Williams: Cincinnati needs Reds to help save city's reputation as brawl fallout continues

Yahoo

07-08-2025

The erosion of Cincinnati's safe, family-friendly, Midwestern-values national reputation continues.
It doesn't matter what nationally known talking head/blowhard or media outlet – or their political leaning – is dragging our city's name through the mud nearly two weeks after The Brawl. It doesn't matter if you can't see through your politically fogged lenses and refuse to accept that our name is trash right now to the outside world.
It's happening, folks, and it's painful to watch. We need something good to happen. Something big.
We need the Reds to make the postseason and win a playoff series for the first time since 1995.
It's not the media's job to cheerlead for local teams. I've led the charge in saying Cincinnatians shouldn't worry so much about what's being said about Cincinnati nationally. Get over your inferiority complex, already.
This is different, though.
Where else could that seismic reputation shift come from other than the Reds, Bengals and FC Cincinnati? Most of the time, our professional sports teams are what put us in the national and international spotlight, for better or worse.
As a caring citizen, I'm rooting hard for a Reds playoff run. The Bengals starting 2-0 amid a Reds' playoff push would be awesome.
For you and your family. For us. For Cincinnati.
A friend mentioned this in a phone conversation last week. We talked about the role sports can play in times of societal turmoil.
Some instances that sports have been a positive diversion in tough times ran through my mind. I don't even want to mention those times, because some of them were unspeakable, mass-casualty tragedies. There's no comparison here. Thank God no one died in Downtown Cincinnati's brawl that went viral on social media late last month and continues to cast a pall over our fair city.
So I don't want to overstate things. But we're down, nonetheless. We're feeling the fatigue of checking out local and national news websites, turning on the TV, going on social media and seeing the latest fallout from The Brawl. It's something new (or repeated) every day. It's constant. We need something to pick us up.
'Imagine how we're going to feel if the Reds make a postseason run in October?" my friend said.
I've been thinking about what he said ever since. Sports can't fix government ineptitude, and the idealogues that occupy every floor at Cincinnati City Hall and their inability to prioritize public safety are a big part of the blame for why crime in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine has run rampant.
A Reds playoff run shouldn't let city hall sidestep accountability. Even a World Series championship shouldn't make anyone in city government feel good about the job they've done on keeping the city safe.
But a Reds playoff run would certainly help toward restoring our national reputation and give those of us living here something to rally around. A bunch of talented young players who play hard, get along and are led by a Hall of Fame-bound manager making a playoff run for a long-suffering sports city at a time when the city's reputation is suffering. That's one hell of a morale boost.
Shallow as it sounds, we need those Chamber-of-Commerce-type headlines in the national media: Hunt for a 'Reds' October: Cincinnati wins first playoff series in 30 years!
Remember how great our community felt during the Bengals' run to the Super Bowl in 2022? You couldn't go anywhere without people talking about it. Everyone was running to Koch's and Dick's to buy Bengals hats and hoodies. Everyone wanted copies of Enquirer front pages to frame. Didn't matter if you'd never watched a Bengals game or hadn't in many years. You were into it. Your friends who weren't even football fans were into it.
We had Burrow, Chase, Higgins and hope. We had something that united Greater Cincinnatians. It didn't take something bad happening in our streets to do that.
We need that again ASAP. Recently, I called the Reds boring. They're not anymore after making moves at the trade deadline and showing signs that they may stay in the thick of the National League wildcard race. Immerse yourselves in Terry Francona's team and forget what's being said about the city on social media and on Fox News.
Tito, Elly, McLain, Abbott, Steer, TJ. The city needs you to win. It means so much more right now.
Contact columnist Jason Williams at [e-mail]
This story was updated to add a gallery.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Can Reds playoff run help save Cincinnati's reputation after brawl?