Speaker 1: By Billy Cunningham. The great American Randy Freaking is in
Speaker 1: the studio. You know, Randy. We seldom get a visit
Speaker 1: in the studio. So it's good to have you here.
Speaker 2: Hey, Willy Ill love coming back.
Speaker 1: There's good to be anywhere.
Speaker 3: In fact, I gotta see you.
Speaker 1: You got to see eyeball to eyeball. Let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: You have a new book out, great for Christmas. The
Speaker 1: Big Red Machines Last Hurrah. Yes, so there was a time.
Speaker 1: I tell it, young folks six They can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Cincinnati was the baseball capital of the world between nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five and nineteen ninety, fifteen years the Reds won
Speaker 1: twenty percent of all World serieses. They were there. They
Speaker 1: were the best ever seventy five, seventy six. They've now
Speaker 1: won nine World Series games in a row. They won
Speaker 1: the last game in seventy five, swept the Yankees, swept
Speaker 1: Oakland nine. So nineteen eighty one, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: we were the headquarters of all great baseball. Right here mention,
Speaker 1: the Big Red Machine had their last hurrah. Explain what
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen eighty one. Well, it's an outrageous thing
Speaker 1: that happened. You know, if we would have won in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, who knows what would have happened. They
Speaker 1: could have gone on a thirty forty year streak. We
Speaker 1: would go We would have had good teams throughout.
Speaker 2: The eighties and then.
Speaker 3: But there was a strike in the middle of the
Speaker 3: season that was provoked by the Major League Baseball owners
Speaker 3: and the players walked out for fifty days, and Booie
Speaker 3: kon Is Wisdom decided to have a split season. The
Speaker 3: Reds were a half game behind when the strike began
Speaker 3: the Dodgers because they had played one less game. Okay,
Speaker 3: then they resume and Booie says, hey, we're gonna throw
Speaker 3: the first half out.
Speaker 1: Doesn't count.
Speaker 2: Doesn't count.
Speaker 3: But if you won the first half like the Dodgers did,
Speaker 3: you're automatically in the postseason.
Speaker 1: That's a great And of course the Reds got screwed
Speaker 1: by two and barbecued right there. Yes, they were half
Speaker 1: a game out of first, So the Dodgers are automatically
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. But you have the second half of
Speaker 1: the season to play yet.
Speaker 3: Right, and the Reds have a great second half, but
Speaker 3: they finished one game behind the Astros. They end up
Speaker 3: with the best record in baseball. Willie won the best
Speaker 3: records the Reds have ever had, sixty six and forty
Speaker 3: two percentage.
Speaker 1: Wise, twenty four games over five hundred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they only played what my finetown meth tells me,
Speaker 3: one hundred and eight games, and they were already at
Speaker 3: sixty two.
Speaker 1: And they're told again, now, because you didn't win the
Speaker 1: first half or the second half, neither one in a
Speaker 1: sense counted for the overall. It just counted one or
Speaker 1: the other. Now both. And so the Reds are told,
Speaker 1: which Cincinnati. That happens all the time to us, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: That's right, something happens.
Speaker 3: But you know, season ticket holders, when they're sold season
Speaker 3: tickets are told, hey, if your team gets into the postseason,
Speaker 3: and if you have the best record in baseball you
Speaker 3: would be in the postseason, you get playoff tickets.
Speaker 1: So how much of a complaint? I guess the big
Speaker 1: cities liked it because the Dodgers were in.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the beauty of it for MLB.
Speaker 3: You know, they won the recover losses because the fans
Speaker 3: had turned on the owners by the end of the
Speaker 3: strike and they realized the owners provoked this thing. So
Speaker 3: in the first half he had New York automatically guaranteed
Speaker 3: in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: They like that the Dodgers hated Dodgers.
Speaker 3: You know, four big cities, the Phillies, and one other team.
Speaker 3: And it was a complete travesty, and so we try
Speaker 3: to write that wrong. In this book, we talk about
Speaker 3: the season. Grant Freaking My nephew helped me with this project.
