes." We aren't discussing personal virtues and foibles here. We're talking about running a small-revenue team.

We're talking about thinking outside the practical. You can't run a team on a shoestring when you think like a winged tip. The Reds are nothing now if not a collection of brown Size 10s. Oakland wins on leftovers because its general manager, Billy Beane, thinks creatively and with imagination. He's a Can-Do guy.

Bowden was that way, at least for the first six or seven years of his 10-year stay.

"I've had trade discussions with several teams already," he said Wednesday. No doubt.

Bowden said being fired here in July 2003 "was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd have died in that chair and never left. Getting fired allowed me time to look at the whole picture. I believe I'll do a better job this time around.

"I'll have better self-discipline. Sometimes, a position of power can affect how you treat people. And not in a good way."

Bowden makes reference to being "loyal to a fault" to the Reds, without being specific. It's easy to read between his lines, though. It always was. Bodes was almost always candid, even when you knew the candor was entirely self-serving. He didn't say it, and still won't, but Bowden felt betrayed by an organization that promised him a $70 million payroll the first year of the new ballpark. It was $20 million less, similar to the payroll in 1995, when the Reds won the division.

"It was hard to move forward" under existing financial parameters is all Bowden will say.

He stayed in town until last February, when he moved to L.A. with his fiancee, Joy Browning, an actress.

"It got to be too much," Bowden said. "In L.A., nobody even knows who the general managers of the teams are. In Cincinnati, everyone knows. The people were great to me, but it's hard hearing every day, 'You shouldn't have gotten fired.' "

Bowden recalls with absolute fondness every year here through the trade for Junior Griffey. "There's nothing like winning in Cincinnati," he says. "No matter what restrictions I had, I tried. I was going to do what I could with what we had."

The Reds were a little more productive when Bowden was around. And a lot more interesting. He will move from L.A. to Melbourne, Fla., where the D.C. team will set up winter shop. Then he will get busy. It won't be dull.

"Watch Las Vegas," Bowden is saying, referring to a TV show his fiancee will appear in on Nov. 9. "She's with Snoop Dogg."

Bodes is back, large and in leather. And, unfortunately, somewhere else. The thrill is gone.

Return to Reds front page...