BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Anybody who has tried to organize a family reunion after a 20-year layoff knows the feeling.
Some family members are awfully hard to find.
So it was with trying to locate the 26 players who played key roles on the 1976 World Champion Big Red Machine. They will have a reunion and autograph show today and Sunday at Convention Center.
''We contacted a casino in the Bahamas where (utility outfielder) Ed Armbrister used to work, which led to another casino where he used to work, which led to a lady who shops in a supermarket where Ed buys his groceries,'' reunion organizer Charles Soto said. ''Three days later, Ed called us.
''(Centerfielder) Cesar Geronimo, who is now the general manager of the Hiroshima Carp farm team in the Dominican Republic, tracked down (pitcher) Santo Alcala for us ... We had a hard time finding (utility outfielder) Bob Bailey, but then (pitcher) Gary Nolan saw him in Las Vegas and remembered where Bob's wife worked, and called me with that number ... The only guy we couldn't find was (pitcher) Manny Sarmiento.''
Or, as Sparky Anderson used to call him, Manny Sarmentino.
Sarmiento and Nolan will be the only absent Reds, Soto said. Nolan works at a Las Vegas casino and cannot get away.
The signatures of 1976 Big Red Machine, as a group, are in demand because the team is a consensus pick as one of the top 10 baseball teams of all-time; most experts rate them in their top five. The Reds starting eight position players rank No.1 or No.2 in most experts' top three (along with the mid-1950s Dodgers and late-1930s Yankees).
In 1976, the Reds:
- Placed seven of their eight starters on the National League All-Star team. The one who didn't make it - center fielder Cesar Geronimo - hit .307 and won his third straight Gold Glove.
- Led the major leagues in 10 major offensive and defensive categories - runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, walks, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and fielding average. No other team has ever led all these categories in their own league in one season, let alone all of baseball.
- Became the first (and still are the only) National League team to repeat as World Champions since the 1922 New York Giants.
- Became the first (and still are the only) team to go undefeated in the postseason since the League Championship Series began in 1969.
As a boy growing up in Golf Manor in the 1970s, Soto listened to Big Red Machine games on the radio. Reds announcers Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall delivered the word pictures. Today and Sunday, the 35-year-old Soto ''delivers'' the Big Red Machine.
Soto combined his love for the 1970s Reds with his economics degree from the University of Cincinnati and turned it into an avocation as a card-show promoter. His full-time job is as an account manager for an electronics company. He and his father co-own a baseball shop in Pleasant Ridge; the shop specializes in Big Red Machine memorabilia.
''Four years ago, we did a show with 10 of the guys, and then we did a show with 14 of them,'' Soto said. ''The Big Four (Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez) have always been involved. But I wanted to save the entire team for this year, because of the 20-year anniversary.''
Check out our three-part series on the Big Red Machine.
Show lineup
Today:
Rose, Morgan, Foster, Griffey, Flynn, Gullett, Billingham, Zachry, Norman, McEnaney, Lum, Darcy, Armbrister, Scherger.
Sunday:
Bench, Perez, Concepcion, Geronimo, Driessen, Plummer, Eastwick, Youngblood, Alcala, Borbon, Bailey, Anderson, Shepherd, Nixon.
Autograph prices
$6 -
Doug Flynn, Don Gullett, Jack Billingham, Pat Zachry, Fred Norman, Will McEnaney, Rawly Eastwick, Joel Youngblood, Pedro Borbon; coaches George Scherger, Larry Shepherd, Russ Nixon.
$8 -
George Foster, Mike Lum, Pat Darcy, Ed Armbrister, Dan Driessen, Bob Bailey, Santo Alcala, Bill Plummer.
$10 -
Cesar Geronimo
$12 -
Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr
$15 -
Tony Perez
$16 -
Joe Morgan, Sparky Anderson
$23 -
Pete Rose
$25 -
Johnny Bench
Published Nov. 23, 1996.