Speaker 3: He's a great writer, great editor. He works down at
Speaker 3: the UC Business School. He writes all their publications and
Speaker 3: edits them. He does a fantastic job. He does a
Speaker 3: little work for FC Cincinnati and the Cincinnati magazine.
Speaker 2: Is a great sports writer.
Speaker 1: And there was a lawsuit. You're a lawyer, so you
Speaker 1: like to sue people, Yes, sir, talk about the wackiest
Speaker 1: lawsuit in American judicial history.
Speaker 3: What happened, Well, a couple of things happened in our book.
Speaker 3: Three law students for Ohio State University filed a lawsuit
Speaker 3: to stop this travesty and get a temporary straining order.
Speaker 3: And then when the book we tell how that trial
Speaker 3: would have proceeded. We have Bowie on the stand, Booey, Coon,
Speaker 3: Marvin Miller, you know, Ray Greeby, who was the owner's negotiator,
Speaker 3: and we and the judge is named Joe Jackson. He
Speaker 3: likes to slip off his shoes every once in a while.
Speaker 3: Willie yes, and Joe Jackson makes a wise decision in
Speaker 3: the book and he decides that this entire travesty has
Speaker 3: to be rated, and so he in searched the two
Speaker 3: teams with the best records overall the season in the
Speaker 3: World Series that year. And then we have a fictional
Speaker 3: world series.
Speaker 1: Who wins the I mean, guess who wins the World Service?
Speaker 3: Well, I can't blow the ending, Willie, but you know,
Speaker 3: we simulated a ton of games on a website called
Speaker 3: what if sports dot com? What if sports dot com,
Speaker 3: and we held true to those results, and all I
Speaker 3: can tell you is that we would have had maybe
Speaker 3: we would have broke that winning streak after five, because
Speaker 3: in our fictional world series they did not sweep. But
Speaker 3: it's all good news for Reds fans.
Speaker 1: So there were remnants of the Big Red Machine still
Speaker 1: who was on the eighty one Reds who had the
Speaker 1: best record overall, but lost the first half by half
Speaker 1: a game, the second half by a game, and he
Speaker 1: still had a pretty good had the best ball club
Speaker 1: in baseball, but you didn't get you didn't get to
Speaker 1: the playoffs, much less the World Series.
Speaker 2: Oh, Willie, think about this. We still had Johnny Bench.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. Yeah, he didn't retire to like I
Speaker 1: think eighty four.
Speaker 3: Eighty two or three, something like that. He was hurt
Speaker 3: part of the season. He didn't catch as much, but
Speaker 3: he played first base. He had Danny Dreeson at first base.
Speaker 3: He had Ronnie Oaster at second base, number sixteen from
Speaker 3: within throw high school. Davy Concepcion at shortstop, not the
Speaker 3: Hall of Famer, not bad right third base, Ray Night.
Speaker 1: He could fight, and he marry Nancy Lopez yep.
Speaker 2: And then we had George Foster.
Speaker 3: In left field before he went to the METSI another
Speaker 3: member of the br M.
Speaker 1: Pretty good.
Speaker 3: Ken Griffy in center field.
Speaker 1: Not Junior. Maybe Junior wasn't born. Junior was quite young
Speaker 1: at that point.
Speaker 2: He was quite young at that point, probably about ten.
Speaker 1: And Ken Griffy senior was still really good.
Speaker 2: Really good.
Speaker 3: Dave Collins patrol right field, pretty good. They had a
Speaker 3: great team. How about the pitching staff? Will he, Tom
Speaker 3: Seaver and Mario Soto As you're one.
Speaker 2: Two, not bad, not bad, not bad.
Speaker 1: That's why the Mario was in his prime and sever
Speaker 1: was still pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yes, sever was still pretty good.
Speaker 1: And a short series you have to face Tom Seaver
Speaker 1: and Mario and then you had that lineup going on,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean sever had a good year. Uh Soto
Speaker 3: had a great year.
Speaker 2: You had.
