ATLANTA – On March 14, Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell was looking forward to the first full team meeting of spring training. Due to the lockout, Bell had to go months without speaking to any of the Reds’ players. This was his long-awaited chance to address the entire team and set the tone for the year.
Early in the afternoon, Bell and the players started to file into the clubhouse. Then a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin, the Reds traded Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suárez to the Seattle Mariners.
Bell remembers the rest of the day being “a scramble.