Short reflection

I started this after the Reds lots the NLDS. Just never got around to finishing it but thought I'd post it anyway.

This was a different year for me personally. I missed Spring Training and the first two months of the season due to a 7 hour time difference and crappy internet connections. I flew from Beirut to Cyprus and stayed at a five star hotel in Nicosia to watch Opening Day.

We lost.

Remember that? That was the day I felt like this year would be the same as all the others, that all of the promise of the future was just going to waste away. At the most, we'd win 82 or 83 games and have a winning record.

When we finally got around to being in first place in May, I thought, this is just another one of those years. We'd been there before. We had started off strong many times in the last decade of losing, only to stumble and fall come July. We were swept by Philly before the All Star break and I thought, this is it, this is where we go back to being the Cincinnati Reds of the twenty-first century.

The All Star game was fun. Four Reds? Really? And they had a hand in winning the game, too! Nothing like seeing that All Star infield full of Reds.

There was still half a season to play, still half a season to screw it all up. Then, we played that St. Louis series, when they walked away with first place. I thought, this is it. We finally blew it.

September saw some pretty crappy baseball in Cincinnati. I thought, this is it, this is the collapse.

Yet somehow, after 162 games, the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club sat atop the standings by a comfortable margin. 91 wins. A division title. Playoff baseball.

Just wait til next year...