My Big Red Machine

The Tales, Drama, And Revelations Of A Fan Turned Journalist Covering Baseball's Greatest Team

By: Terence Moore

Narrated by: Donovan DeBoer

This is the 50th anniversary for the first of the back-to-back World Series titles for Major League Baseball's storied Big Red Machine, and out of all the books written about those Cincinnati Reds teams of the 1970s, this is the most unique. It is filled with great storytelling through vivid writing. It involves Terence Moore who pulled a rarity. He went from living and dying with his sports heroes as a youth to dealing with them up close and personal on a regular basis.

They say you should never meet your heroes.

Terence did . . . and more.

Not only that, but Terence built a lifetime bond with several of them while becoming an award-winning journalist and a Baseball Hall of Fame voter.

Terence began hugging those Reds as a fan during the late 1960s, and he continued into the 1970s. Then on May 7, 1978, he graduated from Miami (Ohio) University, located 35 miles north of Cincinnati, and a week later, he became a professional sports journalist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. He often was assigned by the paper to write about those Reds.

Terence had to learn in a flash how to control his awe around a clubhouse filled with perennial All-Stars and future Baseball Hall of Famers. Since newspapers still were in their heyday during the Big Red Machine's era, he also had to find ways to survive and to prosper in that massive and competitive media environment.

That was despite two things: (1) Terence usually was the youngest writer by far consistently around those Reds, and (2) he was the first full-time African American sportswriter ever to work for a major metropolitan paper in the region. In fact, he was one of just two African Americans in the country writing about baseball on a consistent basis in that capacity, and he gives fascinating details on his Jackie Robinson role.

©2025 Terence Moore (P)2025 Terence Moore

Don't waste your time

This was easily the worst narrated Audible book I have ever listened to. The narrator's pace was extremely slow, and he mispronounced dozens of baseball names. It makes me question whether Audible has a proof listener that checks narration before it releases them.

As for the book itself, as a contemporary of the author that grew up in Cincinnati, I should have enjoyed the topic. However, the author's constant repetition of phrases like "My guy Pete Rose" for the Reds leadoff hitter, "That Guy" for Carlton Fisk, and "MY Big Red Machine" and the lack of any new revelations about the team made this book one of the worst Audible books I've suffered through. The only part of the book that was interesting was the author's career path, where he was a legitimate pioneer as one of the first African-American baseball beat writers.

Great book rotten narrator

This might be one of the worst audible narrators I’ve ever heard. How can you narrate a book about baseball and sports and mispronounce 50% of the names?
He even pronounced football legend Gail Sayers’s name wrong !

Not to mention, Al Kaline, Bob Howsam, Ara Parseghian, Pedro Bourbon and countless others. Vida Blue is not Veeda Blue. So bad.
How hard would it be to look up their names and pronounce them right? If he had half the professionalism of Marty Brennaman or Terry Moore, he would’ve been great.

As far as the book and the content fantastic! A must read for any baseball fan, and an absolute must for a reds fan.