Great news at the end of another lousy Reds season: Marty Brennaman will return to the Reds Radio booth for a 45th season in 2018.
Brennaman, 75, last year signed just a one-year deal after having multiple-year contracts since 1974.
"It wasn't a hard decision. I still enjoy what I do, so why quit now?" Brennaman told me.
Before the 2016 season, Brennaman admitted he was "conflicted" about his future while speaking at the Joe Nuxhall Sports Stag in Hamilton. "I'll be back in 2016. And after that, I don't know what I'm going to do."
Brennaman said in 2016 it was tough watching the rebuilding Reds lose more than 90 games after trading off star players. "I'd come home and tell (wife) Amanda, 'If I have to look at these guys again, I'll throw up.' And the next day I'd change my mind."
In May of last season, Brennaman told Enquirer baseball writer C. Trent Rosecrans that he would be back in 2017 on a one-year deal. "After that, then I’ll take stock on a year-by-year basis, essentially," he told Rosecrans.
When I asked if he signed just a one-year deal for 2018, Brennaman said: "Just year to year."
Reds fans I'm sure will cheer the news that there won't be any rebuilding in the Reds Radio booth next year.
If Brennaman was going to retire after this season, we wouldn't know it until after the Reds played their final game in Chicago on Oct. 1.
Brennaman has said in recent years that unlike Dodgers announcer Vin Scully, or former Reds catcher Johnny Bench, he doesn't want any long goodbye or farewell tours. Brennaman has said he won't tell anyone his decision to quit until after his contract expires at the end of that season.
“When I walk away, I’ll let them know the day after the season ends," he told me before spring training in 2016. "I don’t want all the (farewell stuff) that goes along with it. I understand they could probably make a lot of money. But whatever they want to do, they’d have to do it the next year, because I’m just not interested in all that stuff. I don’t want to be bothered with it. I don’t need 'a night.' The club and the fans have been good enough to me. I don’t need all that stuff.
As Marty Brennaman would say, "This one belongs to the Reds!" – at least for one more year.
