Gregory Scott Daves (October 17, 1974 – March 20, 2015) was an American professional wrestler. He was best known by his ring name Cincinnati Red and for being one of the trainers of Samoa Joe.

Professional wrestling career

National Wrestling Conference (1995, 1997)

After training with Bill Anderson and Jesse Hernandez, Daves debuted under the ring name Blackjack Daniels, based on The Blackjacks (Blackjack Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza) tag team. He soon renamed himself to Cincinnati Red and joined the National Wrestling Conference, where he debuted on March 17, 1995 in a three-on-one handicap match, which he, RJ Rodriguez and The Wild Renegade lost to SWAT. Later that night, Red lost to The Thug. Red would continue to be used as an enhancement talent in the NWC, losing to the likes of Jim Neidhart, Don Juan and Larry Power. On August 25, Red teamed with Billy Anderson to form The Mercenaries, but they lost to Aerial Assault (Bobby Bradley and Rob Van Dam) in the first round of a tournament for the Tag Team Championship. After leaving the NWC soon after, Red returned on March 28, 1997, losing to Neidhart. On July 12, he made his final appearance for the promotion in a losing effort to The Suicide Kid.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 were baseball's first openly all-professional team, with ten salaried players. The Cincinnati Base Ball Club formed in 1866 and fielded competitive teams in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) 1867–1870, a time of a transition that ambitious Cincinnati, Ohio businessmen and English-born ballplayer Harry Wright shaped as much as anyone. Major League Baseball recognized those events officially by sponsoring a centennial of professional baseball in 1969.

Thanks partly to their on-field success and the continental scope of their tours, the Red Stockings established styles in team uniforms and team nicknames that have some currency even in the 21st century. They also established a particular color, red, as the color of Cincinnati, and they provide the ultimate origin for the use of "Red Sox" in Boston.

Baseball club

The Cincinnati Base Ball Club, or simply Cincinnati Club, was established June 23, 1866 at a downtown law office, drawing up a constitution and by-laws and electing officers including Alfred T. Goshorn, President. A few years later Goshorn earned international fame as Director-General of the (U.S.) Centennial Exposition held 1876 in Philadelphia. Founding member George B. Ellard also led the Union Cricket Club, and the relationship between them proved decisive for the baseball club's success.

The Cincinnati Reds are a Major League Baseball team. Originally named the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the name was shortened to the Cincinnati Reds in the 1890s.

1869–1896: The original "Red Stockings" and the pre-NL days

The original Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first openly all-professional team, was founded in 1866, and became fully professional in 1869. The Red Stockings won 130 straight games throughout 1869 and 1870, before being defeated by the Brooklyn Atlantics. Star players included brothers Harry and George Wright, Fred Waterman, and pitcher Asa Brainard. The 1869 Red Stockings made an eastern swing of 21 games and went undefeated. According to Walter Camp, the team received a banquet and a "champion bat...this rather remarkable testimonial was twenty-seven feet long and nine inches in diameter." The following year, the team lost only one game. They were defeated at the Brooklyn Athletic's Capitoline grounds park. According to Camp, the Red Stockings lost 8–7 in 11 innings. The game apparently served as a precursor to today's unruly crowds because he wrote: "A crowd of ten thousand people assembled to witness this match, and so lost their heads in the excitement as to give the Western men a very unfair reception." [See: "Base-Ball For The Spectator" Walter Camp, Century Magazine October 1889]

The Cincinnati Reds, also known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings, were a professional baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio that played from 1875–1880. The club predated the National League of which it became a charter member.

History

John Joyce, who was an organizer of the Red Stockings club dismantled in 1870, reformed the club through a new company in 1875. Two players from the 1870 season returned as part of a new professional nine which played local amateur clubs. Joyce then sold the Reds to wealthy Cincinnati meat packer Josiah "Si" Keck during the winter. When the National League was formed on February 2, 1876 at the Grand Central Hotel in New York City, eight cities were selected to compete in the new major league: St. Louis, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Keck's Cincinnati club.

The Reds began the 1876 season at Avenue Grounds. They were managed by player/manager Charlie Gould, and outfielder Charley Jones led the Cincinnati offense with 4 home runs and 38 runs batted in. The 1876 team finished a dismal 9-56, last in the new eight-team National League. In 1877, helmed by the managing trio of Lip Pike, Bob Addy, and Jack Manning, the Reds finished 6th in the National League. Pike, the second baseman, led the team with 4 home runs and rookie pitcher Bobby Mitchell led the team with 41 strikeouts.

Cincinnati (/sɪnsᵻˈnæti/ sin-si-NAT-ee) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio that serves as county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the north side of the confluence of the Licking with the Ohio River. The latter forms the border between the states of Ohio and Kentucky. Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and the 65th-largest city in the United States with a population of 296,945 people at the 2010 census. The larger Cincinnati metropolitan area had a population of 2,214,954 in 2010, making it the 28th-largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States and the largest centered in Ohio. The city is also part of the larger Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington Combined Statistical Area (CSA), which had a population of 2,172,191 in the 2010 census.

In the early 19th century, Cincinnati was an American boomtown in the heart of the country; it rivaled the larger coastal cities in size and wealth. Throughout much of the 19th century, it was listed among the top 10 U.S. cities by population, surpassed only by New Orleans and the older, established settlements of the Eastern Seaboard; at one point holding the position of sixth-largest city for a period spanning consecutive census reports from 1840 until 1860. It was by far the largest city in the west. Because it is the first major American city founded after the American Revolution as well as the first major inland city in the country, Cincinnati is sometimes thought of as the first purely "American" city.

Cincinnati (ca. 1860–1878) was General Ulysses S. Grant's most famous horse during the American Civil War. He was the son of Lexington, the fastest four-mile Thoroughbred in the United States (time 7:19.75 minutes) and one of the greatest sires. Cincinnati was also the grandson of the great Boston, who sired Lexington.

At an early age, Grant emotionally bonded to horses. A shy, quiet child, he found joy in working with and riding them. Grant excelled in horsemanship at West Point, and at graduation, he put on an outstanding jumping display. Grant owned many horses in his lifetime, including one named Jeff Davis, so named because he acquired it during his Vicksburg Campaign from Jefferson Davis's Mississippi plantation.

Cincinnati was a gift from an admirer during the War. The horse was large (17 hands (68 inches, 173 cm)), handsome, and powerful, and he quickly became Grant's favorite. When Grant rode Cincinnati to negotiate Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, the animal became immortalized. Virtually all depictions of Grant in drawings, granite, and bronze, are astride Cincinnati including at the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located on the Mall in Washington, D.C., at the base of Capitol Hill.

Cincinnati, Ohio is home to seven major sports venues, two major league teams, eleven minor league teams, as well as hosts five college institutions with their own sports teams.

Venues

Major league teams