Church of Baseball

Don't let Congress censor the internet!

2012-01-18T12:49:00.002-05:00

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Stop playing Angry Birds and use your phone as a phone to call your congressmoron and tell him/her to say NO to internet censorship.

Stop SOPA and PIPA!

Barry

2012-01-12T23:10:00.004-05:00

Every so often in a person’s life, something happens that frames a part of it in a significant way. There are the obvious things – milestone birthdays, weddings, births, deaths – and then there are the things that need reflection and a bit of a change in perception to understand them.

In 1986, I was nine years old. I guess that puts me in the summer between Ms. Ryan’s third grade class and Mr. Montgomery’s fourth. There was nothing remarkable about that summer, nothing that stands out in memory, even in the fading film photographs that exist as vestiges of a childhood I vaguely remember. 1987, same way, save for the newly-acquired hobby of collecting Topps baseball cards with the wooden borders after Little League games. 1988 saw an All-Star Game in the cookie cutter stadium that had been the best place in the world, but what else?

Then came 1989 and that place didn’t seem so good anymore. The scandal of Pete Rose took the innocence away and broke the heart of a crumbling industrial town in a part of the country that was descending into irrelevance. But in 1990, a scrappy baseball team started the process of healing, and the center of that World Championship team was Barry Larkin.

By then, I was twelve years old and becoming cognizant of the world. I spent the entirety of the nineties in high school and college and started the global travel that would become my life. Lots of changes, changes everywhere except one place – shortstop in Cincinnati.

There are so many things in life – too many – that we take for granted. Change comes at a pace we can’t match, even as we fight with each other to slow it down through culture wars and cable news shouting matches. But we can’t fight change, and we can’t fight time and win. One morning we wake up on a beautiful spring day with the glory of youth in our hearts and the next we’re watching our graying friends interred one by one until we, too, succumb to the inevitable.

One day we’re watching a 22 year old shortstop make his Major League debut, another we see him retire, but only if we’re lucky do we get to witness him enshrined into the Hall of Fame. We reveled in his achievements but for the most part we took him for granted, just like we took our lives for granted, our youth, our friendships, our relationships.

There’s something to be said for loyalty. Barry Larkin, born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, spent his entire 19 year Major League career with the team he grew up watching in a time when it was becoming fashionable to change teams every few years in pursuit of the almighty dollar. His time with our team produced something consistent in our lives, something happy.

And so, something as unimportant in life as baseball becomes important. Barry’s election to the Hall of Fame is special to us precisely because of what he gave to us for so many years – consistency, loyalty, and a team worth watching with the people who matter to us. I felt a rare surge of joy when I heard the news, genuine joy, tinged with a pang of nostalgia and a hint of childlike wonder.

I suppose I better start booking a trip to Cooperstown for the end of July.

Taint

2011-10-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

October - weak light, rustling leaves, and baseball without the Cincinnati Reds. I'm rooting for the Brewers and the Tigers but they're both down three games to two. If it's a Texass-Taint Louis World Series, I don't think I will watch out of sheer blah.

I wonder if the all Midwest NLCS has plummeted ratings. Detroit, too. Ha! Take that, coasts. Three out of four of the teams are from the Midwest. Must be a ratings nightmare. No matter, Americans don't care about baseball anymore. Not violent enough. Too slow for ADD Nation. I kind of wonder if they every did, though. Was there ever a time when the nation tuned into the baseball postseason?

The times, they have been changin'.

September Baseball Blues

2011-09-14T16:41:00.000-04:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's September something or other and the Reds are out of the race and all. I've been busy, the kind of life-changing busy, but it's been that way for the last couple of years I guess. I'm in my second week at a new job in DC at the Center for International Media Assistance, so I get to deal with real journalists across the globe. What some journalists in other countries have to deal with restores some of the respect I had lost for the profession thanks to the sorry state of American media from which we suffer these days. (I'm looking at you, Fox News.)

Anyway, there are still two weeks left in the season and you could probably pick up Reds tickets at ticketliquidator.com
. I went to a lot of games this season, not only Reds games at Great American Ball(p)ark, but also made it to Coors Field in Colorado and Target Field in Minneapolis, as well as a bunch of Dragons games in Dayton and even one in Fort Wayne. Also saw a Clippers game in Columbus. I'll go to a Nationals game in DC before the year is out.

I have soooooooo many photos from the games this summer. Just need to find the time to do something with them. A great summer for baseball, even if the Reds disappointed.

I'm still on Twitter @churchofbasebal. Also, just got my 1500th follower for my international development/Middle East account @beiruttojupiter. Feel free to follow. :)

Still breathing

2011-08-28T19:49:00.000-04:00

I have a ton of things to post from this summer. Right now, I'm trying to get back to DC but all transport is messed up right now so I'm stuck in Ohio until tomorrow.

Just a bummer about the Reds season. A small market team like this can't afford to waste it's young talent because they'll be gone in a few years. I honestly believe this team was mismanaged out of contention by Crusty, who either let players play too long (see Gomes, Jonny) or didn't play them at all (see Alonso, Who?). Usually, managers don't make a huge difference in what a team does, but when you have a borderline team, like the Reds, who are missing some parts, a manager can make or break a team. And Dusty broke this team. But Walt's failure to call up Cozart earlier or do something about leftfield until it was too late also contributed to the sad season.

Guess I'll root for the Brewers this year, the only team in the NL Central I don't hate. I look at them as the closest to Cincinnati, except with people who live in the 21st century.

So long, 2011

2011-08-02T18:55:00.000-04:00

Ah well. Our hopes have been dashed. This is worst than 2001-2009, because at least we knew those teams were bad. This one, well, they won the division last year. They are better than this. Why have they done so poorly? A few suggestions:

Jonny Gomes was allowed to be a regular leftfielder for far too long. Seemed like Dusty kept him in there to spite fans who criticized him.

Bronson Arroyo has not been DL'd and has been allowed to take the ball every 5th day despite his velocity dipping down into the low eighties.

Walt and Dusty waiting ten years to call up Zack Cozart long after both shortstops proved they were wasted outs.

Oh well. Guess there's always next year.

Pittsburgh? Really?

2011-07-20T22:09:00.000-04:00

What is going on? The Pirates in first place in July?

I'm watching the Taint Louis-New York game right now, root, root, rooting for the Mets team. Listened to the Reds defeat the Pirates today as I traveled from Ohio to Washington, DC, listening to the Pirates broadcast as I traveled through Pirates territory. Saw a lot of Pirates gear, too. Weird.

Parked Brains

2011-07-06T16:11:00.000-04:00

I went to see U2 in Chicago last night. There are a couple marginally-baseball related things in this story.

It's a five and a half hour drive between the place I am in Ohio and Chicago. I left at 7am, as I had a floor ticket and I wanted to get close to the stage, hence the need to lineup around noon (I had the advantage of a one hour time difference.) The drive was great until about an hour away from Chicago, when the brake line on the car I was driving ruptured. I coasted to the side of the road after blowing through a red light (fortunately no cars were coming). There was just enough brake power to stop at 20mph if I pumped them, so I rolled a little down the road and found a mechanic about a half a mile away.

Fortunately, the mechanic was taking an extended vacation and was closed. I looked across the street, when lo and behold, there was an Enterprise car rental. I rolled over there and not only did they have a car left to rent, but they even called the Firestone where they take their cars and took me over there (I had to roll down the street a couple of blocks). The whole process took about an hour, and I was back on the road towards Chicago.

When I arrived at Soldier Field, not really in a panic, but having lost enough time that I wasn't going to park away from the stadium and walk, I was blindsided by the cost of parking at the stadium. $46

$46.

Yes, that's $4 short of $50, nearly the cost of my ticket.

Now, anyone who's even heard of basic economics knows there's such thing as inflation. But $46 is not inflation. $46 follows no law of economics at all. In fact, it's just another form of corporate oppression from which this country suffers. I had one of two choices - to find a garage somewhere downtown for probably $20 (also ridiculous), walk, and lose another half hour or more walking (which could mean the difference between getting in the inner circle near the stage and standing on the football field unable to see anything) or paying the $46.

