Three games, Memorial Day weekend, the one team this city has never needed an excuse to boo. Glad you're here. Make a weekend of it.
100 Joe Nuxhall Way, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Park in Covington or Newport, KY. Walk the Roebling or Purple People Bridge over.
Soft cooler up to 16x16x8. No backpacks except Reds Heads giveaway bags.
Allowed. Sandwiches, snacks, sealed non-alcoholic drinks in plastic. No glass, no cans.
MLB Ballpark app. Have it open and a screenshot saved as backup.
Fully cashless. Card or mobile pay only. Cash-to-card kiosks inside if you need one.
Crosley Terrace, Gate A. The statues and the new Votto clock are right there. Get there early and walk it.
After the last out. Best view: upper deck third base side, or the AC Hotel rooftop next door.
Cincinnati and St. Louis, NL Central forever
This is the one that matters. Reds and Cardinals, up and down the National League Central for as long as anybody around here can remember, and Cincinnati does not forget. The night that defined the modern version was August 10, 2010. Brandon Phillips told the Dayton Daily News the Cardinals were a bunch of little bitches. Next night he tapped Yadier Molina's shin guard with his bat on the way into the box, just so nobody was confused about whether he meant it. Benches emptied. Johnny Cueto got pinned against the backstop and kicked his way out of the pile. Folks still talk about it.
Now here's the thing about the team coming to town. They tore the whole operation down. Arenado's in Arizona. Contreras went to Boston. Sonny Gray, gone. This was supposed to be a down year in St. Louis. Somebody forgot to tell the Cardinals. They're younger, they're faster, and they're built around Masyn Winn and a kid named Wetherholt, and they have spent the early going sitting higher in this division than a Reds club that was supposed to be past them by now. That's the part that ought to bother you. Not the name on the front of the jersey. The standings. And these two haven't even met yet this year. First time the Cardinals come through Cincinnati in 2026.
Cardinals: 28-20, second in the Central, a game and a half out of first. Reds: 26-24, fourth, four and a half back. They traded away Arenado, Contreras, and Gray and they're still sitting three games up on the Reds. As of May 20. Check the morning of, this moves.
The big red fuzzy fella has, listed right there under DISLIKES on his actual team-published Reds bio, the words "anything having to do with the St. Louis Cardinals." That's not a fan made that up. That's the ballclub. This is his weekend.
The Reds you came to see, and the Cardinals you'll have to put up with
Get to your seat before he bats. Six-five, switch-hitter, runs like a deer and throws absolute seeds across the diamond from short. He hit for the cycle in his fifteenth big league game back in '23 and he's been appointment viewing ever since. When Elly steps in the box, nobody in the ballpark is looking at their phone.
The rookie the whole town's been waiting on. He drove in 29 runs over his first 27 games, the most by any rookie in more than a decade, and it put his name right next to Tony Perez in the Reds book. He hits behind Elly, so good luck finding a soft spot to pitch around either one of them.
Steer plays first, third, left field, wherever Francona points him, and he never makes a fuss about it. Funny thing is, the guy nobody talks about is the hottest hitter on the club right now. He came into the weekend riding an eleven-game hitting streak, the longest by any Red all season.
First-round talent who plays a slick second base. He lost a full year to shoulder surgery and clawed his way back, and the bat's been cold this season, which he'd tell you himself. But he's the kind of player who can wake up and beat you for a whole weekend before you've figured out what happened.
The longest-tenured Red on the roster. He caught through the lean years when this place was half empty, and he stuck around for the climb back out of them. Cincinnati keeps a soft spot for the ones who didn't leave, and Stephenson earned his.
The Reds are giving away a Hayes Gold Glove bobblehead on Saturday, and that tells you the whole story. Terry Francona will tell you he might be the best defender in the sport. The bat is another matter, and everybody in the building knows it. We celebrate the glove. We do not discuss the average.
