Tramel's ScissorTales: Opening Day in baseball-rich Cincinnati a surprise bucket-list item

CINCINNATI — About 30 minutes before first pitch, Great American Ball Park’s wide concourse was jammed with revelers. Almost all wearing red. Almost all wearing Reds.

Soon enough, the National League standings will serve up the unfortunate truth that this again will be fruitless baseball season hard by the Ohio River.

But Thursday, the next-to-last day of March, the spring air was warm, the sun shined bright and a Cincinnati holiday had arrived.

Opening Day.

The special Saturday ScissorTales include Bob Huggins’ take on Big 12 basketball, plus a Nebraska salute to Frank Solich. But we start with the baseball season arriving in Cincinnati.

There are opening days, then there is opening day in Cincinnati. A parade. Thousands of kids skipping school and thousands of adults skipping work.

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For more than a century, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the first game of the season. Baseball, which sometimes treats its tradition like worn-out shoes, no longer gives the Reds that automatic status.

But the Reds’ season at least still starts in Cincinnati, just like it has every year except a few since 1876.

1876. The first year of the National League.

Oh, a few things have gotten in the way over the century and a half. Rainouts in 1877, 1885 and 1966; a lockout in 1990; and complete insanity in 1888, when the Reds were given a road opener.

But still, that’s 143 season openers at Great American or old Riverfront Stadium or the late great Crosley Field or the early-day ballparks the Reds called home.

Opening day is big stuff in Cincinnati. And lucky me, I got to be part of it.

I was in Cincinnati on Thursday by happenstance. In town for a couple of days, working on a project about the University of Cincinnati joining the Big 12. And UC sports information director Zach Stipe added a visit to the Reds’ opener as part of my immersion into Cincinnati.

You know me. Not much of a baseball fan anymore. But I love baseball history, and no baseball history runs deeper than in Cincinnati, where the Reds have been continuously in business since 1869.

And while the ravages of baseball’s economy have limited the Reds’ success in recent decades, this is a region that still loves its ball team and its history.

The downtown streets bubbled with Reds fans walking to the game.

Moreso than even a college football crowd, the fans were adorned in team regalia. Hats, coats, pullovers, shirts, with Cincinnati logos from today and decades past, going back to those glorious black-trimmed jerseys from the 1960s.

The Reds revere their history, and they’ve got quite the history to revere.

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We sat in the second row, just behind the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout. I sat next to a woman from Versailles, Ohio, about 100 miles north of Cincinnati. She and her husband were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary. This was her first Opening Day. She loves Johnny Bench, the catcher from Oklahoma in the Big Red Machine’s glory days, and she loves Jonathan India, the Reds’ current second baseman.

I told her I was from Oklahoma and a few years ago had emceed Johnny Bench Day in Binger. She asked if I really was a sportswriter. I guess my accent assured I was from Oklahoma.

Great American is a good ballpark. Not on the level of Camden Yards or PNC Park or Oracle Park in San Francisco. But solid. Scenic and functional. Sit high enough, you can see the Ohio River. Sit low enough, and you see the smiles on the players and coaches and umpires, happy that another season has arrived.

The park was packed, and so was the concourse.

The UC athletic department went all in on the Reds’ opener – new football coach Scott Satterfield took his staff and their families to the game, even rented vans to transport the entire crew.

Soon enough, the season will hit the dog days, and the Reds will be far back in the standings, and the revelry of spring will be gone.

But for one day, Opening Day, there’s no better baseball place to be than in Cincinnati.

As far back as 1949, the Cincinnati Enquirer editorialized: “It is well-known fact that Cincinnati unquestionably is the best opening day city in either league – that’s why the Reds’ first game perennially is scheduled on the home lot.”

That was 74 years ago. That’s history. That’s tradition. That’s fun. I’d never had Opening Day in Cincinnati on my bucket list. But sometimes the bucket finds you.

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Bob Huggins hails Big 12

West Virginia’s Bob Huggins has coached in the Big 12, the Big East and the late/great Great Midwest Conference, the latter a superb league that included Cincinnati, Marquette, Louisville, Memphis, Dayton, Saint Louis, DePaul and Alabama-Birmingham.

But Huggins says he’s seen nothing like Big 12 hoops in 2022-23.

Huggins was on the Field of 68 Podcast this week in Houston and was asked about Houston, Cincinnati, Brigham Young and Central Florida joining the Big 12 this summer.

“You want the honest answer?” Huggins said. “I feel sorry for them. They have absolutely no idea what they’re getting into.”

Huggins was talking basketball, of course. The Big 12 was hailed as the nation’s best conference throughout the season, but the Big 12 did not produce a Final Four team. Kansas won the conference but was upset in the second round. Texas and Kansas State reached regional finals.

“I’ve been in a lot of leagues,” Huggins said. “You know that. I’ve been in a lot of leagues with the best coaches in America and with the best players in America.

“And I’m telling you right now, the hardest league that I’ve ever coached in, ever, and the best fan bases. You go in, and they may be 3-17, and they’ve got 14,000 people sitting there. It’s unbelievable.”

Huggins is exaggerating a little. OU and OSU rarely came close to filling their arenas. Texas Tech, yes. The Cowboys or Sooners, no.

But the Big 12 was tough.

“The fan support, how good the players are, how good the coaching is,” Huggins said. “It is such a hard, hard league. And you gotta go through it twice.

“And I’m going to tell you. They’re not ready for that.”

We’ll see. Houston has been one of the nation’s best teams over the last three seasons.

But Cincinnati hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since coach Mick Cronin left for UCLA in 2019. BYU has made just one NCAA Tournament since 2015 and hasn’t won a March Madness game since 2012. And UCF has made the NCAA Tournament just once in 2005.

