Baseball, please.

Right now, I am staring out at the Mediterranean from an office window. It's warm, very warm, and the horizon stretches to infinity as it is prone to do over large bodies of water (very cold water, as I learned last weekend.) I seem to have everything here - beaches, snow-capped mountains, mounds of hummus and tabouleh, freshly squeezed orange juice, palm trees, a bar where I can drink as much as I want for about $13...but I have this insatiable hunger for something I cannot have. I want to watch a Reds game, almost to the point of desperation. Yes, it is February, and no matter where on Earth I am, the hunger arises at the same time every year.

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in a ballpark, in all of its infinite green, and I could almost smell that hotdogs and hear the pop of a pitch hitting a mitt. Nothing like it, that pop. As I sit here now, I can almost hear the humming sound of a fastball tearing through the air, and then...pop! Such a beautiful song.

This never gets old

I'll take one ticket for a dollar, please

A soccer team in England is using the Radiohead model of sales to boost attendance, and it's working.

When Radiohead released their last album, they did it without any record label and they did it online, using a pay-what-you-want way of selling records. It worked very well for them, and apparently it's working well for the English soccer team.

Reds fans often use the "it's too expensive" excuse for not attending games, and often attendance is embarrassing. I wonder if this pay-what-you-want model would work for teams that struggle to draw fans. There are too many games to make it work all season, but maybe for select days?

Then again, the "too expensive" excuse Cincinnatians use is just that - an excuse. It's not too expensive when you can take a family of four to the ballpark for less than $30 (that includes parking.)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAH. HAHAHAHAHA. AHAHHAHAHAHAAH!!!!

Why am I laughing? Because it's 65 degrees here and you're all buried under snow! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I saw a little girl carrying a baseball bat and ball a couple of days ago. The sight of it reminded me that it's almost time! Now that the winter distraction that poses for a sporting event is over, focus will turn to baseball!

March 5 will be the test run to see if I'll actually be able to watch the games, as it is the first televised Spring Training game. Is the timezone in Arizona one or two hours different than in Florida?

Brief update

Ok, so it's tougher to update than I thought it would be. I'm getting sucked into this city and baseball is the furthest thing from my mind right now. Sorry. Will update soon...

We got rid of Taveras AND Rosales in one move?

Wow. It makes the Cabrera deal ok, in my opinion. Not great, but good, really. Suddenly, I'm not so sure I should be saying I can't wait for 2011. This is the same kind of stuff Jocketty did to make the Deadbirds win even when they didn't look so good on paper (aside from one glaring name.)

This has been the best off season for the Reds in a long, long time. It's about time we get something like this.

This could be a fun year.

What'd I miss?

Oh, that. Crap.
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