Why do we put up with this? People, it's not "capitalism." So many in this country have not only been brainwashed into thinking this kind of behavior is the "free market" or "capitalism," but also glorify it as "freedom." It's not freedom. It's no different than a government tax, except its a private corporation imposing it. Free markets have laws that make economies work. When we go to a baseball game, we shouldn't have to pay the price of another ticket to park a vehicle, especially in this country where you have to use a car to get anywhere.

Frank McCourt, of Dodgers bankruptcy fame, made his fortune on parking lots. What an absolutely stupid thing it is to make someone a millionaire for allowing you to stop your car for a few hours.

Anyway, I paid my $46 and got in line at 1pm. It proved to be early enough, as I was right next to the stage when I finally got inside. There was a baseball moment during the show, when Bono told us that Larry Mullen Jr. had been to the White Sox game the night before, when they beat Kansas City.

The other baseball-related moment occurred before U2 came on stage. Interpol was the warmup band. I had a pretty good view of the stage, but this giant ugly guy with a Cardinals t-shirt kept shifting right until by the end of their set, I couldn't see anything anymore. I was NOT going to be blocked for U2, but the thing about U2 shows is that people for the most part respect each others places, so I was reluctant to change my place. But I thought, that guy is oblivious to those of us behind him who can't see, why shouldn't I step in front of him, where there's a big space? And then I thought, he's a freaking Taint Louis fan, why should I care, so I ducked under his arm to the space in front of him, where I had the best view of the stage as I've had in my entire two decades of being a U2 fan. Also, since the guy was a foot taller than me, he could see over me just fine.

But I felt animosity towards him from the very beginning because of that t-shirt. Talk about parked brains. :)

American Pride

2011-06-25T15:22:00.000-04:00

I was surprised by my spirit's reaction to the news that New York's Republican controlled Senate passed gay marriage. Sure, I support the right for anyone to commit himself/herself to this archaic religious institution and I give a thumbs up to the states who have already passed it, but this time felt different. It felt like a triumph for humanity, for the soul.

The difference is that New York is the birthplace of the gay rights movement, where the Public Morals Squad of New York incited the Stonewall Riots, and it feels like 42 years of struggle against oppression has finally ended. Of course, there will be discrimination - we'll never eliminate all bigotry in the world, but we sure can convince civilized folks to be tolerant of differences.

I'm rather fascinated at the existence of homophobia while other traditional "sins" are embraced, gluttony and sloth being the first that come to mind. America is fat. FAT. This is breaking our healthcare system - it has real, detrimental effects on society, yet America continues to get fatter and lazier and accepts it as normal. You don't see people flying airplanes pulling anti-fat people banners like they do for gay folks. (I'm using that as an example because homophobes often base their discrimination on being repulsed by homosexual behavior, not because there is actually something wrong with that behavior.)

Washington, San Diego, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago NL, Chicago AL, Boston, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York NL, Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Oakland have all held Gay Pride events. I'm not big on this whole trend of ethnic/heritage/background nights that baseball teams have going on, as I don't think highly of being proud of something you didn't choose to be. Pride is for accomplishment, not skin color or birth certificate. At the same time, a baseball game, having a largely suburban audience, is an opportunity for people who normally don't experience difference to be exposed to various shades of people and backgrounds. I doubt that exposure is long enough to make any iota of a difference, but hey, can it hurt?

I'm sitting in a locally-owned coffee shop in Piqua, Ohio, right now (Winans - great coffee!) and I've just noticed an Ohio historical marker sign across the street that proudly describes the "Civil Rights Movement in Piqua." America is great precisely because of its diversity and its tolerance for that diversity. When there wasn't tolerance, brave people fought to create that tolerance. Don't be proud to be an American, be proud to live the American ideal. Ask yourself what you have done to deserve to be proud to be an American. If you're spouting off bigotry and hatred, you don't deserve the flag you claim to love. To deny some people freedom is to deny freedom itself and to deny that flag. But if you're like those Republican senators in New York who took a step back from their ideology and voted to do the right thing - the American thing - then by all means, proudly wave that flag.

Bankees

2011-06-21T13:59:00.001-04:00

It feels strange for the Reds to be playing the Yankees right now, almost like Cincinnati doesn't belong on the same planet as New York. Seeing the stadium packed got me thinking about small Cincy and big NYC and the people who inhabit those places.

New York is an exciting international city that sets trends while for Cincinnati, change is something you get back after paying for your meal at Applebees. The people of Cincinnati rail against the "oppressive" liberals who reside in New York and listen to a genre of music that proclaims the superiority of their lives over that of city folk, who "just don't get it." In Southwest Ohio, there is a pronounced hatred for the things which New York stands for.

Yet there is the soldout stadium full of wide-eyed, wide-assed "country" folks in awe of the big bad New York Yankees.

Seems like deep down, little old Cincinnati still loves the myth of New York.

Jehovah's Hitness

2011-06-02T21:19:00.001-04:00

NL Player of the Month Jay Bruce Almighty.

Smoking

2011-05-22T16:48:00.000-04:00

Ok, forget about getting swept by the Indians (a good team) or by the Pirates (a not-so-good team). Let's think back to happier times, back to last weekend, when we all weren't screaming for the beheadings of Jonny "Outomatic" Gomes or Edinson Walkez. Remember sweeping the hated Taint Louis Deadbirds? Well, here is an MS Paint/Photographic/Musical recollection of the fun we had then. We will have it again, I'm sure of it!

Pink Bats and 5138008

2011-05-11T10:17:00.048-04:00

This is a couple of days late, but I was unable to write about it on Sunday for various reasons. It's about MLB's annual breast cancer awareness day and cancer awareness in general. MLB, like in so many other social causes, was the first to make breast cancer awareness an annual cause. (I love you baseball with a great big pink heart!) It's fun to watch the players wearing their pink shoes and pink gloves and pink whatever those weird arm things were this year while wielding their pink bats. Kudos to MLB and the Susan Komen foundation for your efforts.

We all know about Susan Komen breast cancer walks, and we all know about SU2C and Livestrong. We all know cancer exists, and awareness efforts have cut deaths from cancer significantly over the past several years.

But the focus is always on people who HAVE cancer. Very worthwhile efforts to convince people to be screened for breast and prostate cancer have saved countless lives, but the fact is, the lives already saved were those of people who already had the cancer. Where are more cancer PREVENTION efforts? Why don't we talk more about prevention? Answer: POLITICS.

Cancer diagnosis has declined in recent years (although by less than 1%), thanks in part to many people choosing to live healthier lifestyles. This includes a significant drop in lung cancer rates due to the decline in smoking (with a lot of help from the smoking bans across the country, no doubt.) But somehow, healthy living has become a political issue exploited by conservatives, who stand to lose the most by changes to American consumption patterns since their campaigns are funded by big business like tobacco, corporate farms, and processed food companies. People who choose organic foods and are part of local food movements are demonized as "hippies" or "liberal elites," and suddenly people who eat fruits and vegetables are "communists" who want to "destroy America."

In the meantime, Americans are suffering and dying from cancer at the highest rate in the world. Cancer ranks just below heart disease in the causes of death in America, but in developing countries, it doesn't even make the top ten. Of course, that's changing. As more and more of the global population adopts an American lifestyle (fast food, pre-packaged convenience food products, pesticides, corporate farms, GM meat, low physical activity, etc.), world cancer rates are increasing at an alarming rate. Indeed, cancer used to be known as a "Western disease," but now it is affecting everyone, everywhere.

Here's some basic common sense that anyone who stops to think about it for a moment should be able to understand: the human body is made up of chemicals. We are carbon-based life forms filled three-fourths full by dihydrogen monoxide with all sorts of other chemical elements keeping us running. Didn't anyone take high school chemistry? Adding various chemicals to other chemicals causes chemical reactions. If you're chomping down some monosodium glutanate in quantities that your body isn't made to process, your gonna get a chemical reaction. We're talking DNA mutations.

Anyway, back to the pink bats and breast cancer awareness. The drop in breast cancer rates that occurred over the last decade is related to a decrease in the use of hormone replacement therapy, and that drop is starting to level out. (Here you have another example of us messing with body chemistry and getting cancer as a result.) Thanks to the hard work of breast cancer awareness organizations and volunteers, we may have hit the peak regarding the number of women who need to be made aware that they should be screened, and indeed, some studies are starting to show that we are too aware at too young an age and too many mammograms are being performed. (Of course, this too, was made into a political issue, because reducing the number of mammograms performed threatens the multibillion dollar mammogram industry.) Breast cancer awareness has become something of a socializing activity for middle-aged women, and pink ribbon merchandise raises a ton of cash for awareness campaigns every year and has become trendy.

