Reds

The current franchise came together in 1881 under sports editor O. P. Caylor after an earlier Cincinnati team had been thrown out of the National League, and it joined the American Association as a charter member the following year before settling into the National League in 1890.

For six seasons in the 1950s, at the height of the Red Scare, the club played as the Cincinnati Redlegs rather than risk the word "Reds" on a jersey. The name reverted once the political mood eased, and the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, managed by Sparky Anderson, won the World Series in both 1975 and 1976, and the 1976 team remains the only club of the modern era to sweep an entire postseason without a loss.

Five World Series titles and nine National League pennants sit in the club's history, won across generations rather than in one cluster, with the St. Louis Cardinals as the rivalry Cincinnati fans care about most. Great American Ball Park, holding 43,500, has been the stage for the newer chapters of that story.

No player is tied to the Reds more than Pete Rose, who came up through the organization and became the face of the Big Red Machine years before his name became inseparable from baseball's arguments about the Hall of Fame.