Ray Knight

Career

Ray Knight began his major league career with the Cincinnati Reds as a September call-up. He spent time in the minors with the triple-A Indianapolis Indians. In 1976, after hitting just one home run through August, he borrowed a bat from teammate George Foster and slugged nine homers in the season’s final month. He later borrowed Foster’s bat again when Foster was hurt.

The Reds won two World Series titles during those years. When Pete Rose left for the Philadelphia Phillies, Knight took over as the starting third baseman. At that point, he was hitting .232 with two home runs and 19 RBIs. He then posted a .318 average, 10 homers, 79 RBIs, and 64 runs, finishing fifth in National League MVP voting.

On May 13, he snapped an 0-for-15 slump by hitting two home runs in the fifth inning of a 15-4 win over the Mets, becoming the first Red to hit two homers in a single inning. He made his first All-Star team in 1980 and singled off Tommy John in his first at-bat. In a later season, he batted .259 with six homers and 34 RBIs. On December 18, 1981, the Reds traded him to the Houston Astros for César Cedeño.

With the Astros, he split time between third and first base. He made the All-Star team and played third base in the game, though he appeared more often at first during the regular season. After hitting .304, he was batting .237 when the Astros traded him to the New York Mets on August 28, 1984, for three players to be named later. He platooned at third base with Howard Johnson in 1985 and 1986.

In his first full season with the Mets, Knight hit .218 with six homers and 36 RBIs. The Mets tried to trade him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Lee Mazzilli that off-season, but the deal was blocked.

After his playing career

After his playing days, Knight worked as a broadcaster for ESPN. He then took his first coaching job with the Cincinnati Reds. Early in a season, Reds owner Marge Schott announced that Knight would take over as manager from Davey Johnson the following year, no matter how the team performed. Schott and Johnson had a rocky relationship, and she nearly fired Johnson after an earlier season.

But because the Reds led the National League Central when the 1994 strike hit and won the division in 1995, Schott instead made Knight the assistant manager, with the clear plan that he would become manager in 1996. Knight managed the Reds from 1996 until he was let go in the middle of the 1997 season, and he also served as acting manager for one game. His first game as manager on April 1, 1996, was called off after home plate umpire John McSherry suffered a fatal heart attack just seven pitches in.

In 1997, Knight lost track of the number of outs during a Reds at-bat and called for a bunt at a bad moment; he fined himself $250 for the mistake. Jack McKeon replaced him. From 2007 to 2018, Knight worked as a broadcaster for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, co-hosting Nats Xtra, the pregame and postgame show for Washington Nationals broadcasts. His co-host Johnny Holliday nicknamed him the "Silver Fox."

1986 Mets reunion

Knight was among several members of the 1986 championship team who did not attend the 20th-anniversary celebration at Shea Stadium on August 19, 2006; his absence was due to a previous commitment. Others absent included manager Davey Johnson, Dwight Gooden, Roger McDowell, Lee Mazzilli, and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre. A 40th-anniversary reunion was held at Citi Field on August 1, 2026. The 73-year-old Knight was pushed onto the field in a wheelchair by his former Mets platoon-mate, Howard Johnson.

Personal life

Ray Knight, a former Major League Baseball player, married professional golfer Nancy Lopez on October 25, 1982, in Pelham, Georgia. It was the second wedding for both of them, and the ceremony took place at the home of his business partner in a local sporting goods store. The couple first crossed paths by accident in 1978 at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. Together they had three daughters: Ashley Marie, born in 1983; Erinn Shea, born in 1986; and Torri Heather Knight, born in 1991.

The family made their home in Albany, Georgia, and also owned a place in The Villages, Florida. Lopez designed her first golf course for that community, and the three nine-hole sections of the 27-hole Lopez Legacy course are named after their daughters: Ashley Meadows, Torri Pines, and Erinn Glenn. By 1985, Knight carried a 7 handicap in golf and would occasionally caddie for Lopez, though not during major tournaments. The couple divorced in 2009.

A son from Knight’s first marriage, Brooks Knight, passed away in 2022. In 2013, a street on the grounds of Phoebe Putney Hospital in Albany was named Ray Knight Way. Knight remains close with former Cincinnati Reds teammate Harry Spilman, who grew up about 29 minutes away in Georgia; while both were in the Reds’ system, they pooled $700 to buy a pitching machine for batting practice. He is also a member of the Golden Gloves boxing association.

On October 23, 2017, Knight was arrested following a fight at his condominium near Alexandria, Virginia, with an unidentified 33-year-old man. Both were taken to the hospital, and Knight faced assault and battery charges, which were later dropped. He appeared in the 2021 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Once Upon a Time in Queens, which covered the 1986 New York Mets season.