This is great, of course, please don't think I'm against pink ribbons. (Those I love boobies bracelets are another story.) It's just that I want to see more prevention awareness involved. I want to hear someone in the announcer's booth at the Reds game talk about not just screening, but living healthy lifestyles. I want to see those socializing middle-aged women pushing healthy lifestyles at their booths at the craft show or the community festival. A ribbon isn't going to protect me from getting breast cancer. Fresh fruits and vegetables will. Exercise will. Taking minimal medications will. I want healthy living to be cool and trendy like pink ribbons, not demonized by politicians and their zombie minions.

Of course, some people will suffer cancer regardless of their lifestyles for various reasons, including genetics. Siddhartha Mukherjee's excellent and highly praised book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer shows that cancer is as old as the homosapiens species itself. We're not going to cure cancer. Ever. Hopefully someday soon we'll discover a better method of treating it and stop poisoning cancer-riddled bodies with radiation to get rid of it. But we can certainly and drastically cut the number of people who have to suffer from this horrible disease. Please, eating healthy and getting exercise are not some plot by evil libruls to make America communist. It's how we survived as a species for all these years. Let's get back to what is natural and quit making food and cancer political issues.

A few recommended links to get you on the path to a healthier lifestyle (and support local businesses and farmers!):

CINCINNATI

Findlay Market
Hyde Park Farmers Market
Green B.E.A.N. Delivery
Wyoming Avenue Farmers Market
Dehli Farmers Market
Lettuce Eat Well Farmers Market

DAYTON

Dayton Daily News Farmers Market Guide

COLUMBUS

Columbus Foodie

INDIANA

Indiana Local Food Guide

KENTUCKY

Kentucky Farmers Markets

Feel free to add more links in the comments.

Want What You Have

2011-05-10T14:31:00.000-04:00

I read a tweet the other day that called the Reds crybabies or something along those lines. It was, of course, a Taint Louis fan. You know how they like to rail against the pot. Anyway, instead of rushing to defend my team and make a comment about Tony LaMafia and Chris Crypenter and Voodoo Albert, I laughed. I laughed because finally, finally, finally the Reds are good enough that people will call us names.

Both Fok$ and E$PN made sure to sensationalize the rivalry when we had our weekend on national television last week. That's right, weekend. Granted, it was a Deadbirds game, so network executives didn't have to worry about the diminutive fanbase of Cincinnati (which is not at all diminutive.) But we had a weekend, just like the Bankee$ and Bread $ox get - nationally televised games on Saturday AND Sunday. Tell me the last time that happened?

I like Twitter. (Find me here on Twitter.) I'm following more than 800 people from all 30 MLB teams (some more than others.) I gotta tell you, though, that guy may be right about the crying. From my observations, no other team has a fanbase that whines as much as they do in Cincinnati. People were throwing in the towel last week. They complain about the lineups every day. They demand trades or demotions for guys based on a few plate appearances or a bad inning. They even complained about Wednesday's game - which we won - because there weren't enough hits.

Are there legitimate concerns? Of course. Renteria's defense is atrocious. Gomes can't hit righties. Chapman walks too many batters. But come on!

Dostoevsky said, "Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it."

Abraham Lincoln said, "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Count your joys, make up your minds to be happy. It's May 10th and the Reds are a game out of first place.

A Happier Memory - May 4, 2011

2011-05-07T23:06:00.000-04:00

A hawk hovered above the ballpark as Heisey strode to the plate. Drew Stubbs had walked on four pitches, making Heisey the tying run in a game where his team was down by two runs in their last at bat. It wasn’t impossible, but given the way the game had been going, you had to wonder how many people were thinking “just get this over with” so they could get out of the cold.

The weather could have been worse, could have been far, far worse. It could have been snowy like it had been a few weeks ago when I attended the Rockies game in Denver. It could have been rainy. The sun came out at various times throughout the game and there were moments when it was actually pleasant. Of course, that could have been aided by the thermal long underwear I was sporting beneath all the other layers I wore.

It was something of a shock to walk through the area where Riverfront once stood. I hadn’t been to GABp since the Opening Day game of 2009, when nothing but concrete columns rose from the mud that had once been the foundation for so many Reds glories. I felt like I was in a different city, or perhaps a dream where you are in a real life familiar place that has been altered by unconsciousness. You can’t even see the stadium until you stand in front of it. It’d be pretty darn awesome to live in one of those condos, however, at least in the summer. Maybe I’ll put that on my bucket list.

The game was a snoozer. I remember lamenting how bored I was and how infrequent were my trips to the park. This may or may not have been the reason that the people behind me were so annoying. They never shut up about inane subjects that had nothing to do about baseball. It wasn’t until the ninth inning when one made the comment “Maybe we should talk about baseball.” That was before the bottom of the ninth began.

That’s when I saw the hawk.

It was like something in a movie when the main character sees a sign of something to come. I felt a heaviness lift from my heart and I said to myself, “we’re gonna win.” What was a hawk doing flying through the downtown of a city? Heisey got a hit. “Wow,” I told myself. “I felt that was going to happen!” But the feeling didn’t change. Votto got a hit and the Reds were on the board. One more run, no outs, two on. Phillips got a hit, typing the game and bringing Bruce to the plate.

“He’s gonna do it!”

And it was done.

The fireworks were late; either t

he guy in charge of letting them off had fallen asleep over the course of the first eight innings, left in disgust, or was so caught up in the moment of the win that he (or she) forgot to let them off while jumping up and down.

roller coaster

2011-04-28T16:59:00.000-04:00

So, anyone dizzy yet from all the standing switching going on in the NL Central? I thought we were going to run away with the division at the start of the season, but now?

Ballpark Photos

2011-04-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

Coors Field, April 5, 2011, Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies. I had been snowed out on Sunday - yes SNOWOUT - so I went back to the ballpark on Tuesday, though I could only stay for a few innings. The following are some photos from the game. I'll spare the baseball is poetry writeup for now - I think the sheer number of photos I took is a good indication of how I felt being at a baseball game on a beautiful day.

Snowed Out

2011-04-04T19:49:00.004-04:00

I can't believe it. I go out of my way to skip winter this year, spending November - March in Beirut where snow is a choice rather than a location tax imposed by the dictatorial hand of Mother Nature. Naturally, April came around and I was certain I had escaped her brutal oppression.

As you can see, I did not.

Boy is she brutal. Downright Qaddafiish, if you're into the whole making comparisons between totally trivial things and horrific real world monster thing. We woke up in sunshine and 63 degrees. By the time we got into downtown Denver and parked across the river, it was freaking freezing. (Ok, not literally freezing, but it had dropped to 41 degrees.) By the time we got to the stadium, it was raining. By the time we got our $4 Rockpile tickets and got into the stadium, white stuff was fluttering down from the heavens.

The woman at the ticket window told me the game was delayed - after I had purchased the tickets. No matter - I had dragged my friend out to the game and we had walked a mile to the stadium, so I was going in no matter what. He tried his best to hide the fact that he was not amused, but he wasn't very good at it and I felt a bit of guilt, as if I had any influence over the tyrant Mother Nature. What a bitch.

The concourse was pretty packed with hideous beer guzzling purple creatures. (Who on earth picked that color for a baseball team? Sorry, Rockies fans, but it's true.) I noticed there are hardly any seats in the stadium that are under cover, which meant that every brave soul who had dared the weather to come to the ballpark was standing in the concourse. It wasn't too bad back there - but if you got out into the open...wow. That wind was like a US missile tearing through a Qaddafi loyalist's body.

I only had one thing on my mind at that point - bratwurst. How do I explain the intense craving I've had for a good sausage for so long now? I don't even eat much meat, but the fact that you can't find a good sausage in Lebanon just makes you want one. I tell you what, for a culture that eats so much meat, it's surprisingly difficult to find high quality animal flesh for consumption. Well, there is some darn good seafood in the seaside towns.

If I hadn't been craving a good sausage for so long, I would be complaining about the soggy bun and the lack of good mustard and the overcooked onions and peppers, but I have to say, I enjoyed that bratwurst immensely. I didn't even care that the tarp was on the field or that I knew instinctively that I would not get to watch baseball that day. My mouth was so happy eating that overpriced brat. Didn't hurt that I had good company to eat it with.

