For those who may not have heard, Marty Brennaman will be retiring after the 2019 Reds season. He announced his decision Wednesday afternoon at the Reds on Radio affiliates luncheon. It was a surreal day in Cincinnati sports, for me at least. It’s also worth noting that less than 24 hours before Mr. Brennaman’s announcement, I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Bob Castellini at the Bearcats men’s basketball game. So, yesterday for me felt like a whirlwind with the news of Marty announcing he’s retiring after the upcoming Reds season.
Throughout my life as a Cincinnati sports fan, there were people who I grew accustomed to having around and still are around, some good and some not so much. Marvin Lewis being the head coach of the Bengals (you all know how I feel about him), Mo Egger and Lance McAlister telling it how it is on weekday afternoons and evenings on ESPN 1530 and 700 WLW (two of my mentors as sports radio personalities), Dan Hoard being the play-by-play man for the Bengals and Bearcats football and men’s basketball (How can you not like him?! As professional as they come.), Joey Votto being the face of the the first professional baseball franchise and also with them, Marty Brennaman being someone I would listen to wherever I was during Reds games. These are all people in the Cincinnati sports culture that I have grown up around and, in many ways, have become a big part of my life, especially Marty Brennaman. It really has been a privilege to grow up in a city with a Hall of Fame announcer who has become a big part of my sports life.
His announcement just goes to show that we as fans should never take anything for granted, including Marty being the voice of the Reds. We all knew at some point he would be retiring, so the fact that we know that as we listen to him on 700 WLW this season I think is a good thing. We don’t have to sit there every game pondering the thought of him retiring, and we can enjoy listening to him do what he does best.
There are going to be plenty of stories about what Marty has meant to the Queen City since the mid-1970s, and that’s why I want to talk about how Mr. Brennaman’s retirement is, I think, signifying a new era for Cincinnati sports. Like I mentioned earlier, I, and maybe some of you, grew up accustomed to having people like Marvin Lewis, Mo Egger, Lance McAlister, Dan Hoard, Joey Votto and Marty Brennaman around. But in just less than three weeks, we’ve gotten word that Lewis was fired and Mr. Brennaman is going to retire at the end of the season. The former is obviously a good thing, but it’s going to feel different without Marty being, as Mo Egger headlined in The Athletic, the soundtrack of Reds fans’ lives. Add in FC Cincinnati as the Queen City’s third major professional sports team, and things are going to feel a little different around here after the 2019 Reds season.
As sad as it might be that Mr. Brennaman is hanging up the mic after the upcoming Reds season, which hopefully ends with a World Series championship. Regardless of how this Reds season ends, though, this season should be treated as one to look back on memories of Marty and take in every last game he commentates. It’s also a year to think about the new era we are heading into with Cincinnati sports as far as the new people who are at some of the highest levels within the organizations. It’s a new era that’s both uncertain and anticipating.
Let me be Frank and Cut to the Chase 