Rounding Third and Heading for Home

The big (but sad) news in Cinci today is the passing of "The Ol' Lefthander" Joe Nuxhall, the longtime Reds broadcaster. I remember being seven years old, living on the farm, and listening to Marty and Joe on the radio every night during the summer when I went to sleep. Those were the days of the Big Red Machine, and as a little guy I had no idea how lucky I was to have such a great team to follow.

Cole and Zach were also lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Marty and Joe days on Reds radio. So they know who he was and the story about him being baseball's youngest player. Maybe someday they'll be sharing Reds games with their kids and telling them about the days when they used to listed to the young Thom Brennaman and "his dad" Marty.

Joe stopped doing the "Star of the Game Show" after Reds games quite a while back. (I suspect it was getting harder and harder to find players that would stick around and talk after games.) But, I'll always remember him talking to the great players from the Reds and other teams, and then signing off with his trademark -- "This is the old lefhander rounding third and heading for home."

There are lots of stories piling up about Joe and how great a man he was. This is one of my favorites of the ones I've seen so far. It's from John Fay, the Enquirer's Reds beat writer, on his Reds blog.

Talking about Nuxie

Dave "Yid" Armbruster, his long-time engineer, summed up perfectly how Joe Nuxhall made guys our age feel:

"He's like the best uncle you ever had. I thought of him like that. I thought of him as almost a father figure later. He was the cool uncle, who would talk to you the way most grownups wouldn't talk to you. That was my impression."

Bob Castellini, John Allen, Tom and Dick Williams, Tom Browning and Chuck Harmon were at the press gathering the Reds held to talk about Nuxie. So was the guy probably as close to Nuxie as anyone in the organization, clubhouse man Bernie Stowe.

"He grew on me like my big brother," Stowe said. "The game would be over. We'd be on the road and he'd say, 'let's go get a beer and a sandwich.' Everybody said how cheap he was. I guess he liked the little guy because he took care of me.

Stowe said through all his recent tough times Nuxie remained upbeat and was at peace.

"He'd say, 'We all got to die. They can't save me forever,'" Stowe said. "What a man."