It didn't take them long to call it. I'd say we were inside the stadium for about fifteen minutes before going out - you can actually get your hand stamped and exit Coors Field. I've been to enough ballgames in my life to know when a game is going to save itself for another day, and this one definitely was one of them. Oh, did I mention it was freaking freezing?

Contrast that with the day before, when it was 84 degrees! Look at the photos below to see the stark difference. It was such a beautiful night that we ate outside a few blocks from the stadium, where a game was going on. It was such a great day in every way, but I guess you could say Sunday, this snowy, snowy Sunday, was also a great day even if I didn't get to see the baseball game.

I'm going to try to hit the game tomorrow, at least for a few innings. At $4, a few innings is more than doable.

He said, she said

2011-03-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

I was born in 1977, 57 years after women were given the right to vote in the United States. Aside from receiving unequal pay and promotions, cringing at Sarah Palin's distortion of historical facts while she pretends to be a feminist, and fighting conservative efforts to keep their hands and superstitions off my body, I generally don't think about gender issues as they affect me. I don't consider myself a feminist.

Middle East women's issues are a different story, however, since I've worked in the Mideast field for more than a decade now and have encountered women who truly face oppression. The other day, a fully burka'd figure who got into my elevator caught me by surprise. This is Beirut, after all, not Kandahar. The shadowy figure not only wore the burka with gloves, but you could not even see its eyes. What had once been a human being had ceased being human; it was an object, a nothing. It creeped the hell out of me. I wanted to shake it into the twenty-first century. I wanted to rip that ugly black piece of cloth to shreds. I held my breath all the way up the elevator hoping it would crawl back into whatever fifteenth century hole it had come from. The figure hadn't even bothered to press a floor button - my liberation, manifested in my shorts and Cincinnati Reds baseball cap - was that much of a threat to its nothingness, and it waited until I got off on the fifth floor to push the third floor button.

I started this post before the news of Geraldine Ferraro's passing, but I'll just add a bit about her here. I was seven years old when Mondale/Ferraro signs were posted across America. As a little girl, I couldn't understand the significance of Ferraro's candidacy, and thanks to women like Ferraro, I didn't have to. Rarely have I ever felt the weight of oppression of my gender (though working in the Middle East field, it is detectable). I'm so lucky - the coincidence of my birth as an American has given me freedoms totally unknown to much of the world's female population. I count my blessings all the time, and I never take it for granted.

But there is one thing that really irks me even though I understand why it happens: the assumption that I am a guy in baseball cyberspace. Look, I get that most sports bloggers are guys and that my screenname is that of a male Greek architect and the male protagonist in books by James Joyce. In light of the Egyptian women who are being raped in the name of democracy, the it with breasts I encountered in the elevator, the women who are forced into sex slavery here in Lebanon and everywhere else, and all of the horrific things that happen to women across the globe, my irritation is petty and makes me feel guilty for even thinking about it at all. But it is demeaning nonetheless, so I just ask one small favor from baseball cyberspace: please, stop assuming an anonymous online identity has a protruding appendage in the nether regions of the body.

Today, a post of mine has been syndicated on the BlogHer.com network. I hope you will take the time to read "Clutch and Nerves" if you haven't already. And please head on over to BlogHer.com for some great women bloggers.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to highlight some of the women writing about baseball on the network.

Mia Mercado takes a look at two of the stars of the US Women's National Baseball Team.

Sarah ponders the retirement of Gil Meche.

JuliaJulesM reviews The Last Boy; Mickey Mantle Stories Come Alive by Jane Leavy.

I also encourage you to check out the "Convent" section in my sidebar, which is full of great women baseball bloggers.

Also, I'd like to ask that you make sure you check out the sponsors on the right sidebar from time to time. BlogHer is a great ad network with topnotch people on their staff. I am proud to be a part of it.

She can't be a real Cubs fan - she has a brain

2011-03-25T07:41:00.000-04:00

Being a [Chicago] Cubs fan prepares you for life—and Washington.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (b. 1947), U.S. attorney; First Lady of the United States. As quoted in Newsweek, p. 17 (April 18, 1994).

On how being a fan of the beleaguered baseball club "hardened her to adversity."

This sounds like fun!

2011-03-24T17:16:00.000-04:00

The Reds have a kickass baseball club, from the team itself to the management to baseball operations and marketing. They just seem to do everything well. Maybe we should put them in charge of the government?

Reds announce “Hide and Tweet” to win Opening Day tickets

CINCINNATI (March 24, 2011) — The Cincinnati Reds have created a “Hide and Tweet” scavenger hunt where clues to locations of Opening Day tickets will be released on the popular social networking web site Twitter on Saturday, March 26 and Sunday, March 27.

The Reds will be giving away four pairs of Opening Day tickets through four different scavenger hunts in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

Fans can follow the Reds on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/cincinnatireds (@cincinnatireds) to find the street addresses of the clue locations.

The clues will be distributed by a Reds representative at three different retail stores each round and will lead to a final location in the Greater Cincinnati area where a pair of Opening Day tickets have been hidden.

HIDE AND TWEET #1, NORTH - Saturday, March 26

- First location announced via Twitter at 9am

- Second location announced at 11am

- Third location announced at 1pm

HIDE AND TWEET #2, WEST - Saturday, March 26

- First location announced via Twitter at 2pm

- Second location announced at 4pm

- Third location announced at 6pm

HIDE AND TWEET #3, SOUTH (Northern Kentucky) - Sunday, March 27

- First location announced via Twitter at 10am

- Second location announced at 12pm

- Third location announced at 2pm hour.

HIDE AND TWEET #4, EAST - Sunday, March 27

- First location announced via Twitter at 3pm

- Second location announced at 5pm

- Third location announced at 7pm

The winners will be announced immediately on Twitter.

Fans who do not have a Twitter account can sign up for free at www.twitter.com.

Clutch and Nerves

2011-03-20T17:30:00.033-04:00

Note: "Clutch" is a term that has come to be viewed with derision in some modern baseball circles. It denotes a players performance in high pressure situations, i.e. a player's ability to get a "big hit" in situations "when it counts." The concept is controversial in modern baseball, as the term is often used based on one's perception rather than rooted in a reality that can be measured quantitatively. Factors such as the number of times a player is put into a high leverage situation and how his numbers compare to non-high leverage situations must be considered, as well as his actual performance.

In this article in Slate entitled "Nerve": Why is America so anxious?, a bit relevant to baseball pops up.

In a chapter called "The Clutch Paradox," you do a wonderful job of dispelling a popular sports myth -- that some athletes are inherently more clutch than others. My question is: Why do so many seem to choke so consistently? Why are certain major leaguers like Chuck Knoblauch and Rick Ankiel never able to regain their form after falling down a psychological rabbit hole?

These kinds of breakdowns are a lot more pernicious than people realize. [Former MLB player] Steve Sax, whom I interviewed for this book, told me that his trouble throwing the ball to first base was the hardest thing he ever went through aside from losing his parents. We have this image of athletes as egomaniacs who don't take the sport as seriously as the fans do, but this is something that rips them apart inside. When Chuck Knoblauch throws a ball into the stands, it gets replayed on SportsCenter over and over and over again. It takes a lot of mental jujitsu to come back from something like that. Another reason why many athletes have so much trouble regrouping is that there's still a real shrink barrier in sports. This is a culture that says you must be mentally tough to succeed, and I think a lot of players see therapy as an admission of defeat.

I haven't read the book, so I don't know if Taylor Clark uses sabermetrics or psychology to "dispel the clutch myth," but I want to say a bit about this. One of the things that has bothered me about the "clutch" argument is the refusal to entertain the notion that it can exist. As stathead pros and novices alike know, there are people out there who will say so and so is clutch and players will earn reputations for being clutch but when you look at their numbers in high leverage situations, you find they just aren't "clutch" at all. The people who use the term "clutch" without examining the numbers aren't just casual fans who may have seen a guy hit a gamewinner twice to label that guy as "clutch," but include guys like Jeff Brantley and Marty Brennaman, who, like so many others, vehemently refuse to acknowledge that human knowledge progresses. The baseball boxscore was developed by sportswriter Henry Chadwick back before cars, airplanes, electricity, and the establishment of the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, the first professional baseball team. Statheads are right to criticize the use of the term "clutch" when it is based on nothing but tradition.

