The Cincinnati Reds improved a little bit in the 2008 season, ending with a .457 win average versus a .444 win average in 2007, but they still landed in fourth place in the NL Central and missed the playoffs. Clearly something needed to change, and with Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey, Jr. both gone, the Reds are starting the 2009 season a whole new club. The offseason was relatively quiet, though the Reds did pick up Ramon Hernandez and Willy Taveras. Mostly they’ll be relying on their cache of promising young talent, like Edinson Volquez, Jay Bruce and Johnny Cueto, to turn the Reds around. The question now is, with The Big Donkey and Junior gone, who will be the new leader? The best way to find out is to watch it all go down live, so get your tickets to Great American Ballpark and catch the Cincinnati Reds in action in 2009!

Baseball's First All-Professional Team

Amongst all the professional baseball franchises in the world, only one, the Cincinnati Reds, can lay claim to being the first ever. They have a century old rivalry with their Central Division mates St. Louis and Chicago, and have formed more recent rivalries against Houston and Milwaukee. The Reds are best known for their Big Red Machine teams of the 1970s. The team, stocked with Hall of Famers Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez, won back to back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. Their last championship was in 1990, under the guidance of Manager Lou Pinella who led his team to victory over the heavily favored Oakland A’s.