He could walk around downtown with his dog and nobody would bother him, Walter remembered Sanders saying. Occasionally Sanders would play music - gospel singer Kirk Franklin was his favorite - but he was among the most unassuming people in the room. Tony “Mort” Walter, who has worked in the Reds’ clubhouse for more than 20 years, remembers Sanders sitting at his locker and reading his Bible. While playing for the Reds, Deion Sanders asked clubhouse attendance to outfit the balcony of his apartment with a net so he could hit at home. “He wasn’t Prime Time, he was Deion in the locker room.” - Rick Stowe, Cincinnati Reds clubhouse manager Prime Time is a character designed to steal the spotlight, to get people talking.ĭeion? According to his baseball teammates, that’s a different story. Understanding him remains a complicated venture, one that involves grasping the split personas of Prime Time and Deion and all the ways the two have morphed together. Where he goes, attention and controversy tend to follow. He was a terrific human being.”įor so long - in football and baseball, as a player and coach, as an athlete and a pop-culture icon - Deion Sanders has been a touchstone for takes. “I tell you, to this day, there’s nothing I can say but good things about that man. “I didn’t know him at all, I’d never met the man, and he stood up and he said what he said,” Reed said. But decades later, the gesture nevertheless endures. On the day Reed joined the team, Sanders was traded to the Giants in exchange for much-needed pitching, meaning the two were teammates for less than two hours. Reed wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms, but he was ultimately called up to the Reds without incident. But the situation was so touchy that then-Reds general manager Jim Bowden called a team meeting to announce what would otherwise have been a routine roster move.ĭeion Sanders looks on during a Reds spring training workout in 1995, when raw emotions from the strike still lingered.

With Reed pitching well at Triple A, the solution was obvious. Although he never actually appeared in a game as a replacement, he would be among those who were forever shunned.īut soon it was July and the Reds were desperate for arms. Then the strike ended and he was sent to the minors. He had been slated to be the Opening Day starter on the Reds’ replacement team. With few other prospects, Reed reluctantly agreed to do the one thing he knew he could do to make money: pitch. Now, the lengthy work stoppage meant life without a steady paycheck, and for Reed’s parents, that meant the possibility of losing their home. Even though he’d already been released three times, he was the one paying his mother’s medical bills. “I told her if I ever had a chance, I don’t care how I got the money, I was going to help my parents out.” So when Reed’s mother became a diabetic without health insurance, he made good on his word. “When I was 12, I told her she was going to watch me play on TV,” Reed recalled recently.

Growing up in West Virginia, Reed’s mother had encouraged him to chase his dreams. I hope to see you soon, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you.Weird & Wild: The weekend the baseball gods worked overtime You can call our church office at 661-8147 with any questions. You’ll find us at 1191 Devils Backbone Road, between Cleves-Warsaw and Rapid Run. Luke’s Community Church and see if we can serve your desire to grow closer to the person of Jesus Christ. We hope that if you do not have a church home presently, that you will look into St.

We are always looking for ways to serve our community and to reach out beyond our walls in order to share the “Good News” of God’s unconditional love with all those around us. We are a non-denominational church with a long history in the Delhi/Western Hills area.īecause we have members who have been a part of this church family for 40-50 years, and love the style that they grew up with, we do a casual style of celebration that embraces both the traditional elements that our church-family has enjoyed all their lives, along with some contemporary styles that keep our services fresh and interesting. We invite you to join us Sunday morning as we celebrate together the glorious goodness of Jesus Christ.

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