Saturday you get Brady Singer. Sunday it's Nick Lodolo, freshly back off the injured list. Friday's starter wasn't set when this went out, so check the app that morning. And before you ask, no, you're not getting Chase Burns this trip. The kid's the most exciting arm the Reds have, MLB.com just ranked him the seventh-best starter in all of baseball, and he runs it up to 102 with a slider that buckles knees. His turn just falls after the Cardinals have left town. Catch him next homestand.
The shortstop St. Louis is building the next ten years around. Quick, sure-handed, plays the position the right way and doesn't hand you free outs. If he gets on base he'll run the Reds ragged, so the whole trick is keeping him off it to begin with.
The crown jewel of their rebuild. He came up as one of the top prospects in the game, then homered in his very first big league at-bat on Opening Day and walked one off two days later, like he was out to prove a point. St. Louis has decided he's the future. A weekend getting booed in a rival's park is how a young player finds out whether he's ready for it.
Their everyday first baseman, and one of the few proven bats left standing after the teardown. He told reporters in spring he was going for thirty homers and a hundred driven in. He's got a long way to go on both, but he's the Cardinal most likely to make the Reds pay for a mistake over the plate.
Lefty bat who swings like he's mad at the ball. When he connects it goes a long way, and when he misses he misses by a foot and a half. He was a big prospect once and he's still chasing that version of himself, but you don't want him at the plate with the game on the line.
Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
Great American Ball Park, opened 2003, on the banks of the Ohio
Those two big smokestacks out in right center, that's a nod to the steamboats that built this river town. They breathe fire when a Reds pitcher gets a strikeout and go off with fireworks for every Reds homer and every Reds win. Now look close at the tops. Seven bats on each stack. Seven and seven is fourteen. That's Pete Rose's number, and that's no accident.
Brand new, went up March 24th of this year. Votto bought the city and the ballclub a custom sixteen-foot street clock to say thank you for his twenty-two years here. It's at Crosley Terrace by the main gate, right by the statues. The bronze at the bottom reads "Thank you Cincinnati," his signature underneath it. Plays a tune every hour on the hour, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" among them. Most folks walking in haven't even noticed it yet. Give it a second.
Five bronzes by Tom Tsuchiya out on Crosley Terrace. Nuxhall, Lombardi, Kluszewski, Frank Robinson, and Rose. It's the Rose one you stop for. They caught him mid-dive, head first, flat out horizontal, the whole weight of the thing balanced on a pair of bronze hands. There isn't a better piece of ballpark art in the country. Have a look on your way in.
Look down the third base line during the game. That opening between the upper decks, thirty-five feet of it, that's what they call The Gap. It is not a mistake. They built it on purpose so the folks inside and the folks out on the riverfront can both see the field, the skyline, and the river all at the same time. Nothing else in this park looks like it.
Out past center, on the home run deck between the stacks, there's a Toyota Tundra up on risers behind a sign that says HIT ME. Player hits that sign on the fly, a fan in the seats drives home a truck. Sixteen years they've run it. One winner. One. Jesse Winker missed it by three inches in 2018 and they handed a fan the keys anyway, just because nobody'd ever come that close. I wouldn't count on it. But keep half an eye out there.
On August 10, 2004, Adam Dunn got hold of one off Jose Lima and hit it clean out of the stadium. It carried over the center field wall and the batter's eye, bounced off Mehring Way behind the park, and came to rest on a piece of driftwood floating in the Ohio River. They measured it at 535 feet, still the longest home run this ballpark has ever seen, and nobody has come close since. Here's the part people love: the river out there is the Kentucky line, so Dunn hit a ball that landed in another state. For perspective, that Toyota Tundra sits 500 feet from the plate. His traveled farther than that. Look out past center sometime and picture where it came down.
