Besides being known as a very good pitcher, the licensed barber was also a colorful character. A local Cincinnati urban legend claims that Borbón, incensed about being traded from the Reds in 1979, placed a voodoo losing curse on the Reds until the last member of the Reds front office management left in 1990. The Reds did, in fact, win the World Series that year (and have not played in one since). In 2002, Borbón admitted that this was a hoax. Another notable story involving Borbón occurred in 1973. After a bench clearing brawl, Borbon started to fight with New York Mets pitcher, Buzz Capra. Following the fracas, Borbón accidentally placed a Mets hat on his head. After realizing what he had done, Borbón removed the hat and ripped a piece of it off with his teeth. A year later during a nasty brawl with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Borbón pinned Pirates' hurler Daryl Patterson to the turf, began pulling out clumps of his hair and bit him in the side. Patterson lost a piece of flesh in the incident and received a precautionary tetanus shot. He also bit a bouncer on the chest during an altercation at a nightclub in Cincinnati called West Side Story in Cincinnati's Monfort Heights neighborhood.