Speaker 3: Doug Bear in the bullpen, you had Tommy Hume. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know these are name so the past, Frank past.
Speaker 1: Story, remember him. Gary Burbank loved Frank past story. Bruce
Speaker 1: Brenni right hand, nasty guy, he was nasty. Mike Lacosse
Speaker 1: and he was another nasty Charlie Lee Brant lefty. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a good How can baseball say the Reds
Speaker 1: have the best record in baseball but they can't get
Speaker 1: to the playoffs because there's some artificial rule.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there was no rule. Coon made it up.
Speaker 3: Marvin Miller did not agree to it. The Reds protested.
Speaker 3: They actually voted, you know, the MLB owners voted on this,
Speaker 3: and the Reds and the Cardinals voted against it. But
Speaker 3: they lost the vote. And at the end of the
Speaker 3: season they kind of just said, oh well, let's start
Speaker 3: the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Wasn't their real lawsuit filed on the judge that get
Speaker 1: the hell out of here or something like that.
Speaker 3: There was a real lawsuit filed also by three Ohio
Speaker 3: State University law students, and the judge didn't really put
Speaker 3: up with it very long. Willie, we filed that thing.
Speaker 3: The dean of law school wasn't very happy with us.
Speaker 3: My prospective employer was not very happy with me.
Speaker 1: But you wanted to defend the reds, and so you fould.
Speaker 1: He kind of snotted you out of court. Get there,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Weilly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The funny thing was we're typing this thing up the
Speaker 3: week before to get ready, and we hadn't taken civil
Speaker 3: procedure class in total. You hadn't done that yet, so
Speaker 3: we weren't sure if adding the Montreal expos would screw up
Speaker 3: jurisdiction in Columbus.
Speaker 1: Like admiralty law, you had the rule of the nodules,
Speaker 1: you had a foreign country.
Speaker 3: So we had to leave the Montreal expos off the complaint.
Speaker 1: You let them off. I'm not sure if Canada can
Speaker 1: be subject to an American court, that's right, sure? And
Speaker 1: so what did the judge do?
Speaker 3: He called us in the next morning, the day the
Speaker 3: playoffs were supposed to start, and said, boys, what do
Speaker 3: you want me to do? We said, Judge, we want
Speaker 3: you to stop these playoffs, have a hearing, and we
Speaker 3: want you to insert the Reds into the postseason. And
Speaker 3: it was Judge Canary.
Speaker 1: He was a nasty dude with no sense of humor. Vaguely,
Speaker 1: he wasn't like it. Let me think about this for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 3: We hadn't done a considerable amount of research on Judge Canhary,
Speaker 3: but we figure it out pretty quickly. He was not
Speaker 3: going to put up with our nonsense. What did he
Speaker 3: say to you? He said, boys, boys, do you know
Speaker 3: where the clerk's office is? Yes, sir, Yes, sir, that's
Speaker 3: where we followed the lawsuit just yesterday morning.
Speaker 1: You know where to go, he says, you know.
Speaker 2: Where to go?
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, he goes, I suggest you file a notice
Speaker 3: of voluntary dismissal.
Speaker 1: Immediately and walk into the clerk. Of course, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: At the time, of course, I was living here in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: There was this sense of total outrage, total anger because
Speaker 1: the best team in baseball with the best record did
Speaker 1: not get to the first round of the playoffs. But
Speaker 1: then because of that decision by Bouie Kuhn and by
Speaker 1: Marvin Miller, that was the actual breakup that caused the
Speaker 1: next seven years of absolute isolation of your Cincinnati Reds.
Speaker 1: Explain what happened after that decision.
Speaker 3: Astree tired, Griffy Foster conceptio move on, and you know
Speaker 3: the history from eighty two to eighty five, the Reds
Speaker 3: was terrible until Pete came back. Then Pete got him
Speaker 3: in the second place for four or five consecutive season.
