Mike Schmidt was the year in between my older brothers in high school. He was going to play pro football but was clipped in practice and blew out his knee. Steve Yeager played for our arch rival, Meadowdale. It must have been awful playing in that conference in the late 1960s! The site of our high school is a branch library now.
I am sure that I watched this game on TV. George Foster was a better defensive outfielder than most people gave him credit for. He had a wicked throwing arm. I remember him throwing out a runner at home on a Sac Fly in a playoff game. He threw it from the left field corner. Gary Nolan was a tough playoff pitcher. His arm went dead. I am pretty sure that it was a rotator cuff. For some reason, the Reds never scored very many runs for him, 3 or less was usual. When somebody else pitched, the Big Red Machine would score 5, sometimes more.
Joe Morgan hated to bat against Jim Katt. He would sit out a regular season game and let the utility infielder play. Maybe that was Doug Flynn? Al Michaels did the Reds games on radio for 7 years.
There is a lot of info there. That personal story is a somber tale of reality.
George Foster threw out Denny Doyle in the 6th game of the 1975 World Series with the bases loaded no outs and the Red Sox needing one run to win in a tie game. Fred Lynn hit into that double play (outfielder, home plate). Supposedly, Don Zimmer, the third base coach, told Doyle "No, no" and Doyle countered he thought Zimmer said "Go, go." Something like that. Anyway, perfect throw by Foster.
In one way, that play reminded me of the final out of Game 5 of the 1972 World Series. Oakland had 1st and 3rd, down by a run with one out in the ninth inning. They could have won the World Series that night. Bert Campaneris hit a pop fly to second base. Morgan caught the ball and whizzed it home when pinch runner pitcher Blue Moon Odom tried to score. Double play, game over.
Perhaps the best outfield catch by a Reds was in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1990 NLCS by Glenn Braggs. Reds led by one, Pittsburgh's Carmelo Martinez hit it out of the park. Braggs brought it back in. Should have been a 2-run HR. Pittsbugh had one hit the whole game. They could have led 3-2 with 2 hits. It was a flawless and underappreciated catch. The Reds clinched.
Fred Norman was a player who for a while lacked run support. Sparky Anderson would use him in between starts sometimes. Norman was 11-2 to start 1976. He used to beat the Reds with bad Padres' teams and that caught the eyes of many. He beat the Reds 4 times in 1972 alone when they went to the 7th game of the World Series and San Diego was a most miserable franchise. That carried into 1973 when the Reds dealt for him. That trade ended that problem of facing Norman and was one of the best trades of the 1970s. He was awesome at Riverfront.
Gary Nolan was mentioned by some in the same breath as Nolan Ryan and not because of the similarity in names. He had incredible zip early on. But later had extensive arm trouble in his career and missed just about all of 1973 and 1974. He was solid during the two championship years but was shot after that.
I don't recall the Morgan-Jim Kaat connection. Kaat wasn't in the NL very long. Late 70s with the Phillies? If so, that was a season or two at most if he flustered Morgan but I don't remember Kaat being an irritant to the Reds as a whole.
Tommy Hutton batted .320 in his life against Tom Seaver, he was around a .250 hitter. One of those oddities.
Steve Carlton, a Hall of Famer, used to struggle against the Reds. They used to look forward to facing him in a competitive way.
