Some years are better than others

While I'm sitting here in wintry Ohio using archaic dial up and an ancient space heater and feeling like it's the nineteenth century except that I'm using the internet and an electric heater, I'm thinking some more about the Willy T signing and the Rob Hern signing and wondering if it really was the nineteenth century the last time the Reds went to the World Series or even the playoffs or even had a winning record.

And while everyone and his mother has weighed in on this season's offseason offerings and you see some intelligent analysis and a lot of gibberish from what we can call the "uninformed fan," which is really just a euphemism for total baseball idiot (you know, the kind who ran Dunner out of town because they view strikeouts as evil, even though strikeouts count the same as any other out), no one's really mentioned how the Willy T. signing severely limits our options for bringing in Jim Edmonds to be our new centerfielder. (Yes, that is a joke, as I have been saying for the past six months that he would be on account of Walt being our G.M. and all. Although I can honestly say that Edmonds would be a better option than Willy T.)

In all of my eternal optimism, I am finding it difficult to let said optimism overrule logic and reason, and in this new year, 2009, which equals eleven if you add the digits, which was Barry Larkin's number, which may or may not have some cosmic significance, I am struggling to find any semblance of hope for my team in a year where hope for the world abounds. But maybe that's because I'm so darn cold here in Redsland. Maybe when the flowers burst onto the scene, things will be different. Maybe by the time pitchers and catchers are packing their bags for their last trip to Sarasota, Walt's "Number 1 Priority," that being a hitter who can hit it out of the infield, will have come to fruition and there will be reason to think that maybe this is the year.

I'm trying, I really am. I want to believe.