But like me, statheads aren't psychologists, neurologists, or biologists. (I haven't seen one, anyway.) And while they're crunching away at their numbers, rarely is a player's physiology given a thought. Some, when confronted by numbers that show that indeed, a player DOES perform better in high leverage situations, even go so far as to blame the player for not "focusing" or "working hard" or "caring enough" during non-high leverage situations. But the human brain is a fascinating and mysterious organ that even people who study it for a living don't know much about. Some players' brains are most likely shooting fear chemicals around when there are two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth, while others are probably swimming in adrenaline. We simply don't know enough about the brain yet to explain why some players do better in high leverage situations than others. Maybe in the future the term "clutch" will have some scientific backing.

[Remember the Nintendo game "Bases Loaded II?" When choosing your lineup, you can see a player's "biorhythm," which included psychological state. I'm sure the game wasn't based on anything scientific, but hey, maybe it was ahead of its time!]

So I wonder how Taylor Clark "dispels the myth of clutch." I'm looking forward to reading "Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool," and not just for the "Clutch Paradox" chapter. I am especially interested in the part about American social isolationism. Other places, like here in Lebanon, have such a sense of community while Americans run around afraid of everything. Human beings are social creatures and indeed would not have survived as a species without the evolutionary social traits that kept us alive. As the book suggests, social isolationism, among other things, is driving America crazy, as crazy as clutch makes devoted statheads.

This post is syndicated on BlogHer.com.

War and Peace

2011-03-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

Exactly why I like baseball and hate football.

Bet on it

2011-03-06T07:24:00.000-05:00

So another Major League Baseball season is a few weeks away. If you're a betting person, you can check MLB odds at BetUS. But I can already tell you who will win this year. The Reds, of course!

I have, as you know, been enjoying warmer weather than most of you for the whole winter, but this past week was really the first week when I felt spring, you know, that deep-in-your-soul kind of rebirth that makes you crave to hear the words "Play Ball!" The season of baseball's beginning is precisely what makes it so different from other sports. We've been frozen all winter, suffering through a colorless void, artificial heat, and static electricity while scraping windshields and suffocating from cabin fever.

But we know all of that is about to end when our bat-wielding heroes go south to scrap off the rust in preparation for another grueling season. It doesn't matter if you're a Yankees fan with perennial hope for a winner or a Pirates fan for whom a winning season has about as much of a chance as peace in the Middle East (it could happen) - just the sight of those shiny new uniforms in Spring Training photos is physically stimulating and mentally warming.

Even with the decade of the aughts being a disaster for the Cincinnati Reds, I can't say it was the same as being a Pirates fan. At least we had good offenses over the decade. At least there was always an outside shot that we could play baseball in October. At least we had a 2004 Sports Illustrated cover. At least we had 2006 when hope survived into September.

BUT.

This year.

2011.

We are expected by many to repeat a division championship!

It has been 7442 days, 15 hours, 3 minutes and 10 seconds at the time of this posting since the Cincinnati Reds last won a World Series. Here's to hoping I can take that countdown off the page come November. Do we have a real shot? You can bet on it.

The R...ed...s...are...o...n...the...ra...di...o...

2011-03-04T04:47:00.005-05:00

Wow, was it great to hear Marty's voice on that first day of radio broadcast for 2011. But I only got to hear it after an adventure in what poor internet service can be. I made another MS Paint video to illustrate this adventure. I've enjoyed doing this, and I'm working on another solely baseball-related one. Perhaps I will make this a regular feature throughout the season. (Maybe I'll even get some real software instead of using MS Paint? Software donations?) Even though because I used MS Paint the pictures are pixelated,it is still better viewed with a full screen.

Music is:

ATB First Love
Smetna (from The Bartered Bride)
Beatles Revolution 9
Breeders Cannonball
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Underwater (You and Me)
John Fogerty Centerfield
Beatles Norwegian Wood

Cross posted on my travel blog, Travellingrox.

[NOTE: Make no mistake, without net neutrality laws, American telecomms companies will be free to turn the American internet into one that resembles the mess Lebanon's is. Support net neutrality.]

Raincheck

2011-02-26T17:51:00.004-05:00

A true story.

Music is one of the best songs ever written, Centerfield by John Fogerty, and Look, it's baseball by Dayton's own Guided by Voices.

Ping! Part 2

2011-02-19T15:28:00.003-05:00

A few years ago I attended a University of Maryland baseball game on a day that tried to disguise itself as spring. The grass was green and he sky was blue and the hot chocolate was a light, watery brown. Oh, we all tried to keep up the charade, but by the third inning we had put on our winter costumes and shifted our seats periodically to escape late afternoon shadows.

Today was much warmer than that day, but I still fought a winter breeze while surrounded by snowcapped mountains, determined to keep my sleeves rolled up and remain outside in the sun. Suddenly, I was struck by memories of playing softball in high school, of January gyms, February frosts, March mud, trying to get outside for practice, waiting, waiting, waiting for the good weather, sometimes pretending, the bulk of sweatshirts, the swish of windbreakers, the thud of a pitch in the mud, playing on brown grass.

Ping!

Not quite the crack of the bat, but a batted ball all the same. Sometimes those days don't seem like they really happened, the uniforms, the big yellow school buses with mud caked floors and angry drivers, thrown bats and helmets (yes, that was me), strapping on the shinguards, throwing out baserunners, oh, so much dirt and dust and mud. I've lived double my life since then, skipped much of the last two winters, and haven't played an organized sport since rec league soccer in DC in 2004. But spring, well, spring is always the same wonderful feeling, and every year the sight of Spring Training photos is warmth for the soul.

Thawing

2011-02-18T13:39:00.000-05:00

Um...Spring Training...and the Reds come in as...defending NL Central Champs?

Anyone else still feel like it was all a dream?

I had a brief experience with winter a few days ago, that bitter, biting, bonechilling feeling that all who have lived in the Midwest and other wintry places know too well. The temperatures in Beirut are like those in Florida and Arizona at this time of year, but in the Bekaa Valley, sandwiched between snowcapped mountains, a version of winter wraps itself around the towns and villages and fields that sit eagerly waiting to be sown. Yesterday back in Beirut I sat by the sea and read a book trying to recall what bronze skin looked like, but despite having spent winter among palm trees and mild temperatures, I always felt it was winter in that extra-corporal sense. Winter, I think, if you're in a snow-free place, is a state of mind, and that state of mind lacks something: baseball.

I love this tidbit from Hal:

Baker was expansive about a number of subjects on Day One and looked at an Ohio writer with a tan and said, “What’s that, freezer burn?”

One of the many things that makes baseball so awesome is its start at the rebirth of the northern hemisphere when we stop shivering and start wearing fewer layers of clothing. Color starts to sneak back into the world, replacing the browns and grays with a crayola of life. The world is returned to us - no longer are we confined to our cabins waiting for winter to leave. It is going, forced out by the orbit of the Earth, and baseball is holding the door wide open for it.

Boy, this season is going to be fun, isn't it?

Today I wore shorts and a t-shirt for a couple of hours while sitting on the balcony, and there was one magical word to describe the spring air and the brilliant sunshine: baseball. Next up: tan.

It's time, we exclaim!

2011-02-08T10:40:00.004-05:00

I turn my head to look West towards the red sky that lingers over the Mediterranean. We've almost made it to 6pm with some semblance of daylight. Almost. I've just closed the window and thrown on my Nationals sweatshirt over my Reds t-shirt, as Beirut winters, mild as they are, still provide a chill at night.

I've pored through many Reds sites over the last hour, but every time I read "2010 National League Central Division Champions," it doesn't really feel like that happened. The scars of the aughts are still fresh on my baseball soul, reminders of the Jimmy Hayneses and Griffey surgeries and Carl Linders and all that which tried to destroy the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club (est. 1869.) But the articles, well, they just keep on picking the Reds to win in 2011.

Everyone talks about the "business of baseball" these days, especially during the winter when there is no baseball to talk about. Hal is sick of it. Me too. I'm sick of contracts and discussions of arbitration rules and talk about trading Brandon Phillips and other players in the coming years as if there were never a season to play. I'm tired of arguments about the Hall of Fame and who doesn't deserve to be there. I'm exhausted by the baseball media circus where egos float in the air with the greatest of ease and love of the game is purloined away. And where to put the stathead vs. old school debate? In a dumpster behind some Buddhist monastery.

