Rounding third and headed for home

Growing up where I did, I would listen to the Brewers, Cubs, and White Sox on the AM radio. But, when the games got a bit out of hand I would spin the dial to see what else I could find.

What would be found was Joe Buck on a St. Louis Cardinal game, Ernie Harwell on a Detroit Tiger game, or Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on a Cincinnati Reds game.

Why the trip down Reminiscence Lane?

Longtime Reds voice Nuxhall passes

For the final time, Joe Nuxhall has rounded third and headed for home.

Nuxhall, a beloved Reds broadcaster, a former pitcher and Cincinnati icon, died late Thursday night from complications of lymphoma. He was 79, with 63 of those years being associated with the Reds.

Emphasis mine. Nuxhall started his professional career as a 15-year old in 1944.

Born on July 30, 1928, in nearby Hamilton, Ohio, Nuxhall will forever be part of baseball history for being the youngest player to appear in a Major League game. With World War II depleting rosters around the league, Nuxhall was 15 years, 10 months and 11 days old when he pitched for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

His next game for Cincinnati, where he spent 15 of his 16 Major League seasons, didn't come until 1952. His lifetime record from 1944 and 1952-66, was 135-117 with a 3.90 ERA. He was also a two-time All-Star in 1955-56.

Read the whole story to get the reference in the title of the post.

Here is a story with Brennaman recalling his partnership with Nuxhall

Marty Brennaman was the new kid of the block in 1974 when he was signed to call Reds games on radio for WLW.

His partner was Joe Nuxhall, the former longtime Reds pitcher, who became a team broadcaster seven years earlier. The two met in Dayton, Ohio, on Feb. 1, 1974, at a photography studio to have their publicity shots taken.

"The first thing I said to him upon shaking his hand was, 'I have your baseball card,'" Brennaman recalled. "From that day forward, it was a relationship in our profession that people only dream about."

For the next 31 seasons, they became known simply as "Marty and Joe," and were fixtures for fans that listened to Cincinnati Reds games. Nuxhall worked full-time until 2004 and called some games in retirement during the past three seasons.

Meanwhile, the two became close friends.

"You could count on one hand the number of times we were upset with each other," said Brennaman, who is in the Hall of Fame as a 2000 Ford C. Frick Award winner.

The main thing to take away from this story is this:

Brennaman remembered his friend as a generous person without an ego and the kind of guy that could get along with anybody.

"In 34 years, not one person ever said anything negative to me about him -- not one person," Brennaman said. "Everybody had wonderful things to say about him. That was the essence of Joe Nuxhall.

"He was unbelievable. I never saw him act like he didn't have time to be with a person or a group of people. He dedicated time to people that came up to him or talked to him. It was as consistent as the sun coming up every day. He was very approachable."

Here is the lead story at the Cincinnati Enquirer website:

'He was a special friend'

"Dad felt he had truly had three extended families during his career,'' his son Kim said in a statement released Friday. "The city of Hamilton, where he grew up; the city of Fairfield, where he raised his children; and Cincinnati, where he was able to play and broadcast the great game of baseball with the Cincinnati Reds."

His father, Kim Nuxhall said, "truly loved you all."

And the love was a two-way street, running straight from the hearts of all those who had played with him, heard him on the radio or had benefited from his generous nature.

That love was never more evident than Friday morning, when a stream of Reds fans - old and young - began a steady pilgrimage to Crosley Terrace in front of Great American Ball Park, where some shed tears and many left remembrances of the "Ol' Left-hander" at the base of his statue, the one that shows a 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall firing a fastball from the Crosley Field mound 63 years ago.

"He did so much for me for all those years, listening to him call ball games and rooting for the Reds,'' said Norm Powell of Elsmere, as he stopped by the ballpark on his way to work Friday morning. "Coming here and paying my respects is the least I could do."

There is a section of the Enquirer that has all of its stories on Nuxhall. Just head over there to read about one of the good guys.