John Erardi

jerardi@enquirer.com

Minneapolis and the Minnesota Twins have Derek Jeter, and frankly, there's not much else for the Twins and the Twin Cities to be concerned about.

The signature moment is already guaranteed for the 85th Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

Just as it was when Boston/Fenway Park had Ted Williams and San Francisco/AT&T Park had Willie Mays to fete, and New York/Citi Field had Mariano Rivera to send off.

There is no way to screw up any of those things.

No way.

As you watch the pre-game festivities and the 85th All-Star Game tonight, Reds fans, ask yourself this question: How might your Reds and your metropolis of Greater Cincinnati handle this event next year?

There's not another Jeter or Rivera out there, but there is a Peter Edward Rose, and the greatest catcher of all time and maybe the greatest second baseman of all time and perhaps the greatest clubhouse presence of all time and probably a shortstop who belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, not to mention the Great Eight, arguably the greatest team of position players ever assembled.

Everybody on the Great Eight is still getting around pretty good -- they sure looked good last fall when Joe Morgan's statue was dedicated, didn't they? -- so my guess is they would show well again on All-Star Night a year from now.

Yes, Little Joe and the Reds laid out a pretty good blueprint for at least part of the pre-game festivities at the 86th All-Star Game.

Rose and Morgan and Johnny Bench and Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion and George Foster and Ken Griffey Sr. and Cesar Geronimo – the whole kit 'n caboodle of them – should be right in the middle of it.

A Baseball Hall of Fame executive, who mingles daily with the statues and plaques and celebrations in Cooperstown, was in our town for the Great Eight celebration, and afterward he described it to me as ''magical.''

Kind of hard to top ''magical,'' isn't it?

I haven't talked recently or specifically to any Reds officials about Rose, but my big-picture sense of it -- having talked in generalities to some of them at various stages not so long ago -- is that while there is hope for Rose's eventual reinstatement to baseball for the purpose of getting him on the ballot for consideration for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the feeling is to not co-mingle that with the All-Star Game.

That makes sense to me.

Great as Rose was, there has always been so much more to him when he is feted as part of the whole, no? Wasn't that always when he was at his best? No matter your regard for 4,192 and the 44-game hitting streak and all those head-first slides, I submit that Rose at his finest was leading off for the Big Red Machine.

In no way does this diminish his juice as baseball icon, lightning rod and potential source of coming-together.

Just as Boston had Williams and St. Louis had Stan Musial, and San Francisco has Mays, Cincinnati has Peter Edward Rose. Utilize him, leverage him, send him forth to share the spotlight.

Despite the controversy, he's an asset: Nobody ever played the game harder. His hit records are untainted. He was an enduring symbol for two baseball generations of Cincinnati players, and no doubt still is for Knotholers of today -- if their grandparents have any say in it.

Yes, you might say the Reds have a little something to work with for the 86th All-Star Game.

As big events go, this franchise crushed the back-to-back Civil Rights Games (which hasn't been the same since it left here) and it's not going out on any limb to predict that it will crush the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

There are opportunities galore for a massive celebration of the franchise: 25th anniversary of 1990, 40th of 1975, 75th of 1940, 95th of 1919, 145th of the Red Stockings. All the great teammate connections, including: Eric Davis and Barry Larkin (20th anniversary of his MVP Award); Perez and Bench (45th anniversary of his first of two MVP awards); the fabulous 1938-40 quartet of Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer, Frank McCormick and Ernie Lombardi,and -- across eras -- the incandescent Tom "Mr. Perfect" Browning and Jim "No-No" Maloney (50th anniversary his greatest season). Heck, it's the 60th anniversary of Joe Nuxhall's great performance in the 1955 All-Star game; what's a Reds party without Nuxie?

It will be our fifth such midsummer's classic and no doubt our best party.

Whether or not it's our best game is obviously out of the ballclub's hands. As one-for-the-ages go, the 12-inning classic in 1970 with Rose bowling over Ray Fosse in two-week-old Riverfront Stadium may be impossible to top.

And yet, having Johnny Vander Meer take the Crosley Field mound to start the game in 1938 (after only three weeks earlier having pitched his second straight no-hitter), and then 15 years later having Ted Williams (just then returning to the States from his fighter-pilot tour in Korea) on the same mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, well, that was pretty good stuff, too.

I would have loved to have been there as Vandy no-hit the American Leaguers of future Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, Earl Averill and Bill Dickey before giving up a single another future Hall of Famer, Joe Cronin, to open the third.

The 1988 All-Star Game? Let's just say the baseball gods owe us one.

OK, so here we go…

Who should throw out the ceremonial first pitch here?

Rod Carew is doing that honor in Minneapolis.

Who should sing the national anthem?

At Target Field, it will be Idina Menzel (soprano-chanteuse of the Oscar-winning ''Let It Go'' from the box-office smash, Frozen).

How about the flyover?

Tonight, screaming through the gloaming at 400 miles per hour at 1,000 feet high in flat delta formation – just as Menzel hits the final note of the anthem and the Reds' All-Star aggregation gazes skyward -- will be six F-16 Fighting Falcons ''Thunderbirds,'' the elite demonstration team of the U.S. Air Force.

As for next year, well, just keep your fingers crossed.

Your Cincinnati Reds already have two of the most exciting players in baseball: Aroldis Chapman, who will be bidding to make his fourth straight All-Star team, and Billy Hamilton, who will be seeking to make his first.

To have them -- and hopefully some if not all of their Reds' All-Star teammates tonight -- doing their thing at the 86th All-Star Game will show off Cincinnati better than anything else that can go around them.

But what goes around comes around, and that's what the pre-game festivities are all about.

Enjoy the show tonight, and let your imagination go.