Musings of a batboy for The Big Red Machine

 baseball team celebrating on the field

Major League Baseball’s opening day is only weeks away. That brings back a lot of wonderful memories for Warren Brown ’76, a batboy for the Cincinnati Reds from 1970-1972.

By Donna Boen ’83, MTSC ’96, editor of Miamian and Miamian Express

It’s game five of Major League Baseball’s National League Championship, Oct. 11, 1972. With the series tied 2-2, this Wednesday afternoon game in Riverfront Stadium will determine whether Pittsburgh or Cincinnati goes to the World Series.

The Reds are trailing by one run in the bottom of the ninth. Pirates relief pitcher Dave Giusti, one of the best, is on the mound. Defending World Champs, Pittsburgh fully expects to be returning to the World Series after this inning.

But Johnny Bench has other ideas. He hits the ball to right center. Despite right fielder Roberto Clemente’s best efforts, the ball is gone. A homerun! Riverfront Stadium literally vibrates as the fans jump up and down.

Next up, Tony Perez singles on the first pitch. Sparky Anderson immediately replaces Perez with pinch runner George Foster. After a few more plays, Pittsburgh replaces Giusti with Bob Moose. A wild pitch brings Foster home, and the Reds win!

Looking back at his three years as batboy for the Reds from 1970-1972, Warren Brown ’76 says that crucial homerun by Bench is, without a doubt, his most memorable game experience.

“And then afterwards, the celebration in the Reds clubhouse was something that I’ve never experienced before and never experienced since then,” he says. “We batboys had to stay there and clean up all that, but it was the best cleanup job we ever had in our lives.

The end of his batboy career

During his tenure as a batboy for the Reds, one of Brown’s first assignments was to help the team move from Crosley Field to the new Riverfront venue. He also worked the All-Star Game in 1970, and the World Series in 1970 and 1972. He used his World Series money, gifted to the batboys by the appreciative players, to help pay for tuition at Miami.

Speaking of college, he experienced an unusual start his freshman year, missing almost three weeks of classes in October for the playoffs and the World Series.

His final game as batboy was Sunday, Oct. 22, 1972, when the Reds lost game seven and the World Series by one run.

He was devastated and still gets a stomach ache when he thinks about it. After the game, he cleaned up the clubhouse, like always, got dressed, and said goodbye. Then he went home, picked up his stuff, and drove to Miami to return to classes the next day.

“I probably should have taken a couple of extra days off just to recoup from that loss, but I was excited to get back and start the next phase of my life.”

Brown standing in front of hall of fame sign
Warren Brown ’76 recently talked with Pete Rose when he decided to sponsor the last hit Rose made when Brown was on the field as batboy, No. 1,922.

Back to the beginning

Spending the first part of his childhood in Clarksburg, W.Va., with his mom and younger brother, Brown became a fan of the Reds listening to Waite Hoyt, one of the first players-turned-broadcaster and the radio voice of the Reds from 1942-1965.

When he was 11, Brown, his brother, and his mom, Charlene Brown, moved to Cincinnati to be closer to family. Charlene, an RN, became head nurse at the U.S. Public Health Clinic in downtown Cincinnati.

Four years later, as fate would have it, Pete Rose was joining a USO show with Joe DiMaggio and had to go to the Public Health Clinic for shots every day for two weeks before he could travel with the show to Vietnam.

During the course of the two weeks, Charlene, a great baseball fan herself, became comfortable talking with Pete and eventually asked if there was anything her son could do at the ballpark. She was thinking selling peanuts or popcorn as a way to get him into Crosley Field for the games.

“After my mom made that request, Pete said, ‘Well, I’ll call you when I get back from Vietnam.’”

Despite her colleagues’ cynicism that he’d ever call, Pete did and told her to talk with Bernie Stowe, the Reds’ longtime equipment manager.

At the end of a two-hour interview with Stowe in the clubhouse, Brown got the job.

“Bernie said the job offer is long hours, hard work, and virtually no pay,” Brown says. “And for the next three years, I had the best job in the world.”

His 15 minutes of awe

He’ll never forget the first time he walked into the clubhouse as a starstruck 16-year-old. There was the Reds’ new manager, Sparky Anderson, and all of the new coaches, including Ted Kluszewski, plus players Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Lee May, and Tommy Helms.

baseball team celebrating
Celebrating the ninth-inning homer to win the National League Championship in 1972.

Bernie Stowe had been a batboy, too, at age 12. He knew what was going through Brown’s head.

“I’m going to give you 15 minutes to be in awe, but we hired you to work,” Stowe told him. “You’ve got 15 minutes, and then you can’t be in awe anymore.”

And work he did, a lot of work. A single game would be about 10-12 hours. He and the other batboys would open the clubhouse, distribute the uniforms that they’d taken to the drycleaners the night before, and then get to cleaning.

There was no catering, so after the game, they prepared and served the food. Then more cleanup, more laundry, and collecting the dirty uniforms for the drycleaners.

Before batting practice, Brown had to take all the equipment out to the bench — bats, batting helmets, Gatorade, sunflower seeds, and chewing tobacco.

Sometimes, when the players went out on the road, they’d loan their cars to the batboys. Brown distinctly remembers driving Bobby Tolan’s Dodge Challenger and Joe Morgan’s Mercury Marquis.

“I’d drive the car home, and my mom is adamant, saying, ‘You’re not going to take that car out, are you?’ And of course I did. I probably got a couple of dates that I wouldn’t have gotten if I was in my own car.”

The lasting friendships

What Brown cherishes most from that time are the relationships. He and Sparky Anderson exchanged Christmas cards until Sparky passed away. Bernie Stowe, the equipment manager, was like a father to him. They exchanged Christmas gifts for years. One year, he gave Brown his batboy uniform. The pants had originally been Joe Morgan’s.

The Big Red Machine has been a major player in his life. It helped pay for college, and he met his wife, Marsha ’73, in the Reds’ front office, where he worked for a couple of years after graduation.

Now retired from the corporate world, he loves telling his batboy stories and sharing the life lessons he learned from the players, who nicknamed him Brownie. He speaks at various places on behalf of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum and the Joe Nuxhall Miracle League.

The question he’s asked most is about the players: What were they like?

“Tony Perez was one guy who didn’t speak often, but when he spoke, everybody listened.”

“Pete, his attention to detail was unmatched. After each at bat, he would come back and look at where he hit the ball because it made a mark on the bat. He would make the necessary adjustments within the game, depending on where he was hitting the ball.”

“Johnny Bench, complete leader.”

“And Sparky knew how to massage those egos. He was a master at that. People will argue, ‘Well, anybody could have managed that team, they were so talented.’ Not all talented teams win.

Brown and his wife at a Reds game
Marsha ’73 and Warren Brown ’76 remain avid Reds fans.

“I’ll kind of hold that ace in my back pocket, and let others get out all their arguments as to why anybody could have managed that team. Then I’ll spring on them the fact that I was in the clubhouse with those guys for three years, so let me tell you what I think.”

print
<< Back