The Reds facts that still surprise lifelong fans
The first night game in Major League history was at Crosley Field, exactly 91 years before Sunday's game. May 24, 1935. Reds 2, Phillies 1, in front of 25,000 fans under 632 lights. President Franklin Roosevelt threw the symbolic switch from a button at the White House. Larry MacPhail, the Reds' GM, talked the league into trying it. Cincinnati is the city that decided baseball didn't have to end at sundown.
The 1937 Ohio River flood put Crosley Field underwater. Reds pitchers rowed a boat across the flooded outfield. There's a famous photograph. The river crested at nearly 80 feet, the worst flood in Cincinnati history. The team didn't play home games for weeks.
Joe Nuxhall pitched in the majors at fifteen years old. June 10, 1944. He's still the youngest player in MLB modern history. The Reds signed him out of junior high because so many ballplayers were at war. He gave up five runs in two-thirds of an inning, then didn't make it back to the majors for eight years. He came back, became a beloved Reds broadcaster for nearly 40 years, and is bronzed on Crosley Terrace next to Pete Rose.
The Reds won the 1919 World Series against the Black Sox. Eight Chicago White Sox players took money from gamblers to throw the series. It's the most asterisked championship in baseball history. As far as anyone has ever proven, the Reds didn't know. The eight cheaters were banned from baseball for life.
From 1953 to 1958, the Reds were officially called the Redlegs. The McCarthy-era Red Scare was at its peak and the team did not want to share a name with the global communist threat. They went back to Reds in 1959. The Redlegs throwback uniforms still get worn for retro nights.
The Big Red Machine of 1975-76 won back-to-back World Series. Bench, Rose, Morgan, Perez, Foster, Concepcion, Griffey Sr. Five Hall of Famers in one lineup. Manager Sparky Anderson is in too. The 1976 World Series sweep of the Yankees is the last World Series Cincinnati has won.
The 1990 Reds led the NL West every single day of the season. Wire to wire. They were heavy underdogs against Oakland in the World Series, the A's had Rickey Henderson, José Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Dennis Eckersley. The Reds swept them in four. The "Nasty Boys" bullpen, Dibble-Myers-Charlton, is the reason. Sportswriters had picked the A's in five.
Pete Rose has 4,256 career hits. All-time MLB record. He was banned from baseball in 1989 for betting on the Reds while managing them. He died in September 2024. Major League Baseball reinstated him posthumously in May 2025. The franchise's relationship with Rose is the most complicated thing in Cincinnati sports.
Frank Robinson was the first Black manager in MLB history. He started his career as a Red, won the 1961 NL MVP in Cincinnati, and is the only player ever to win MVPs in both leagues. The Reds traded him to Baltimore after the 1965 season at age 30, thinking he was washed. He won the Triple Crown for the Orioles the next year. His statue is on Crosley Terrace.
Ted "Big Klu" Kluszewski cut the sleeves off his uniform because his biceps wouldn't fit through them. The Reds eventually made him special sleeveless jerseys. His Crosley Terrace statue is bronzed with bare arms.
Johnny Vander Meer threw back-to-back no-hitters. June 11, 1938 against the Boston Bees. Four days later, against the Brooklyn Dodgers, another one. He is still the only pitcher in MLB history to do it. The record is considered unbreakable.
Crosley Field had a four-foot incline rising fifteen degrees toward the outfield wall. Outfielders had to climb it. Babe Ruth, in his last games in the National League, stumbled on it trying to catch a fly ball at Crosley. He retired shortly after.
The Reds pay one dollar a year in rent for Great American Ball Park. The lease cost the team $2.5 million annually for the first nine years. Since 2013, it has been one dollar. Hamilton County covers everything else.
The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings went 57-0. First openly all-professional baseball team in history. The winning streak eventually stretched to 81 games before the Brooklyn Atlantics ended it in extra innings. Their manager, Harry Wright, also wrote the first known mention of the seventh-inning stretch. Cincinnati invented professional baseball and documented its most beloved tradition.
You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
Things you'll see this weekend. Tap one when you spot it.
Tap a square when you spot it.