The game, the game! For love of the game! That little white sphere and that green, green grass! The sights that push winter away! We countdown and countdown and countdown again until we reach our Holy Day! Pitchers and catchers, report! White skin turned red turned brown. Go West, young men and come back strong and beat those Deadbirds into the ground!

The game, the game! Where the past is just as important as the present and the future! We thrive on legends, we live for the trophies, and we dream of a future when our present players are in museums!

We're so starved for the game at this time of year that our hearts jump when we hear the equipment trucks have left Cincinnati for Arizona. Equipment trucks!

Havoc

2011-02-07T06:03:00.003-05:00

Havoc is the nickname some gave to Willy Taveras in 2009 mocking what Dusty said about him wreaking havoc on the basepaths, considering he never got on base. It also was the anagram for the starting letters of our pitching staff at one point - Harang, Arroyo, Volquez, Owens, and Cueto.

This year, we have an abundance of pitching - quality pitching - and no one knows who will be the starting five at this point. I wanted to propose we choose based on the best anagram of their starting letters, but there are no five letter real words you can make from AVCWLB (Arroyo, Volquez, Cueto, Wood, Leake, Bailey), and the only four letter words are bawl, blaw, and claw. Claw is good. I like V-CLAW.

By the way, blaw means blow in North England and Scotland. Everywhere else it isn't a word. And a BLAW pitching staff is Cuetoless, which ain't gonna happen. I suppose it could be BLAWC. BLAWC and roll. BLAWC and white. BLAWC and I'll shut up now.

Church of Baseball, starring Kevin Costner as the Priest

2011-02-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

Those of us Reds fans who grew up in the Dayton area no doubt have a fondness for Hal McCoy. How great was it to pick up the Dayton Daily News and see that smiley face on the front and then turn to the sports section to read McCoy’s article about the previous night’s game? I hate to wax nostalgia, because I do adore the interwebs and the ability to watch every Reds game online. However, in exchange for these amazing things, we did have to give something up. We gave up the relevance of a game recap in a black and white newspaper, and there is something romantic about those words in print that cannot be replaced by the glowing machine in front of us and the anonymity of internet forums.

But Hal has adapted, though the change has cost him his fulltime job. He’s become quite a blogger, and that’s no surprise, because he was blessed with the gift of writing, something that just seems to be rarer these days. Sure, there are still great baseball writers out there. Joe Posnanski comes to mind, of course. (That guy should write a baseball novel that is turned into the next great baseball movie staring Kevin Costner as the aged front office executive who is being replaced by the latest young sabermetric hotshot. You must admit, Kevin Costner may not be the greatest actor in the world, but when it comes to baseball movies, he is awesome.) But so many baseball writers these days seem to be applying a j-school formula to their writing instead of going with their guts. A good writer not only needs words, but the power to observe in ways the average Joe does not. It’s not something you can teach in j-school or anywhere. You have to be born with it.

Hal McCoy was born with it. I may have not blackened my hands with the ink of the Dayton Daily News for years, but I still read Hal. (I wish HE would write a book that is turned into a movie starring Kevin Costner as the aged baseball writer who is struggling with the decline of the newspaper industry and the rise of internet journalism.) And though it probably took him less than an hour to write this tidbit about a ballplayer who refused to have his leg amputated when he was injured in World War II, it is one of the better reads you’ll find.

I am always amazed by stories about ballplayers who fought in the wars. Back then, foreign wars were fought reluctantly and out of necessity. Vietnam seemed to suck the soul from America, and now we fight wars for any reason or no reason. It has made us the villain of the world, the “Evil Empire” that we accused the USSR of being, and everyday I am faced with the task of defending America, which I can’t always do. If we had a draft, which I am in favor of for the sole reason that it would make Americans far less willing to send soldiers to war, we would be safer – the world would be safer. But can you imagine a 24 million a year ballplayer getting drafted? HA! Ballplayers are fortunate sons these days. That’s why I so admired Pat Tillman. If we truly wanted to defeat this colossus we call variously by the terms “Islamic terrorism,” “Jihadism,” “War on Terror,” “Islamic extremism,” we could have done it long ago. Instead, we invaded Iraq under knowingly false pretenses, upset the balance of power in the region (despite still supporting dictators here), created a whole generation of people who hate America…oh, wait, I was talking about baseball writing, wasn’t I? Well, you want baseball writing? Go read McCoy’s article. I’m too busy trying desperately to put the Brasso on America these days.

Two weeks until pitchers and catchers report

2011-02-01T11:11:00.002-05:00

But my, oh, my, something far more exciting is happening in the world. Turn off your reality television and tune into reality.

The people of the Middle East are finally rising up and saying enough of dictatorships.

Oh, the world is changing before our very eyes. This is this generation's Berlin Wall. Live it. Right now, instead of saying Go team! say Go Egypt! Go Tunisia! Go, go go!

Walt's flashing that Golden Buckeye Card

2011-01-16T14:05:00.005-05:00

Is anyone else sick of the Reds signing folks from the nursing home? Edgar Renteria? That would have been awesome five years ago. Judging from the aches in my recently advanced age 34 year old body, I know a ballplayer at 35 isn't a spring chicken, or whatever they say. And of course, we have to worry about him playing everyday, as we always do, despite what Walt and Dusty say.

Poor Paul Janish.

So the government of Lebanon collapsed this week and Hezbollah asshole Hassan Nasrallah is speaking live right now, spewing conspiracy theories and blaming Israel and the US for his assholiness. Wanker. Meanwhile, life in Lebanon goes on, though the bars are noticeably emptier in the evenings. The first night of the collapse, the streets of Beirut were eerily quiet. Funny, I've gotten so used to the incessant noise that I couldn't sleep with all that silence.

Anyway, Fred Lewis? Could be worse, right? And Walt says he's done now? I suppose he is. I mean, we did win the division last year, so we didn't have that much to get in the first place. 2011 should be interesting, that's for sure.

I will have internet at home this week (finally), so I may be posting more frequently from now on. As long as war doesn't break out. (It won't.)

Barry, Barry, Quite Contrary

2011-01-09T13:11:00.004-05:00

Yeah, that's a stupid title. I am certainly disappointed by Larkin's second omission from the Hall, but what can you expect from a bunch of dinosaurs who think they're important because they paid some money to get a piece of paper so they could call themselves "journalist." Pbbbbbbt...

I am still reeling from the shootings in Arizona yesterday. This is a result of today's media. Spew vitriol, criticize, condemn, and damn the consequences. Ok, so the omission of a player of a stupid game from some museum in the middle of nowhere is trivial. I know this. But the holier-than-thou attitude that many journalists and broadcasters have these days - whether it be in sports or politics or whatever - is the same.

What am I getting at? Well, I've just seen some of the columns from BBWAA folks about why they chose who they chose as if Abraham were writing their words on stone tablets. (Stone tablets eventually break.) It's the same mentality as those folks on the cable news channels who think they're so holy that they can say whatever they want and the seas will part for them. They're so enamored with the sound of their own words that they can't see how they have degraded society, and in the case of the political journalists, the consequences of their arrogance has resulted in a grand tragedy.

And how many times have we said this would happen, that this will happen, that people will die because of the vitriolic political environment that corporate media have created? But no one listens - they say it's liberal hysteria. Well, we told you so, and it will happen again if things don't change. Journalist used to be a noble profession. I live in a city where it still matters, where Tom Friedman was actually a good journalist, where people who wrote for newspapers risked their lives so they could tell the truth about what was going on, where many died for that truth. But in America, we have cable news and columnists and bloggers who just want an audience.

Ah, truth. What a word. "What is truth?" Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ at his trial. The truth is, the American media have collected their 30 pieces of silver.

Oh, wait, I was talking about Larkin. Well, sometimes baseball just doesn't matter. This is one of those times. It feels like someone has reached into my chest and squeezed my heart to a pulp.

Until next week...

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T09:41:00.002-05:00

Welcome to 2011, the year when the Cincinnati Reds earn their sixth World Series trophy.