Speaker 1: Until another disaster arose. Pete rose and I was sitting
Speaker 1: there and Judge Natal's bench off to the right. He said, Willy,
Speaker 1: come on up here, and I was like six feet
Speaker 1: from the judge. And there was a lawsuit filed by
Speaker 1: Pete to stop the Commissioner of Baseball from proceeding because
Speaker 1: of due process rights. And of course Judge Nato make
Speaker 1: god rest his old granted the tro and ordered that
Speaker 1: baseball shall not hold like just when are hearing on
Speaker 1: Pete rose because of conflicts of interest. They ran down
Speaker 1: the federal court. I guess canary that point was gone.
Speaker 1: But there was an old judge there named Judge Rubin. Yes,
Speaker 1: how was Carl Rubin.
Speaker 3: He was a lot like Judge Canary. But that tells
Speaker 3: your listeners a lesson Judge to Willie. You have to
Speaker 3: know who the judge is, and you can do forum selection.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 3: And if we had filed that lawsuit in Judge Natal's
Speaker 3: courtroom back in nineteen eighty one, the entire world would
Speaker 3: be different. He would issue an order. He would have
Speaker 3: stopped the playoffs.
Speaker 1: And playoffs would well, how does a federal judge stop
Speaker 1: the playoffs? I guessing is possible.
Speaker 2: That's right. Federal judge has a lot of power.
Speaker 1: So from that on, Red Spaceball took its course. A
Speaker 1: rose in nineteen eighty eighty nine to ninety one at
Speaker 1: all in nineteen ninety and since then we've been in
Speaker 1: the wilderness.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: The good news about this book, as we correct that wrong,
Speaker 3: people can understand what should have happened. All the proceeds,
Speaker 3: the profits are going to go to the Reds Community Fund,
Speaker 3: my favorite charity in town, which you love.
Speaker 2: I love that. The books available.
Speaker 3: At Freaking out about dot com for pre orders right now, Willie,
Speaker 3: in time for Chris Christmas.
Speaker 1: Freaking is fr e k I n chiefew.
Speaker 3: This freaking out about has the addition we did fr
Speaker 3: E A K I N G A B O U T.
Speaker 1: That's it out.
Speaker 2: It's all the things that I'm freaking out about.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great Christmas thing because people need to know,
Speaker 1: because now younger folks have no idea what that decision
Speaker 1: forty forty three years ago met the rents Baseball because
Speaker 1: and also brought about the elimination, shall we say of
Speaker 1: Dick Wagner, he went, the whole club was in complete turmoil.
Speaker 1: They thought, we got the best record in baseball, we
Speaker 1: can't get it because of a commissioner's ruling. And Marvin
Speaker 1: Miller didn't like it either.
Speaker 3: Correct, Oh, Marvin Miller did not like Bowie's decision at all.
Speaker 3: He was he was matter than anything, a wet hen
Speaker 3: because there was nothing in the agreement they signed. When
Speaker 3: when Major League Baseball the owners kind of waved the
Speaker 3: white flag when their strike insurance ran out conveniently.
Speaker 1: Which is fifty days into the season. If then you
Speaker 1: get a week or two to get ready to play
Speaker 1: the second half, everyone assumed the team with the best
Speaker 1: record in baseball would be in the playoffs somehow. Why
Speaker 1: not have an extra round of playoffs. Why not just
Speaker 1: add absolutely, because what's wrong with that? It gives you
Speaker 1: a chance and you determine it on the field, not
Speaker 1: in some office. Yeah, and Bowie Kun was an absolute clown.
Speaker 2: Anyway, he was a total clown.
Speaker 1: And so at this point, what do you do forty
Speaker 1: three years later? You write a book.
Speaker 2: You write a book, You right the wrong.
Speaker 3: You can sleep well at night, no, after you read
Speaker 3: this book, because it's a great cure for insomnia as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it will not put you to sleep, is that correct?
Speaker 1: So what's Randy freaking doing these days?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Other than writing these books, I'm helping out with the
Speaker 3: Reds Community Fund a little bit. I do a mediation
Speaker 3: a little bit on the side. Spend most of my
Speaker 3: time with my grandkids.
