October 21st is the 50th anniversary of a seminal baseball moment, instantly recognizable to baseball fans, generations of New Englanders, and anyone who has watched Good Will Hunting. It’s also the anniversary of one of the most unique chapters in Tufts Athletics history: a two-day training visit by the 1975 Cincinnati Reds in the midst of one of the greatest World Series of all time.
The Reds were looking for a training facility due to several days of rain in Boston and ended up on the phone with Tufts Athletic Director Rocky Carzo, who quickly offered Tufts’ facilities. According to the Tufts Observer, the “only stipulation for using the space was that the students, and any other members of the Tufts community were to be permitted to observe the players.” The Observer notes players and students conversing and interacting at Dussault Cage in Cousens Gym: “There was Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan; all the guys who seem, from listening to Curt Gowdy, to be Gods.”
The Reds “were obviously loose and the Tufts people made them feel even looser and more at home,” according to the Observer. One Tufts student handed a textbook to relief pitcher Clay Carroll, who remarked, "After 11 years in the big leagues, I finally got accepted at a college."
The Observer also includes references to a student being hit by a ball hit by George Foster during a game of pepper and a student writer asking Ed Armbrister if he was “guilty” of catcher interference against Carlton Fisk – an infamous non-call that cost the Red Sox game three of the series. Armbrister responded that he “didn‘t know what happened until I got to second.” “Who cares if he answered the question or not,” the Observer concluded, “at least we got to ask him.”
The practice did not seem especially strenuous. Utility outfielder Merv Rettenmund expanded that players were “getting 10 swings each here and the pitchers are all throwing for ten minutes." Johnny Bench was quoted as saying, "It gets us out of the hotel room.”
Why did the Reds decide on Tufts? Reds Manager Sparky Anderson said that "We called Harvard, and then called you, and you just made us feel more welcome." The Observer reports that Anderson later “modified” his statement with explanations such as “Harvard was over Anderson‘s head or he ‘couldn‘t get into Harvard’” and that Harvard was “just too radical.”
In fact, the Reds almost didn’t make it to Tufts, getting lost on the way to Medford:
"The charter MBTA bus which was supposed to deliver the Cincinnati ball club to Tufts almost didn‘t make it. The driver got lost somewhere in the maze of Boston expressways and had to stop several times for directions. Anderson was the one to ask at the bakery and gas station to the shock of the unsuspecting attendants. The — ‘candid camera’ reactions of the bakery and gas station employees was recorded by newspaper reporters across the country."
The Reds practiced at Cousens for two days leading into game 6 of the 1975 World Series, recognized as one the greatest World Series games ever played, capped by Carlton Fisk’s game winning home run. As Peter Gammons famously wrote in the Boston Globe the next day, “in the 12th inning, Fisk’s histrionic home run brought a 7-6 end to a game that will be the pride of historians in the year 2525, a game won and lost what seemed like a dozen times, and a game that brings back summertime one more day.”
We will not dwell on game 7 in this space, but simply note that the Observer concludes that “the Reds were the biggest thing to hit Tufts since Jumbo and the best publicity for the place at least since Jumbo departed last spring.”