In a little over a month, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training. I'll be on the beach a half a world away (unless a war breaks out). I'm supposed to be flying home the day before Opening Day, but I hope I can stay a bit longer. Another six month visa would take me to October, just in time for the Reds' playoff run.

Anyway, winter. Yawn. Off season. Yawn.

Weekly update

2010-12-26T11:21:00.003-05:00

Internet connection still stinks...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, blah, blah, blah.

So, we lost Rhodes? That saddens me a bit.

Still no Joey long-term signing? He really doesn't want to play in Cincinnati, does he?

I wore a t-shirt and sat outside for the bulk of the day. Very nice, very nice. I was going to go to the beach just to rub it in, but I was too lazy to walk down there after two days of Christmas celebrating. Cooked up some mulled wine yesterday when the night temperatures dipped into the low sixties. It just isn't the same when it's so warm.

I see retreads are being mentioned as possible Reds acquisitions - Podsednik, Webb, Renteria...no, no, and no thank you. Have we completely rid ourselves of the Edmonds menace yet?

Still a long way to go until Opening Day...

Weekly update

2010-12-19T10:08:00.002-05:00

In a way, life without a good internet connection is better. You find yourself going out more, living socially instead of behind a computer screen. But it is really impeding work, blogs, etc. And the fact that I am limited to merely 24 MB of Blackberry use a week, I find myself disconnected from the world. I managed to see the Reds signed Jay Bruce to a six year deal, which is great, but I saw nothing from Redsfest and still haven't heard of their signing Joey Votto to a ten year deal.

Wait, that didn't happen yet?

Get it done, Walt.

Anyway, things are good here in the land of the cedars. Beirut has put up some Christmas decorations that I think were manufactured before the war in the seventies. But the weather is such that it doesn't feel like Christmas time at all. That's this week, isn't it? By the time I update again, Christmas will have come and gone, right? So weird...

All I want for Christmas is world peace.

Al 'Ada min Al-Qahera

2010-12-12T06:59:00.002-05:00

The return of Cairo. Whoopdeedo. Do we have a shortstop yet? Do we have a leftfielder yet? Big Donkey went to the White Sox, so that's out. The Reds never do anything at the winter meetings. Why do they even bother sending people? Save the money on the plane tickets and the hotels and all and use it towards buying Votto forever. (Yeah, I suppose that would take a billion winters to save up for. Joey might not be the same player in a billion years.) Someone actually used the word "splash" in a title for the Reds.com article about them resigning Cairo.

Nice they "locked up Bruce for the long haul." Wrong player, though. Anyone else sense that Votto doesn't want to play for the Reds for the "long haul?"

My internet connection is slower than dial up. This post might not even post. Lebanon.

I'm alive

2010-11-28T07:41:00.003-05:00

I'm afraid the Hot Stove has been the Cold Stove for me. After Joey got his trophy, I sort of forgot baseball existed. A little disappointed the Reds are letting Rhodes walk. Still hope we can get him back.

Weird to be sweating next to palm trees while staring at Christmas decorations. My internet access is somewhat limited by my own laziness, meaning I have to go to a cafe to get online, aside from when I have my weekly 24 Blackberry MB, which I have been using up in three days. That's ok, there's not much to write about baseball-wise right now. I'm going to try to post twice a week from now on - every Sunday and one day in the middle of the week.

Cheers from Beirut.

Happy Free Agent Day!

2010-11-07T13:23:00.002-05:00

Ugh. Free agent day is like festivus for the rich of us, a time when the havenots lose the players they nurtured and raised to the haves. Like poor folks, the havenots sometimes win the lottery, but like all else in life, the chances are slim.

The Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club won its division in 1970, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, and 1979 but even all that winning wasn't enough to prevent the loss of its players when the greed of free agency went into effect after the 1976 season. Baseball hasn't been the same since.

As November 2, 2010 showed us that most people aren't capable of grasping the idea that change doesn't happen overnight, teams continued to remain competitive for years after free agency. But the eighties were a period of fundamental change to the way business runs, a period where the Golden Rule was replaced by Anything for My Precious, and we know all too well that baseball is a business. Selfishness became a badge of honor and Wall Street wonderboys bragged about screwing people out of their money. Being a terrible person was cool.

For baseball, 1981 marked the beginning of a new era, and a strike ripped off what remained of the Big Red Machine. The Reds were screwed out of the playoffs again in 1994 by another strike. By the end of the nineties, salaries were out of control, and a few teams dominated baseball.

Brainwashed folks scream "Market!" every time you try to make a social argument about athletes being millionaires while teachers get a pittance. These folks are no different than those who defend Columbus Day because they were taught that "Columbus discovered America" in elementary school. Today, conventional "wisdom" dictates that capitalism is a veritable Disneyland, a place where dreams are made, the One True Religion. If you criticize it and question the status quo, you are called names like "communist" or "dirty hippy." People defend the Yankees outrageously unfair advantage because it's "The Market" and make a stretch to say there is parity when even a broken clock is right twice a day. A salary cap would be "socialist" and therefore "evil." Some try to use a "player value" argument, saying a salary cap is "unfair" to the players (indeed, this is the players argument.)

What's "unfair" is that one team can spend $200 million a year on their team while most others spend less than half that." What's "unfair" is that some incompetent owners can continue to operate their perennial losing franchises because they are making money so they don't care (Baltimore and Pittsburgh come to mind.) What's "unfair" is that first class jerks can make $15-20 million a year while a teacher - a vital part of a strong, healthy democratic society - makes $40-50,000, less than median income in the US.

Free agency, while meant to protect players from the owners, has become a symbol of all that is wrong with our society. It represents greed, corporatism, and misplaced values. It twists the knife in the backs of struggling industrial towns. It fuels animosity and exacerbates the mentality of tribalism among fans of various teams.

Major League Baseball may wonder why it had the lowest rated World Series in history, and it may even be plotting ways to ensure the dominant market teams get in (making Wild Card more difficult is one example.) What MLB doesn't realize is that Americans don't like baseball anymore. Putting the ADD Nation argument aside, the business of baseball has completely swallowed the children's game once woven into the fabric of our being. Those of us who still love the game are clinging to worn and unraveling threads. Don't look now, but those threads are connected to a starred and striped cloth.

Yeah, I hate losing players to free agency and can already feel the heartbreak of losing Votto and Bruce and all the players we've seen grow.

(For a brief history on free agency, see this.)

Possession

2010-11-06T14:04:00.003-04:00

I like to say I've been collecting baseball memorabilia since I was eight years old, but quite frankly, I don't remember where I came up with that number. That would have been in 1985, two years before I started collecting baseball cards and two years after my family moved to Ohio. I have my ticket to my first Reds game in San Diego in 1978, but I was a year old and can truthfully say I was not the one who made the conscious effort to save the ticket stub. I also have the "Pete's Back!" Shirt my grandfather gave to my sisters and I when Rose returned to Cincinnati in 1984. So I must have made the number up.

It might have been the year when I decided I wanted to own a Reds-themed restaurant, however. I've wanted to do that for a looooong time, although as I grew older, it changed into a sports bar. I've already created the menu - one appetizer, entree, and desert and one beer on tap from every Major League city - and I've drawn sketches of the place, complete with where certain pieces of memorabilia go. I've even designed a lounge area with couches and bookshelves full of my baseball books. It's a marvelous place, really.

But now I have doubts. They stem from an increasing gravitation to asceticism and a rejection of material things. True freedom is freedom from possessions, freedom from mortgages and debt, freedom from worrying about people stealing your things or natural disasters destroying them. True freedom is the ability to go anywhere and not have to make arrangements to have your stuff watched or stored. It is also not having to throw your life away and enslave yourself in a cubicle just to afford your lifestyle.

The global economic downturn has produced some wonderful stories of Americans rediscovering their souls after years of thinking they had to buy this or that, from tales of family picnics in city parks instead of wasted hours over video game systems to families who sold their oversized houses and their possessions to travel the world together. While so many Americans are angry because they can no longer afford to be irresponsible in their spending, these inspiring tales of transformed outlooks on life are a welcome relief from the chains of materialism that have incarcerated the planet, leading to wars over resources, terrorism, and so much death and destruction.

