Faster than ... a cheetah? This Reds player raced one

CINCINNATI -- Billy Bates had eight career games logged as a member of the Reds but has two claims to fame -- both within weeks of each other in 1990. Bates scored the winning run to end Game 2 of the 1990 World Series before their sweep vs. the A's, and he successfully raced a cheetah at Riverfront Stadium.

You read that right. Bates raced against a real live cheetah.

"It was more goofy than exciting," Reds teammate Eric Davis said recently about his recollection.

It seemed like a stunt Bill Veeck might have attempted, but the former White Sox owner, who was infamous for gimmicky promotions, had died four years earlier. On Sept. 28, 1990, before the Reds played the Padres, the club and the Cincinnati Zoo got together for the pregame event.

Cathryn Hilker, who founded the zoo's cat ambassador program, was the first to develop a system where the cheetahs are trained to run after a lure. Similar to greyhound racing, the cheetahs in Hilker's program followed the lure to sprint around a hill and some obstacles before zoo visitors.

Known as the fastest animals on land, cheetahs can reach speeds up to 70 mph. Wanting to promote the cheetah exhibit and its running program at the zoo, Hilker talked to then-Reds owner Marge Schott, who was her friend and also a big contributor to the Cincinnati Zoo.

“Cathryn had pitched this idea to Marge, partly because [when it came to] the Reds, people were euphoric. They were clearly going to the playoffs," said Thane Maynard, the director of the Cincinnati Zoo. "There was just a lot of energy in town about it. Marge just made her own decisions. She didn’t ask people for permission or anything else."

However, Schott wasn't initially 100 percent on board with the idea.

“I was there when they were doing this discussion," Maynard explained. "She says, ‘Honey, I am not going to risk one of my players getting attacked by a predator, no.’ Cathryn said, ‘Thane will do it. He’ll come down as a practice and show you.’"

The plan was for the race to be 100 yards, from the warning track in center field to home plate. The player would get a five-second head start before the cheetah was released.

A couple of weeks before Bates raced the cheetah, the then 35-year-old Maynard was given a spare Reds uniform and completed a practice run against Kenya, a male cheetah.

Although, it wasn't much of a race.

"I got all the way to second base before they let the cheetah loose, and it passed me in one second," Maynard said.

Maynard wasn't harmed during the race, and Schott was sufficiently satisfied that Bates would be OK, too.

“Cheetahs are fierce predators. If you’re a small antelope, you’re toast," Maynard said. "But they are sort of programmed to eat something much smaller than they are. A big cheetah is 100 pounds, so a human would be very threatening to them. There really wasn’t a risk to Billy, particularly because this was a trained cheetah.

“Having said that, I doubt you could pull this off today. There would be a lot of pushback, particularly for safety reasons.”

Bates was listed at 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, which made him the smallest player on the team but too big to serve as a tasty feast for the cheetah.

A second baseman, Bates was acquired with outfielder Glenn Braggs in a June 9, 1990, trade with the Brewers. He spent most of the remainder of the season in Triple-A but was a September callup. Because of his speed and despite going 0-for-5 in eight regular-season games, Bates made Cincinnati's postseason roster as a pinch-runner and backup infielder after Bill Doran went down with a back injury.

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Video shows Reds reliever Randy Myers playfully helping Bates get loose for his sprint on the night of the cheetah race.

In the race, Bates was given the five-second head start as planned before Kenya was released and followed his lure. But in an unexpected hiccup, Bates' cap flew off his head as the cheetah closed the gap. A distracted Kenya veered briefly to his left to chase the hat before resuming.

It was enough to give Bates an easy win.

“Billy Bates hauled ass. He was running," Maynard said. "Obviously, he can’t really beat a cheetah, but his hat flew off and the cheetah stopped, so he won.”

"[Bates] was fast, I can tell you that," Davis said. "But it wasn’t a legitimate race like Carl Lewis or something, but we had fun with it.”

Bates, now 61, could not be reached for comment.

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Imagine a 35th anniversary edition of the race where current Reds shortstop and fastest player in baseball Elly De La Cruz could challenge a cheetah in a sprint.

“Wouldn’t that be fun? He’s really fast," Maynard said. "We could pitch it. [Current Reds owner] Bob Castellini is a supporter of the zoo.”