I Attended a Yankees-Reds Game at Great American Ballpark

One week ago, I made a four-hour drive to Cincinnati to watch my New York Yankees take on the hometown Reds; it was my first time visiting the city, and Great American Ballpark, as well as the first time I’d seen the Yankees in person in three years, so I was thrice excited.

Great American Ballpark is located right along the Ohio River, and is a truly nice stadium, though it feels surprisingly small and walkable, both inside and out. It also has some sweet amenities for kids (a play place with a slide and a small baseball diamond to run around on among other things) and, since it was extraordinarily hot under the Ohio sun, large fans that sprayed mist on you if you needed to cool down. As for food, the choices were limited, but the bratwurst I had was pretty good (though nothing compares to Yankee Stadium food if we are being honest).

When the gates opened at 5:40 local time, I entered the park with relative ease and walked out into the right-center field seats, just in time to catch some batting practice from Yankees players like Ben Rice and J.C. Escarra, with one ball landing about 10 feet from me, and being picked up by another fan, darn.

It hasn’t happened often for me, but being there early enough to see players get ready is always a treat; for example, here I got to see former Yankee catcher Jose Trevino and his new battery mate, Nick Lodolo, warming up before heading to the bullpen to really prepare for that night’s game.

Some of the pregame festivities included the Reds mascot interacting with both the fans and with players like Aaron Judge, whom he met in the outfield, raced to the sidelines, and then stared down after being beaten by the Yankee behemoth. Judge, for his part, didn’t gloat, and then went about his business like a true Yankee Captain should.

But on to the actual game, which featured the match up of the aforementioned Nick Lodolo squaring off against New York’s recent call-up for the injured Ryan Yarbrough, Allan Winans – who sported a sub-1.00 ERA in AAA; spoiler alert, that earned run average would not carry over into this game.

The first inning started off pretty well for the Yankees as Aaron Judge almost immediately sucked the air out of the crowd by depositing a long home run into the left field stands; things were already looking up! Winans pitched well enough for the first three innings, and by the next time Judge came up, the Yankees had a runner on third (Austin Wells) after Elly De La Cruz made a throwing error. Sadly for the Bombers (and for me), Judge just missed a second homer by a matter of feet, prompting a Reds fan to yell that Judge was “overrated…” Okay, buddy.

Unfortunately, though, the story of this game was the Yankees not being able to capitalize on having runners in scoring position, like at all, as they continued to leave runners on base. In the 4th inning, Elly hit a game tying triple after Winans had hit a batter, then scored on a sac fly to give the Reds a lead they would not relinquish. It was at this point that the same fan who had called Judge overrated, kicked it into overdrive; I’m not sure if he was inebriated or was just incapable of unstringing his words apart (the opposite of those who can’t string a sentence together), but the constant refrain of “Yankees THUCK” got old really quickly.

Then, with two outs in the 4th, Gavin Lux hit a home run over Judges’ head in right, and all of a sudden, I wondered if the annoying fan had a point? A little later, after Jake Fraley made an exceptional catch to rob Paul Goldschmidt of at least a double, and Elly made what appeared to be another throwing error (though it was ruled a hit), Cody Bellinger blooped a single, and the Yankees seemed to be mounting a comeback; but then Judge flew out, and Giancarlo Stanton struck out looking. Thems the breaks, I guess.

Come the 5th, the game started to truly become the Elly De La Cruz show, as he drove in another run on a bases loaded single to make it 4-1 Redlegs; fast forwarding to the 8th, the Yankees put on another two runners, and appeared to have a chance at some life, but then Tony Santillan proceeded to strike out Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr., before getting Anthony Volpe to ground out. Ugh.

Did I mention this was the Elly De La Cruz game? Because in the bottom of the eighth, the Reds’ superstar added a home run to his day (which was followed by some really cool fireworks), and then the Reds scored another on a bad bouncer to short; Volpe was able to pick it and throw to first, but the runner on second never stopped running. 6-1 Reds.

Despite it not being a save situation, Emilio Pagan entered to a closer’s fare; the lights went out, people’s phone flashlights lit up like fireflies, and the pitcher jogged in to WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes’ entrance music. As a WWE fan myself, I have to admit it was pretty cool. Additionally, can we please have every closer do something similar? The cool closer entrance is something desperately needed for the game to continue to grab people’s attention.

While the result of the game was disappointing, my time in Great American Ballpark (and Cincinnati in general) was awesome, and I very much look forward to going back again; though hopefully when I do, the Yankees can actually win, or maybe I can root for the Reds if they are facing a different team…that could be fun.

Aaron Reale

Aaron is a Writer and communicator who has notably served on the communications team of the Westchester County Executive. Nicknamed "Mr. Baseball" in his youth, Aaron is a lifelong Yankee fan, Tino Martinez and Aaron Judge enthusiast, and a fierce defender of Craig Biggio's Hall of Fame worthiness. When he is not writing, or doing baseball related activities, Aaron is an avid foodie and culinarian. His non-baseball writing can be found at the Realety Check substack.