By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Leisure suits and plaid sportcoats came and went with the 1970s. But Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall always have been in fashion on the air. The Cincinnati Enquirer file

Joe Nuxhall has years of memories at Cinergy. His fondest? "The world championship teams," the Ol' Left-hander said. "Five World Series and three world championships. That's a lot of baseball history." The Cincinnati Enquirer/ERNEST COLEMAN

You talk about your "Mayors of Riverfront" - Tony Perez, Sean Casey - but Joe Nuxhall, he certainly is one.

OK, OK, so we were just having some fun with a bit of scrambled syntax borrowed from Nuxie's "Star of the Game" show.

That's the beauty of Hamilton Joe.

He roots, he garbles, he sometimes can be so deadly silent during a game - even when he's doing play-by-play solo - that we wonder whether he's fallen asleep. But then we realize, nope, it's just Joe, calm, patient, avuncular Joe (except, of course, when a Red "puts a charge into one" and Joe yells like a proud papa for it to "get outta here!").

We, as a community, love Nuxie. Love him like we haven't loved a guy since Waite Hoyt, the radio broadcaster of the Crosley Field era.

Nuxie is ours. His broadcast partner of 29 years, Marty Brennaman, says that when it comes to sheer, unadulterated love between fans and a Reds icon, "there ain't nobody in this town more popular than Joe Nuxhall."

"I've never heard a fan, or anyone else, ever utter a negative thing about Joe - ever," Brennaman said. "That's unbelievable. Now, have we heard people utter negatives around this town about Pete Rose? Yes. So, if you're talking about popularity ... nobody in this town is more popular than Joe Nuxhall. Nobody."

Marty and Joe go back to 1974; Joe dates to '67 in the Crosley Field booth.

When he sidles up to the mike at Great American Ball Park next season, that will mark 37 years of going yard - three different yards, including the entire history of one of them. How many broadcasters can say that?

We can imagine the Reds without Cinergy, but we can't imagine them without Nuxie.

"Joe's the bridge that goes back to the early 1940s with this franchise," Brennaman said.

And Hoyt, a Hall of Fame pitcher with the New York Yankees, never pitched for the Reds. Nuxie did (1944, 1952-66). He will be honored with a statue on Crosley Field Plaza at Great American Ball Park. The words "Rounding Third and Heading for Home" - Nuxie's signature line - will be stripped across the downtown side of Great American.

Some people have forgotten, however, that "rounding third and heading for home" didn't start at Riverfront.

"It's amazing how it's grown to the point it has, considering how it got started," Nuxhall, 74, said. "I didn't even like that phrase, `rounding third and heading for home.'"

The person who suggested Nuxhall use it was Reds coach Whitey Wietelmann, a former big-league infielder.

"He'd listen to the postgame show down in the bullpen. He said, `Joe, you need something to say on your close.' I said, `I dunno.' He said, "Why don't you say, `The Ol' Left-hander, rounding third and heading for home?'" I said, `I don't like that. That sounds (expletive deleted).' He said, `Try it!'"

Nuxhall tried it, but only for a week because he still felt it "sounded terrible." And, of course, as soon as he stopped, here came the letters, wondering what happened to that great signature phrase.

"So I figured, if they like it, I'd better like it," Nuxhall said. "That was my first year in the booth."

And, for the record, he liked Crosley a lot better than Riverfront, but he prefers the booth at the latter: "At Crosley, we were looking practically straight down. We were up on the roof, and we had to walk out on the roof to get there!"

In 33 seasons at Riverfront/Cinergy - that's 2,418 dates, counting All-Star and postseason contests - Nuxhall has missed only two of them.

"I missed one when I was the commencement speaker at Hamilton High's graduation, and another when my son graduated from OU (Ohio University)," Nuxhall said. "No, wait a minute, it might only be one. I think I got back in time after my son's graduation. He graduated in the afternoon, and I'm pretty sure it was a night game."

