Cincinnati Reds bid adieu to long time great, Lee May

The Cincinnati Reds’ family said good-bye to Lee May after 74 years of his powerful presence.

Lee May was one of the best players on the Cincinnati Reds for seven years before becoming part of the most famous trade in team history.  May was part of the deal that is credited with crediting the Big Red Machine.  The Reds traded May along with Jimmy Stewart and Tommy Helms in exchange for Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, Denis Menke, Jack Billingham, and Ed Armbrister.

For most Reds’ fans the story of Lee May ends there.  The story though begins before that trade and ends well after it.  May was much more than a slugger caught in a moment in time.

May was a three time All-Star, including twice with the Reds.  The two years that he made the All-Star team with the Reds were nearly identical.  He batted .278 with 38 and 39 home runs in 1969 and 1971 respectively.

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Even though he didn’t make the All-Star team, his best season was 1976 with the Baltimore Orioles.  He had 109 RBIs for a team that nowhere as good as the late sixties Reds’ teams.  He also struck out only 104 times over the course of 148 games.

The other season that people point to is 1973.  That was his best year with the Houston Astros.  The deal didn’t pan out the way the Astros intended, but that wasn’t the fault of May.

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Lee May will always be known as one of the Cincinnati Reds that continued winning baseball after Frank Robinson left.

Frank Robinson went to the Baltimore Orioles prior to the 1966 season.  In 1967 May became the primary first baseman for the Reds, while also playing a good number of games in left field and right field.   He was a starter for nine consecutive major league seasons across three franchises.

May quietly was one of the all-time greats offensively.  He ranks 18th all-time in home runs and 24th in OPS.

That is despite being outside of the top 20 in OBP.

May ranks sixth in pre-Big Red Machine players, those who did not play a single game for the Reds after the Morgan deal.  His OPS is 12th among those players.  He ranks third in slugging all-time among Reds’ first baseman, trailing only Big Klu, Ted Klusewski, and the current perennial MVP candidate, Joey Votto.

Next: A season for the ages - Eric Davis in 1989

When an all-time great passes, it is always difficult to know how to say good-bye.  In May’s case he was a great player just before the greatest team of all-time.  That shouldn’t diminish his accomplishments one bit in retrospection.