Some more positivity

Wow, it is a gorgeous day today. I am sitting outside at a cafe instead of languishing in the confines of my weekday prison cell otherwise known as an office - it is nice to have a laptop so I can work out here on occasion, though as you can tell, I am writing this instead of working!

It'd be a great day for a ballgame. When I was a kid, I used to hate the business day specials because I'd get home from school and the games would be over. Now, I've come to greatly appreciate them. Watching or listening to games at work breaks up the monotony of staring at a computer screen. No day games today, though.

I have three Nats games in my ticket package over the next week - Dodgers, Padres, and Pirates. Lots of Nats baseball will distract me from the bane of 2007 baseball existence - the deplorable state of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, starring Jerry Morron and DeWayne Krivsky. It's really depressing, isn't it, to expect so much from your team and suddenly find them down in the dank basement of despair. But as I keep saying, all is not lost! You just have to have faith, and I have faith that a good June will turn things around.

As I've mentioned before, I was born three months after the Big Red Machine won its last World Series. In my lifetime, the team has only won one World Series and another division title. (Of course, they got cheated in both the 1981 and 1994 strike seasons.) That's two (or four) winning teams in 30 years. Yet I still love my Reds. I'm not going to hate on my team and say they suck and scream TRADE! when Dunn or Griffey come to the plate. This offense is adequate for winning, even Alex Gonzalez with his .328 on base percentage. He does, after all, have 10 homers! Sure, there was a period when everyone slumped at the same time, but that is over. And what are these cries of no plan for the future I've heard in some corners of the internets? Last time I checked, Dayton and Sarasota had .660 winning percentages and sat atop their divisions. The future is brighter than it has been in years. We have Harang and Arroyo locked up, Belisle looks like he can be a good fourth or fifth starter, and Homer is nearly ready. We'll have Votto manning first base next year, providing a much needed extra power bat. We have Josh Hamilton. The bullpen is finally filling up with young arms like Coutlangus, Burton, Majewski, and Livingston instead of resembling a geriatric ward.

The bright future is almost here. Any winning in 2007 is a bonus, and there will be some of it, you just have to have faith. The baseball gods are testing us fans. Like I said before, the Reds are just getting the losses out of the way early in the season so they can be on fire down the stretch, when we play Milwaukee 13 times and Chicago 12 times!