Actually, Joe, it was two. Because you attended your partner's induction ceremony into the broadcasting wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

"I never, ever dreamed they'd be tearing this place down so soon," said Nuxhall of Riverfront/Cinergy. "Not when you look at how old Crosley Field was (58 years, 1912-70). Who would have ever thought, on the day it opened (June 30, 1970), that this place would only last 33 seasons?"

What blew away Nuxhall the most when he first entered Riverfront Stadium?

"Just how big it was," he said. "At Crosley Field, there was the sun deck/moon deck in right field and nothing in left, and then you come in here and there's seats all the way around."

Nuxhall pitched batting practice regularly through 1988 and continued pitching B.P. indoors in the batting cage after that.

"There are a lot of good memories here," he said.

What are his favorites?

"The world championship teams," Nuxie said. "Five World Series and three world championships. That's a lot of baseball history."

The other great moments that come to mind, Nuxhall said, are Pete Rose's all-time hits record, Johnny Bench's home run on Johnny Bench Night and Tom Browning's perfect game.

"It's still unbelievable to me that that was the only perfect game in the history of the oldest professional baseball team," Nuxhall said.

Not historic, but oh-so-memorable, were Eric Davis' two great catches robbing St.Louis Cardinals slugger Jack Clark of home runs on back-to-back nights.

Off the field, in the stands, Nuxie will never forget {hellip}

"The guy who, up here on a Saturday, reached for a foul ball into the green seats and was hanging on by one arm. They got him back," he said. "And the guy who fell out of the green seats in right field and broke his back (during Pete Rose Jr.'s big-league debut). The guy was from Monroe if I recall it correctly."

He'll also never forget broadcasting a game from the upper-deck red seats with Brennaman.

"It was outstanding," Nuxie said. "It was fun being out with the fans, talking with them. We had to tell some of 'em to keep quiet."

Nuxhall wishes for only one thing today - not necessarily an emotional farewell with everybody welling up at the sight of 33 seasons' worth of players being feted. It's a given that will happen.

What is never a given is {hellip}

"A win," Nuxhall said. "And I'd like it to be a really good ballgame to remember the place by. One you can look back on and say, `Man, what a ballgame!'" I certainly don't want to see a 14-12 game with a bunch of screwed-up plays. I want a real sound ballgame, 5-3, something like that, a couple of home runs by our guys and some clutch pitching. Just a real good fans' ballgame."

Nuxie is right, because that is how Crosley's final night is remembered. The Reds beat the San Francisco Giants 5-4 on back-to-back, eighth-inning homers by Bench and Lee May.

"Now that's how you play a final game," Nuxie said.

Oh, sure, people remember that Crosley's home plate was loaded into a helicopter and ferried over downtown to the new ballpark. But the first thing they mention is those back-to-back boomers off Juan Marichal to win it. Most people who were around back then - even if they weren't at the game - remember the score like their Social Security number.

Does Nuxie expect to miss Riverfront/Cinergy?

"For a while, I guess," he said. "But not like Crosley Field. I still miss Crosley Field. I think the advantages of Great American will be outstanding. All you have to do is realize it's a baseball-only park, not dual-purpose like this one. I don't think anybody's really going to say, `I hate to leave here.'"

And speaking of the "Star of the Game," how many Reds turned down Nuxie to appear on his postgame show when it was broadcast from Riverfront/Cinergy?

"Three," Nuxhall said without hesitating. "Reggie Sanders, Dave Concepcion and somebody else, I don't even remember their name."

What was the deal with Davey?

"He was upset I didn't have him on the Star of the Game in Chicago," Nuxie explained. "He had hit a grand slam, but we were already eight or nine runs ahead. Later, he told me, `I no go on your program.' I said, `OK, don't worry about it.' But he came around."

Nuxhall said he has too many favorite Reds players to single out any. But among the non-frontline types, one of his favorites is Bill Plummer, who backed up Bench at catcher. Nuxhall has favorites among visiting players, too, but said Arizona Diamondbacks infielder Jay Bell stands out. "Just an outstanding guy," Nuxhall said.

Who were Nuxie's least favorite Reds?

"There was nobody I disliked," Nuxie said. "But there were some I occasionally wondered about."