Our second day in Cincinnati was not as rushed as the first. My only definite plan was attending the game that night. After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we decided to head back to the ballpark to visit the Reds Hall of Fame Museum before taking a stadium tour. The cost was $22 to do both for an adult, or $20 for my son. Seemed like a good deal, so we bought tickets for the noon tour. That left about 90 minutes to walk through the museum.
The Museum consisted of 2 floors on the first and third floors. The first floor started with a exhibit about Latin players. This was not just Reds players, but other MLB Latinos as well.
How appropriate to find a display that featured my son's favorite player and a Cardinals legend all in one.
A closer look at the Molina helmet from his rookie season in 2004. I was a little surprised to see anything Molina related based on how unpopular he is in Reds country.
After watching a short 10 minute film, we made our way through a hallway with various pictures of Negro League players. That lead to a room full of statues.
These bronze statues depict the Great 8 players from the 1970s Big Red Machine. It was hard to get a group picture because the statues were so big. From there we took the stairs you see on the right to the third floor.
There were 4256 baseballs that lined the staircase. The balls represent all the hits in Pete Rose's career. None are the actual hit balls. They were from batting practice or other game used balls. Pretty awesome to see that many baseballs in 1 display.
The third floor had the majority of the artifacts and displays.
There were 4 life like statues of John Vander Meer, Ted Kluszewski, Johnny Bench, and Barry Larkin. The Bench was the most accurate depiction. Across the room from the statues was a wall dedicated to baseball cards.
The cards ranged from 1869 to present day. The pull out cabinets displays worked great. I doubt some of the pre 1900 cards were real. Some of them were in too pristine condition to be that old.
The next room was dedicated to broadcasting. You could put on one of Marty Brennaman's jackets and sit at the announcers booth. My son chose to sit at the pregame desk instead.
The next room had artifacts from the Reds World Series teams. This is the 1975 trophy. Pretty cool to see one of these up close.
The corner of that room had some old jerseys. I found this Cardinals jersey with a zipper in front pretty odd.
Upon leaving the museum, each of us received a Marion Soto bobblehead. Each month a different bobblehead is given away to anyone visiting on Saturday or Sunday. We ended up selling one of ours later in the day for $15.
We had about a 10 minute wait for the ballpark tour that went by fairly quick. The tour itself lasted about 90 minutes. We saw various areas of the ballpark like suites, umpire room, and the hallway leading to the locker rooms.
We also got to visit both dugouts. This is in the visitor's dugout.
We walked behind home plate on our way to the Reds dugout. There was a light sprinkle going on at the time, thus the tarp on the field. The sun was still shining though as you can see from the shadows in our picture.
After the tour we had lunch at LaRosa's Pizza. Since the Reds struck out 11 Cardinals on Friday night, anyone with a ticket from that game receive a free personal pan pizza. That was the only positive from the Cardinals Friday night loss.
We went back to our hotel for a short rest before heading to the stadium for the game. I did not get the batting practice package this time, so we had to wait in line for the gates to open.
The giveaway that night was a Mr. Redlegs bobblehead. This little man is pretty heavy. If anyone is interested in this or a Soto bobblehead, shoot me an email or leave a comment. Would be happy to sell or trade for a few Cardinals.
The game went a lot better on Saturday. The Cardinals won 6 to 3 thanks to back to back home runs by Tyler O'Neill and Paul Goldschmidt. We also got to see Ryan Helsley throw 2 103 mph fastballs like he did in the All Star Game. There was a fireworks show again, but we opted to avoid traffic and head back to the hotel.
That ends the baseball part of our trip. I still have a couple of other posts about the trip. One about a card show we attended on Sunday morning. The other about some cards I received on the trip.
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