By Hal McCoy
They call him ‘Chief,’ not because he is Native American, but because his name is Native American.
Cesar Geronimo roamed center field the way Geronimo, the Apache chiefl, roamed the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts in Arizona.
Geronimo could catch ‘em, but he didn’t want to talk about ‘em. He was the quietest member of the Great Eight.
As his manager, Sparky Anderson, once said, “If The Chief don’t catch it, it ain’t catchable.” And pitcher Gary Nolan echoed Anderson when he said, “Geronimo gives the pitchers tremendous confidence. If the ball doesn’t hit the wall or fly over it, he’ll catch it.”
But catching a few words from the Dominican-born Geronimo was like trying to catch a cab in downtown Caracas at rush hour.
He sat quietly in the clubhouse, working on crossword puzzles and said, “I do love crossword puzzles. I don’t know much English, so they are always in Spanish, sent to me by my folks.”
As he sits, mostly ignored, he watches the media horde, especially on the road, congregate around Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan.
“I don’t really care,” he said. “No way do I want the attention Rose and Morgan get on the road. That is too much for me. I am happy the way I am. Nobody bothers me.”
So he sat and worked his crossword puzzles, then went onto the field and did passable ball-chasing imitations of Willie Mays. And what mostly is forgotten is that Geronimo hit .307 in 1976.
Pete Rose anointed Geronimo’s bat as a magic wand because every ground ball found a hole and every blooper fell in that year. He had 149 hits and 125 were either singles or doubles.
But even his manager snubbed him. After winning the 1975 World Series, Sparky Anderson was the manager of the ’76 National League All-Stars.
When after the votes were in, when it came time to fill out the roster, Anderson made certain every member of his starting lineup was on the team. . .except one. He didn’t take Geronimo.
“He belonged, too,” said Anderson. “But I couldn’t get too ridiculous. Somebody had to be left behind and he was the sacrificial lamb. I’ve always wondered why Geronimo never got no ink from you newspaper guys.
“I don’t know what he can’t do,” Anderson added. “He is the No. 1 outfielder in the league. He’s in, he’s out, he’s left, he’s right, he gets ‘em all.”
But he didn’t get a spot on Anderson’s All-Star lineup card.
Geronimo was part of the massive trade concocted by Reds general manager Bob Howsam, a trade that brought Joe Morgan, Jack Billingham, Ed Armbrister and Geronimo to the Reds from the Houston Astros.
Morgan and Billingham were the highlighters and Geronimo was thought be a throw-in. Howsam, though, knew what he wanted and he wouldn’t make the deal without Geronimo’s inclusion.
That’s because Howsam was constructing his team to match the AstrtoTurf in Riverfront Stadium. Speed and defense were the watchwords. And Geronimo, with his eight-foot strides and a magnet for a glove, was the perfect fit.
Amazintly, Geronimo was tucked behind the walls of a seminary in 1967, studying for the priesthood. He studied in the mornings and knocked softballs through windows in the afterrnoons.
“My parents did not want me to go into the seminary in the first place, did not want me to be a priest,” he said. “So I quit and concentrated on baseball.”
The New York Yankees found him and signed him and foolishly sent him to Oneonta, N.Y., where he was the only Latino in town and said, “I couldn’t even pronouce the town’s name. And that summer, nobody taught me a thing, nobody told me anything.
“I went back to the Dominican and mostly learned by watching Manny Mota and Matty Alou (both major league players) play winter ball,” he said.
The Yankees left him unprotected after the 1967 season and the Houston Astros grabbed him. And that’s where Howsam found him.
When the Reds beat the Boston Red Sox in the iconic 1975 World Series, the stars were Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, George Foster and Pete Rose.
Typically forgotten was that Geronimo hit two home runs in the Series the Reds won in seven games. It grabbed little attention to Reds fans, but when Geronimo returned to the Dominican, he could have won the presidency.
“Everybody treated me a lot different,” he said. “They gave me a lot of trophies. I made a lot of new friends. When I got home, my father was in the doctor’s office. He got so excited watching me play in the World Series his blood pressure went crazy.”
Geronimo was 20 years old when Mickey Mantle played his last game and Geronimo made a revelation in 1976.
That’s the year the Reds swept the New York Yankees in four straight game to add a second straight World Series trophy into the Riverfront Stadium trophy case.
Geronimo performed well. He hit .308 and had two doubles, a couple of stolen bases, two walks and patroled hallowed Yankee Stadium the way Mantle once did.
At one point, they asked Geronimo to appear in the media interview room and he balked and nearly had to be dragged by chain. But he did it and did it well.
And it was entertaining.
As a child in the Dominican Republic, Geronimo was a fan of one team.
“My dream as a boy always had been to play alongside Mickey Mantle,” said Geronimo immediately after the Reds completed the Yankees sweep. “The Yankees as a team were my heroes, but at this minute, I would not want to trade uniforms.”
Then he walked back to the clubhouse, grabbed a crossword puzzle book and wondered, “What’s a five-letter word for winning four straight games in the World Series?