When Danny Graves was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in the summer of 1997 and sent to Triple-A Indianapolis, he was excited to tell his friends that he was playing with Pete Rose Jr., also known as the “Hit Prince.”
“We all know his dad. I don’t know his dad, but I get to play with Pete Rose Jr.,” Graves remembered.
Graves can now say he’s on the same team as the “Hit King” after he, along with fellow pitcher Bronson Arroyo and former Reds General Manager Gabe Paul were officially inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame Sunday night.
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Current members of the club fighting for an NL Central title and of the team’s Hall of Fame joined together for a star-studded Hall of Fame Induction Gala at the Duke Energy Convention Center. The current and former Reds were introduced by position as past greats like Pete Rose and Chris Sabo were joined by Elly De La Cruz and Nick Senzel.
Graves admitted he went off-script early on in his speech, which was on-par given his path to being the Reds’ franchise leader in career saves was anything but textbook. Graves remains the only Vietnam-born Major League Baseball player. His family left Vietnam for Florida when he was just over a year old. Graves tore his ACL in college at Miami and sat out his first year in the minors. He made 20 appearances for Cleveland before being traded to the Reds in 1997.
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By 1999, Graves had cemented himself as the Reds closer, racking up 27 saves that season and 30 in an All-Star 2000 campaign.
In 2003, he “accepted the challenge” to be a starting pitcher, going 4-15 with a 5.33 ERA. He returned to the bullpen one year later and notched a career-high 41 saves, earning another all-star bid.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Graves said. “I am truly honored and humbled by it. Thank you to the Reds Hall of Fame.”
Bronson Arroyo had won 24 games and a World Series ring over three seasons with the Boston Red Sox before he was traded to the Reds for outfielder Wily Mo Pena just before the 2006 season.
Pena would be traded to Washington 17 months later and Arroyo would turn into an All-Star in his first season in Cincinnati. Over nine seasons with the Reds (2006-2013, 2017), Arroyo was also a Gold Glove winner (2010) and helped lead the club to a pair of NL Central titles (2010, 2012) and a wild card berth in 2013. He ranks tied for seventh in team history in starts (279) and sixth in strikeouts (1,157).
Arroyo shared a home video from 1985 of himself, then eight years old, maxing out on the squat machine and bench press with his father spotting him. It was that work ethic that helped the skinny, 6-foot-4 right-hander turn into a 16-year MLB pitcher.
“It’s hard to explain what that did to me,” Arroyo said. “This was just a year-round thing. We treated life like we were gonna play in the big leagues.
“All of those things shaped me into the person I was as a big-league ball player to give me the opportunity to maximize a thin frame of a guy who people didn’t think would last as long as I did. Without those times in the weight room, there’s probably not a chance in the world I would’ve played past college baseball.”
Gabe Paul, the Reds General Manager from 1951-60, was selected by the Hall’s Veterans Committee for this year’s class.
Paul had a 56-year baseball career that started as a 10-year-old bat boy in the minor leagues. Warren Giles, the first executive inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame, gave Paul his start on the business side of baseball in Cincinnati as the Reds’ publicity director in 1936.
Paul, the Sporting News Executive of the Year in 1956, helped spearhead the Reds’ pursuit of African American players and international talent. Paul helped construct a roster that would win the National League pennant in 1961 and found some key cogs to the Big Red Machine like Tony Perez and Pete Rose.
Paul’s daughter, Jennie, spoke on his behalf Sunday.
“My father so dearly loved all the fans with this great organization he was with for 24 years after Warren Giles brought him from Rochester to Cincinnati,” Jennie said.
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Jennie explained how her dad played a key role in keeping the Reds in Cincinnati after MLB owners were hoping for a National League team in New York City in the 1950s after the Dodgers and Giants left for the west coast.
“My father never underestimated the power of the Reds’ fanbase,” Jennie said. “He fought hard against the owners and was able to keep his beloved Reds in Cincinnati.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds induct Arroyo, Graves, Paul into team’s Hall of Fame