Reds leaders urge patience in letter to fans

"Obviously what we had wasn't working; might as well try something else," the electrician said during a break from work Wednesday.

Willie Wilson, chatting with his friend Harold Atwater on Fountain Square downtown, said he's a lifelong Reds fan but is unhappy with the current state of the team.

"You might not be able to print what I think about them," he said.

Wilson said some fans expected too much from Griffey, whose Reds teams never made it to the playoffs after the 2000 trade that brought him to his hometown.

"They thought he was going to be the savior, the miracle man," Wilson said. "It's not his fault he got hurt."

Atwater thinks the Reds should use the salary money saved by trading Griffey and Dunn on pitchers. But that reminded Wilson of a still-irritating trade before the 1966 season that sent another slugging outfielder away in a move to add pitching.

"I can take you all the way back to when the Reds traded Frank Robinson to Baltimore for Milt Pappas," Wilson said. "And then Robinson won the Triple Crown that year."