Tom Browning - Tales from the Cincinnati Reds Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Reds Stories Ever Told

F rom the earliest age, I just knew I was going to be a professional ballplayer. I never really considered another career option.

Even to this day, I never think about what it would have been like if I had fallen short of my big league dreams. I simply accepted that baseball was going to be my future.

Maybe it was an unexplained confidence in my abilities, or maybe I was just too stubborn to give up. Regardless, I knew Id do whatever it would take to get to the majors.

Thats not to say the journey was an easy one. Although I always enjoyed playing baseball, it never came easy. I couldnt rely on natural talentbecause I just didnt have much of it. I wasnt the hardest thrower, the fastest runner, or the most gifted athlete. But I had a solid and durable arm, and I worked hard. I made the most of my abilities, and I never took an opportunity for granted.

With some perseverance, I knew I would someday be playing with the best in baseball. I wouldnt necessarily be the best, but I knew I could at least compete with the best.

I just knew I wanted to play on baseballs biggest stage, and I wanted to do it in a Cincinnati uniform.

Its hard for many people to believe that a kid from Casper, Wyoming, could become such a diehard Reds fan.

It actually started with a bowling league. A lot of my friends were in the league, and we bowled on Saturday mornings. Itd be 11 a.m. in Casper. That was the time that the MLB Game of the Week came on. They had all of the televisions in the bowling alley tuned in.

This was around 1970, right about the time the Big Red Machine started taking shape, and Reds games were aired pretty often.

Our bowling league that started up after school was back in session, so were talking about the fall, when the pennant races were really heating up. Between my turns bowling, I was fixed to the screen.

I became a huge fan of guys like Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, and Dave Concepcion. As a baseball fan, I was captivated by the team. They were just so good, and they made it look so easy. However, they just couldnt seem to get over the hump and win the World Series.

I was hooked anyway.

I think I was the only one who really cared about the Reds back then. Most of my buddies were As fans. They always talked about guys like Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, and Reggie Jackson. We didnt have any major league teams around us, so we could pretty much pick any team to root for. And at that time, Oakland was every bit as good as Cincinnati.

My friends gave me all kinds of crap for being a Reds fan. It was nonstop. It was good-natured ribbing, but it only made me like the Reds even more. It felt like it was really my team.

Right before my freshman year of high school, my two brothers, two sisters, and I moved with my mom and stepfather to a small town near Utica, New York. By that time, the Reds were really coming into their own. Theyd soon win four pennants in seven seasons and back-to-back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976.

The only downside to Cincinnatis success was not being around those A's fans. It sure would have been nice to rub it in.

My mom always worried that she was raising a family of baseball, basketball, and football junkiessports bums, as she called it.

She was a tough, but loving mom. She had the five of us kids before she turned 21, and she was the primary caretaker and disciplinarian. She tried to limit the amount of sports we watched on television, but she was fighting a losing battle. We loved everything sports related.