The night Norm Charlton became a Reds legend

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I’ve been counting down the 101 best players in Reds history. Here’s the most recent installment; we’ve made it to #90 so far (Eugenio Suarez). By the time we get to #1, hopefully I’ll have figured out where to install Elly De La Cruz on this list. Will he be number one, or only number two? I guess you’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

This weekend, I sat down before the trusty keyboard to count us down all the way to #80. And then I got stuck on #89. Not because I didn’t know who I was going to rank there; spoiler alert — it’s left-hander Norm Charlton. No, I got stuck because I was having so much fun reminiscing about this guy.

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Charlton? Most of you know that he was a terrific pitcher for the Reds, the most unheralded member of the “Nasty Boys” trio that powered the 1990 team to a World Series championship. The more seasoned persons among you will remember that Norm earned a triple-major at Rice University before being drafted in the first round in 1984 by the Montreal Expos. If you’re a Seattle baseball fan, Charlton was the closer on the first Mariners team to qualify for the playoffs. Remember Ken Griffey, Jr., scoring to win that Yankees series? That was fun.

Charlton had a pretty great baseball career. But when I think of him, I think of the time he lowered his shoulder and plowed through Dodgers catcher Mike Scioscia in a collision at home plate.

The date was June 24, 1990. The Reds were running away with the NL West*; after defeating Los Angeles the previous day, Cincinnati was 42-23, and eight games ahead of the Padres and Giants. The rubber match of the series against and the Dodgers was the featured game on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

*Still strange to think the Reds were in the Western division for all those years.

This was a big deal for a couple of reasons. First of all, playing on ESPN’s Sunday night game was a really big deal in those days, and the Sunday night game was always a ratings bonanza. Every game for every team wasn’t broadcast everywhere, so it was our chance to watch players we rarely got to see.

Sheesh, looking back, I feel like we were in the stone age. No one owned a map evidently, so Cincinnati and Atlanta were considered to be in the same geographic region as San Diego, Houston, and San Francisco. And if you wanted information about any game, you had to wait until the next day, when some guy in the neighborhood threw a thing called a “newspaper” onto your porch or driveway, whereupon you could scour the tiny newsprint for details about your favorite players.

What a time to be alive.

The other reason that Sunday night game was a big deal is that the Reds and Dodgers were still pretty big rivals in 1990. LA had just won the championship two years earlier — that was the Kirk Gibson series — and the Reds were the new kids on the block. But resentment between the teams still lingered from all the battles in the 1970s, when the Reds regularly got the upper hand over the Dodgers.

Now that the stage is set, back to Charlton. He had been upset over the way Scioscia had blocked the plate a couple of games earlier, in the series opener, when Reds star Eric Davis had been attempting to score. During the Sunday night game, with the Reds leading 8-4, Charlton came to the plate two outs into the seventh inning. Dodgers pitcher Mike Hartley hit Charlton with a pitch* and Norm was clearly upset. He slammed his bat to the ground and glared at the pitcher as he made his way to first base.

*Remember when pitchers used to bat?

I’ll go ahead and embed the video here, so you can watch it. Look at how angry Charlton seemed, and then try to realize that the scowl on his face was there pretty much every time Charlton took the field. He was a bulldog between the lines. (Also notice how Dodgers first baseman Eddie Murray appeared to be bemused when Charlton reached first base.)

Anyway, once on first, Charlton donned that iconic and beautiful satin Reds jacket; I still have mine. The next hitter was catcher Joe Oliver, who ripped a double down the left field line. Todd Benzinger came around to score, and then Charlton tore around third. Reds third-base coach Sam Perlozzo threw up the stop sign, but Charlton — perhaps sensing his chance to punish Scioscia — ignored him and kept going.

The ball and the runner arrived at home plate simultaneously, with Benzinger imploring Charlton to slide. Instead, he lowered his shoulder — it reminds me of Earl Campbell driving through defenders on the football field — and destroyed Scioscia. The catcher dropped the ball and it rolled slowly away. The Reds’ lead was extended to 10-4.

After the collision, Charlton slowly strutted off the field before his teammates mobbed him. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone strut on a baseball field before or after, but that’s the only way to describe it.

The narratives that emerge around certain teams are often not connected to reality. But in the aftermath of this national telecast, this collision became the story about the Reds. Though they were a young team, they were fearless and would back down to no one, right? If Cincinnati had lost in the NLCS that year, it’s unlikely we’d remember this collision so fondly. But they didn’t lose, they won the whole thing, and in retrospect, this moment represented what we wanted to believe about that team and, perhaps, ourselves.

So anyway, I’ll get back to the countdown soon. I just needed a moment to go down this particular rabbit hole, and I’m glad I did.

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This week’s show: TR #483: What a time to be alive, Reds fans!

After a decade of mostly unwatchable baseball, the Reds just had an incredibly entertaining week, powered by the kids: Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Andrew Abbott, Hunter Greene, and the GOAT, Will Benson. Nate and I break it all down in a Viewer Mail Only episode!

You can listen to the audio version pretty much everywhere you get podcasts, or just click this link and it should lead you where you need to go. Or you can watch on our YouTube channel:

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