Speaker 1: Why community Fund? Why are you involved in that? I
Speaker 1: know every opening day and you have a big party,
Speaker 1: you raise thousands dollars. Why the Community Fund?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think they do a great job of
Speaker 3: spreading the word. All these kids that participate at the
Speaker 3: Community Fund, they get great educational programs. Graduates from the
Speaker 3: RBI program they go on the college at an extremely
Speaker 3: high rate, it's high ninety percent. You compare that with
Speaker 3: CPS graduation rates sixty seventy percent and going on to
Speaker 3: college forget it. So we've got these mentorship programs at
Speaker 3: the Academy, great instructional it's all about leadership, you know, learning,
Speaker 3: showing a servant out of the hole in which you
Speaker 3: find yourself. Yeah, it's a wonderful it's a wonderful organization.
Speaker 3: You know, the Reds promote the baseball and softball part
Speaker 3: of it. I promote the educational opportunities to come out
Speaker 3: of the baseball and softball programs. I mean, the Academy
Speaker 3: over in bond Hill is busy every night.
Speaker 1: So even now in December.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, there's stuff going on there.
Speaker 3: There's a mentorship meeting Thursday night. Just a lot of
Speaker 3: tremendous stuff going on throughout the area. And it's all
Speaker 3: for kids that you know, need a helping hand here
Speaker 3: and there.
Speaker 1: Well, so, do you have hope for the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five Reds? Do you have hope? All we have is hope,
Speaker 1: ry freaking That's all we have.
Speaker 2: It's Tito martinis.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be celebrating with Tito martinis.
Speaker 1: I have martinis every day. Opening day only about March
Speaker 1: twenty eighth or so. It's coming up quicker than you think.
Speaker 1: Four and a half months. It'll be once again Reds
Speaker 1: baseball dominating. Well, they haven't won a playoff series since
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. Do you see.
Speaker 2: Hope, Yes, Willie, I do see hope.
Speaker 1: There's hope.
Speaker 2: There's hope.
Speaker 1: Well, all we have is hope with the we have hope,
Speaker 1: the Buckeyes, the bear Cat football team, the Browns. All
Speaker 1: we have is hope. It's all we have.
Speaker 3: All I can say, will is Tito Francona to the
Speaker 3: Reds would be like Bill Belichick to the Bengals.
Speaker 1: I've heard that rumor. In fact, I put it on
Speaker 1: social media. I heard a rumor that Bill Belichick will
Speaker 1: be hard by the Bengals. I said, if that happens,
Speaker 1: that's the time when cats and dogs will start living
Speaker 1: together because bellichiz One's complete control. Will Mike Brown give
Speaker 1: up complete control of the Bengals? No, sir, that will
Speaker 1: not happen. BI.
Speaker 2: That's why Bill Belichick. No, will not be on the sideline.
Speaker 1: No, No, All right, Once again, Randy freaking How did
Speaker 1: the American people get the book?
Speaker 2: They get the.
Speaker 3: Book pre order, Willie at a twenty five percent discount
Speaker 3: at Freaking out about dot com and it all benefits
Speaker 3: the Reds Community Fund, and I had to thank my
Speaker 3: co author Grant Freaking and the wonderful website called what
Speaker 3: if sports dot Com.
Speaker 1: Of all the words of tongue or pen, the worst
Speaker 1: of these are might have been and eighty one Reds
Speaker 1: might have been the continuation of the Big Red machine,
Speaker 1: but it died with the best team in baseball not
Speaker 1: able to get to the playoffs because of a mental
Speaker 1: gyration of Bowie Kun unbelievable. The best team left out
Speaker 1: makes sense for the Reds.
Speaker 2: And we tell the story what should have been Willie.
Speaker 1: Of all the words of tongue or Randy Freaking. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Thank you, William, and let's continue with
Speaker 1: more one twenty six, The Home of your Reds and
Speaker 1: the Bengals. Bill Belichick seizes control of the Bengals when
Speaker 1: hell freezes over on news Radio seven hundred W