They didn’t realize they were about to enter a room occupied by what would become The Great Eight, the main pieces of The Big Red Machine.
The first dressing cubicle to the right of the door was occupied by Johnny Bench, catcher’s mitts and shin guards stacked neatly.
To the right and at the far end of the clubhouse were two cubicles facing the middle of the room, the dressing area occupied by Pete Rose and Joe Morgan, known as Salt and Pepper.
That’s because Rose was white and Morgan was black and they were inseparable as friends, as close as salt and pepper shakers on the table in the center of the room usually packed with post-game foods.
The red carpeting was well-worn near their lockers because it was an everyday stopping point for the media, the two best interviews on The Big Red Machine.
Not far from Rose and Morgan, up a couple of cubicles, sat Tony ‘The Big Dog’ Perez and right next to him was Dave Concepcion.
Former Reds manager Dave Bristol slapped ‘The Big Dog’ moniker on Perez because he was a pitbull in the batter’s box, the bat in his hands like a pitbull’s fangs with runners on base.
He also was ‘The Big Dog’ in the clubhouse, the leader in a room full of egos as large as hot air balloons. Perez was The Great Deflator, able to apply the perfect squelch when he thought Bench, Rose, Morgan or any other of the Machinists was over-gloating or over-pontificating.
And he was perched next to Concepcion as a father figure, guiding the multi-talented Venezuelan shortstop in the ways of the big league baseball world.
If Rose and Morgan were Salt and Pepper, the Cuban-born Perez and Venezuelan-born Concepcion were the team’s Latin Quarter. They, too, were inseparable and spoke to each other in Spanish.
To their credit, they did interviews in broken English, a necessity then because teams did not provide translators. Both mastered the English language enough to conduct clear and concise interviews.
Just down the row to the left of Perez and Concepcion sat first baseman Dan Driessen, a shy guy from Hilton Head, S.C. While shy, he led the clubhouse in bright and wide smiles.
Driessen is not part of The Great Eight, but was an integral part of the team’s success.
He was a listener, not a talker, and absorbed everything he heard from his teammates as he sat at his locker laughing at the jibes Rose, Morgan and Perez tossed at each other.
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Across from Driessen, near the doors that opened into a tunnel that led to the field, were two more inseparables — George ‘Yahtzee’ Foster and Ken Griffey Sr.
The two black outfielders were extremely cautious in their dealings with the media, acutely dialed into racial relations. They were guarded until a media member earned their trust and then one could find no better friends.
If there was a loner on the team, it was soft-spoken center fielder Cesar ‘Chief’ Geronimo. He dressed and sat quietly across the room from Bench, strangely occupying an area where mostly pitchers dressed.
Like Driessen, he was a listener and an absorber. His English was not as polished as that of Perez and Concepcion so the media avoided interview attempts, which was unfair and most likely led to one of the game’s best outfielders not receiving the accolades he deserved.
The Great Eight...all men, all baseball players, all with different personalities that blended together perfectly to win baseball games and have fun doing it.
Manager Sparky Anderson recognized the way to lead this talent-loaded team.
He was once asked, “Do you treat all your players the same way?”
Anderson shook his head dismissively and said, “No way. They all have different personalities and you can’t treat them all the same way. My stars get special treatment. They’ve earned it and they deserve it.”
And hearing that, the extra players — Doug Flynn, Darrel Chaney, Don Werner, Ed Armbrister, Merv Rettenmund and Terry Crowley — had tee-shirts made up with the world ‘Turds’ on the front.
They may not have been part of The Great Eight, but each one contributed many positives along the way toward The Big Red Machines’ success.
The Great Eight, though, was not spliced together until a month into the 1975 season. On an early May day, 50 years ago, a half century ago, Anderson called Rose into his office.
Rose was playing left field and Anderson, recognized the talent and power of George Foster and wanted him in the lineup.
As Rose recalled it to me, “Sparky asked me, ‘Pete what do you think about moving to third base so I can get Yahtzee (Foster) into the lineup in left field?’
“I told Sparky, ‘Let’s do it. You know me, I’ll play anywhere you want me to play and I don’t give a damn where it is. Anywhere but left out.’”
So The Great Eight was catcher Bench, first baseman Perez, second baseman Morgan, shortstop Concepcion, third baseman Rose, left fielder Foster, center fielder Geronimo and right fielder Griffey.
But it wasn’t the way most fans thought it was. The Great Eight didn’t play every game. Not even close. Those eight players were only in the lineup together for 63 games.
Usually, though, Anderson made certain at least seven were on the field for every game. And they pounded their way to 108 wins and a seven-game World Series victory over the Boston Red Sox.
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