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