Williams: Why Buddy Bell's exit from Cincinnati Reds is unrelated to manager son's role

Buddy Bell’s quiet departure from the Cincinnati Reds’ front office months ago had nothing to do with his son’s status as the club’s manager.

“Absolutely not,” Buddy Bell, the former Reds third baseman, told me. “None of this was nefarious. It was just a personal preference on my part to spend time with my family.”

News about Bell's departure as the Reds’ vice president/senior advisor to general manager Nick Krall shook loose Thursday after The Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer and I both wrote this week about the possibility of manager David Bell getting a contract extension.

David Bell’s contract expires at the end of the season, but the Cincinnati native deserves an extension for leading the Reds into playoff contention after the club lost 100 games last year. David, in his fifth season with the Reds, could be making a bid for National League Manager of the Year.

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New York Post baseball columnist Jon Heyman broke the news about Buddy Bell’s departure on Twitter, saying “lots of intrigue there” without adding context. The tweet sparked speculation that Buddy Bell’s departure could signal that David Bell’s future with the team is in jeopardy.

There is no intrigue.

“I wish people wouldn’t read into it,” Bell said in a phone interview while in New York visiting family. “It was my decision. It wasn’t based on David or Nick or (team owner) Bob (Castellini).”

The Reds and Buddy Bell agreed not to release the news when he officially left the club on June 1, so it wouldn’t spark speculation about David Bell’s future or be a distraction to the manager. Since Buddy held a behind-the-scenes advisory role, he and the organization didn’t see his departure as particularly newsworthy.

Buddy, who played 18 seasons in the majors, essentially left the Reds’ front office in April. The former big-league manager said he started talking to Krall about leaving last offseason. Bell’s son, Mike, died of cancer in 2021, prompting Buddy to want to spend more time with his 11 grandchildren.

“I was only going to work one more year anyway,” said Bell, who was hired to work in the Reds’ front office in 2017. “In spring training, there were some things I wanted to do with my family. I’m 71 years old. I couldn’t work in baseball and give the time I needed to my family. The Reds allowed me to work a couple more months to see if I could figure it out.”

Buddy added: “I had to be in the office every day. I saw my grandkids going off to basketball and baseball tournaments. And I was at the ballpark, thinking, ‘God, I need to be somewhere else.’ ”

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Buddy said he hopes the Reds will extend David’s contract, but the elder Bell has no knowledge about a possible extension. Buddy said contract negotiations weren’t part of his role with the Reds, and he intentionally never asked about his son's job status.

Buddy said he regularly talks with David, but they have never discussed the manager’s contract status. In fact, Buddy said he’s never talked to David about contract negotiations throughout the younger Bell’s career as a player, coach and manager.

The Bells are one baseball’s great families, and they’ve been a big part of the Reds organization since Buddy’s father, Gus, played for Cincinnati from 1953-61. Buddy played parts of four seasons for the Reds in the 1980s. Mike Bell played briefly for the Reds in 2000. David, a former Moeller High School standout, joined the Reds as a first-time big-league manager before the 2019 season.

“The Reds have been great to me,” Buddy said. “They’ve been great to my family. I have nothing but good things to say about them.”

Contact columnist Jason Williams by email at  jwilliams@enquirer.com and on Twitter @jwilliamscincy.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Buddy Bell: Cincinnati Reds front office exit unrelated to son's role