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Frank Solich finally relents

Frank Solich occasionally has returned to Nebraska over the years.

The now-retired football coach routinely made it back to Lincoln to see his daughter and her family. He would have breakfast or lunch with Tom Osborne, his old boss who a quarter century ago set up Solich as the Cornhusker head coach.

One year in Omaha, Solich even accepted the Tom Osborne Legacy Award at the Outland Trophy Dinner.

Solich even dropped by Memorial Stadium one time, he told the Omaha World-Herald's Tom Shatel, for some unofficial reason.

But in the 20 years since Nebraska fired Solich, no official connection between Solich and the Huskers has occurred.

He was a Bob Devaney fullback in the 1960s, an Osborne assistant coach in the glory days of 1979-97, then the NU head coach with a robust .753 winning percentage. That sounds like the résumé of an all-time Husker.

But Solich is a proud man, and he was a busy man, coaching the Ohio Bobcats for 16 seasons, 2005-20.

And Solich rebuffed every Nebraska olive branch.

Until now. Solich has agreed to attend the Nebraska spring game on April 22, when his alma mater will honor him.

Husker athletic director Trev Alberts said he’s been recruiting Solich’s return for years, and it’s finally going to happen.

Solich said he isn’t bitter about being fired 20 years ago, a dubious decision that sent Nebraska spiraling into two decades of mostly-mediocre football.

But that’s not likely the truth. Solich likely was angry, then bitter.

And that needed to pass. Tradition-rich football cultures love to embrace their history. Nebraskans long have needed to hail Solich, much more than Solich needed to hear their cheers.

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I don’t know if then-Nebraska AD Steve Pederson made a mistake in firing Solich. The rear-view mirror suggests yes. Major mistake. It wasn’t so apparent in 2003. Nebraska had slipped, to records of 7-7 and 9-3, in the two years after playing for the 2001 national championship.

Of course, firing Solich only expedited the slide. You know the rest of Nebraska history. Bill Callahan went 27-22, Bo Pelini a more-than-respectable 67-27, Mike Riley 19-19 and favorite son Scott Frost a disastrous 16-31.

Now Matt Rhule is the new Nebraska boss, and he’s a heck of a coach. If Rhule fails, maybe the Cornhuskers never will come back.

But that’s what we said of Frost. There’s always hope.

And there’s always longing to remember the good days. The Nebraska hatchet-burying is medicinal for places like OU, which has its share of disconnect.

Josh Heupel is an all-time Sooner hero, and he’s found favor as the coach at Tennessee. But he’s been estranged since Bob Stoops fired Heupel as offensive coordinator after the 2014 season.

If Solich can come back to Memorial Stadium, Heupel can come back to Owen Field, for something more than a Sooner-Volunteer football game.

OU and Nebraska long have been bosom competitors. For decades, they pushed each other. Complemented each other. Taught each other.

They’re teaching still.

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Mailbag: Sean Snyder at Kansas

Kansas football has hired Sean Snyder as special assistant to head coach Lance Leipold. You read that right. The son of Kansas State coaching legend Bill Snyder, a K-State hall of famer in his own right, is joining the Jayhawks.

Tom: “I was absolutely shocked. Are you kidding me? It was no surprise that the son of Bill Snyder would seek employment elsewhere after he was not given consideration for the job when his dad retired. However, after the battles of his dad with KU, for him to take a position at KU was absolutely astonishing. Leipold looks to be doing a good job in portal, recruiting and now special teams coaching. Should add a little interest to the KU-KSU game.”

Tramel: Seems a good time for a little Snyder history lesson. Sean Snyder was a punter at Iowa when his dad was on staff there. Sean transferred to K-State when his dad became head coach in 1989. Sean was an all-American punter, then was KSU’s director of football operations from 1994-2000, then a K-State associate athletic director from 2001-10 and finally associate head coach/special teams coordinator. The Wildcat kicking units always were a force in the Snyder era.

When Bill Snyder retired for good after the 2018 season, the job went to Chris Klieman. Bill Snyder was disappointed. He wanted his son to get the job.

Sean Snyder spent a year with Klieman, then moved on to Southern Cal for two years and Illinois last season.

Sean Snyder was inducted into Kansas State's athletics Hall of Fame in 2016.

But I wasn’t shocked that he didn’t get the job. Someone has to draw the line on nepotism. KSU did.

I’m also not shocked that Sean Snyder would take a job at KU. The combatants in arch rivalries are not nearly as emotional as are the fans. Mike Stoops was ready to take a job at Texas.

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The List: Thunder last names

The three Williamses on the current Thunder team lift that name to No. 1 on the most common surname in Thunder history. Here are the last names that included multiple players, in the Thunder’s 15-year history.

Williams 4: Jalen (2022-23), Jaylin (2022-23), Kenrich (2020-23), Reggie (2013-14).

Robinson 3: Justin (2020-21), Nate (2010-11), Jeremiah (Robinson-Earl, 2021-23).

Brewer 2: Corey (2017-18), Ronnie (2012-13).

Brown 2: Charlie Jr. (2020-21), Moses (2020-21).

Butler 2: Caron (2013-14), Jared (2022-23).

Hall 2: Devon (2019-20), Josh (2020-21).

Hill 2: George (2020-21), Steven (2008-09).

Jackson 2: Justin (2020-21), Reggie (2011-15).

Smith 2: Ish (2014-15), Joe (2008-09).

Thomas 2: Etan (2009-10), Lance (2014-15).

Watson 2: Earl (2008-09), Paul (2021-22).

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: MLB Opening Day for Reds in Cincinnati trumps other baseball openers