I still have things stored in Ohio, and I will have to deal with it when I get a chance. There are boxes of clothes, books, CDs, and the things I've hoarded from my travels that I have been easily living without for two years. Most of my boxes, however, are full of the baseball memorabilia I have spent years collecting. I'm sure I could get a sizable chunk of change for it all, but I am clinging to it, because maybe one day the desire to open the place will return. After all, the whole point of the bar is to provide a place where people can have a good time and enjoy the game they love and all the pleasure and nostalgia that comes with it, and really, that's what I want for everyone in life.

I've packed up two large suitcases and am going on a long trip. The suitcases contain clothes, books, and not much else. I'll also have a backpack with a laptop, Blackberry, and camera on my back, necessary tools for survival. (And how else will I be able to keep up on the Hot Stove happenings and watch the press conference when Votto gets his MVP award?) Life is so simple. It's amazing to me that people kill each other over crap they don't need (or let their politicians decide to do the killing so they can buy crap they don't need.)

The Spark that Set the Flame

2010-11-05T16:07:00.004-04:00

Sparky. I grew up only with the legend of the man. Sure, I vaguely remember the Tigers uniform and the 84 World Series, but his Reds days were over by the time my child brain was ripe enough for memories. He led those Tigers to victory just as Pete was returning to Cincinnati, before Pete's sports gambling days, before the wishbone C was disgraced, before my memory was capable of more than vagueness.

But I grew up on the legend of the Big Red Machine. Sparky in the Tigers uniform wasn't the same man as the Reds legend. Sparky in the Tigers uniform was just an old man whose baseball card showed an Old English D on his breast.

Of course years later, both Sparkys are a legend, and both are vague childhood memories. The Big Red Machine seems like a myth to me, just as the legend of Daedalus and his labyrinth. Free agency is Icarus, free agency flew the Big Red Machine too close to the sun, and Sparky with the wishbone C fell into Detroit.

We can be sure that the baseball gods welcome Sparky with open arms into that magical cornfield in Iowa.

Peace through baseball

2010-11-03T14:59:00.004-04:00

So I’ve written about how I am leaving for Beirut soon – Monday. Perhaps I should pull a Pete Rose and do some sports betting at Sports Interaction to help finance my trip. One of the projects I hope to raise money for is a peacebuilding exchange project that will bring high school baseball players from the US to Lebanon to teach Lebanese students how to play baseball. I would love to get kids from Lebanon, Ohio – Reds country, of course – to participate in the exchange program. After all, the Lebanons of the United States were founded by Lebanese, and what better way to grow the Cincinnati Reds brand throughout the world than to bring folks from Reds country across the ocean to teach it?

The world needs more East-West peacebuilding programs, because the biggest problem between the Orient and the Occident is misunderstanding and ignorance. Americans have this idea that everyone in the Arab world lives in tents and rides camels and wears long, flowing robes with bombs strapped to them underneath. The Arab world thinks we all live in mansions and eat whole cows at every meal and drink oil to wash it down and give all our disposable income to Israel.

It’s all a bunch of stupidity, and neither side is less guilty than the other. But it’s easier to shout at each other and to succumb to the violence of hatred than it is to listen. We’ve had all of this Quran-burning, mosque-building nonsense in the US, which sadly is not the behavior of extremists. People are proud of their hate. It’s disgusting.

The essence of conflict is cowardice.

The peacemakers of the world all shared one thing in common: courage. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Yitzhak Rabin all lost their lives because peacemaking is a threat to the weak men who wage war. Gerry Adams, Ian Paisley, and Tony Blair had the balls to sit down at the same table together to end the 800 year long conflict in Ireland. Mikhail Gorbachev risked his life and was exiled to bring change to the Soviet Union, and Boris Yeltsin stared down tanks in the front of the Russian parliament building to stop a coup that would bring back communism. Conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Cyprus were resolved because people were strong enough and brave enough to put aside their hatreds. Europe’s entire history is defined by war, so some very smart and very brave men sat down and decided to create a system that would ensure if one country attempted to wage war on another, the warmongering country would be destroyed in the process. Today we call it the European Union.

Peace is not a “liberal elitist hippy” idea. It is a reality. For the life of me I can’t understand why there are people on this planet that are fine with war. Unbalanced chemicals in their brains, I guess. If only the warmongers of the world would smash the houses and kill the families of the other warmongers of the world and leave the rest of us out of it…

The East and West are not destined to be enemies forever, but you need to cut the crap, stop letting cable news tell you how to think, and find the courage to say “Enough!” Some people need help with that. We need better channels of communication, more direct contact, and the desire to live in a peaceful world. What better way to bring the two worlds together than with the beautiful game of baseball, a game that is as much about strategy as it is about physical ability?

Hopefully, though, the two sides won’t end up using baseball bats the way the mafia does.

If you would like to make a donation to the peacebuilding program, you can send through Paypal to paddyglover@gmail.com.

Restoring sanity in baseball

2010-10-31T17:28:00.010-04:00

Yesterday I tweeted a link to a column by some small town paper guy from some Texas site no one's ever heard of. The premise of the lunacy is that San Franciscans don't deserve to win the World Series because they are liberal hippy elitists, while people from Texas are hardworking "regular Joes." He makes fun of Mayor Newsome's name, brings up the coffee cliches, and broaches the subject of Nancy Pelosi.

He says,

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to inject politics into baseball. But it's hard to imagine two places more different facing each other in the World Series – one right, one left."

You don't mean to "inject politics into baseball?" Yes you do, or else you wouldn't have written the column. Duh.

A few weeks ago during the NLDS, some Philly sportstyper (writer is too noble a term to use for him) typed a similar column that was not political but no less arrogant mocking the city and people of Cincinnati. This was published in a real paper, the Philly Inquirer, as opposed to that Texas Cable News site, so more people read it. I never saw any apology for it.

Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall to watch two comedians put on a show that addressed this very topic: the polemic vitriol that spews from the mouths of self-righteous folks who must have gotten journalism and broadcasting degrees in a box of Cracker Jacks. Granted, they were talking about something far more important than baseball, but as you can see, the contempt has trickled down into the realm of sports, too.

I'm sick of all of it. I wish the Earth would just open up and swallow these media types who get off on division, who are not good enough writers or broadcasters to be successful on their own merits so they pick fights and say "controversial" things just to get attention. Once I was a political animal; now I view politics as animosity. Unfortunately, a whole generation has grown up on Rovian politics, where people smarter or more experienced than you are "elitists" and intelligence is ridiculed, where no one is ever wrong except the other side, where people get angry over taxes and government domestic spending but support debt-escalating wars, where you are allowed to stomp on the head of someone who doesn't support your candidate, where you can call something socialist without being able to define that word, where paranoia drives political activity and politicians use fear to gain votes, where respect does not exist and you can say anything you want without shame or guilt or even truth. There are people who honestly cannot see anything wrong with this, that this is poisoning the country, and in turn, the world.

I wonder if Steve Blow (yeah, that's his actual name, and HE has the gall to mock someone else's name?) has ever been to San Francisco. It's a beautiful place full of intelligent people (can we stop denigrating intelligence - this country wasn't built on stupidity) who care about more than themselves. Yeah, sure, there's some frou frou stuff in San Fran - there's frou frou in Austin and Dallas, too. In fact, Austin is full of liberal hippies who drink four dollar lattes and drive environmentally friendly cars. So what? Also, last time I checked, California had a Republican governor. So what?

What on earth is the purpose of Steve Blow's piece of trash except to make people angry?

Jon Stewart is right. Unfortunately, it might be too late to restore sanity. We might have already flown from the cuckoo's nest.

Life update

2010-10-29T13:27:00.003-04:00

I haven't had much trouble sinking into this World Series like a comfy couch. Many Reds fans say they are having difficulty with this postseason because of the Division Series loss. I, on the other hand, have had no problem, probably because I never could believe the Reds were in the playoffs in the first place.

We're all so excited for next year that we all wish we could skip the off season. But don't forget! The off season is what makes Opening Day such a holy day! The waiting and anticipation contribute the appreciation for the game - if it were baseball season all year around, it wouldn't be so special. But while we sit in the darkness with our artificial heat and our dried out winter skin, the baseball clock seems as if it stops.

I'm skipping winter this winter. I'm traveling again - back to Beirut, back to the functional chaos of a conflict-prone state, back to my friends with their bullet-riddled psyches and their broken Lebanese souls, back to Hezbollah and Fatah al-Islam and the Salafi jihadists coexisting with wealthy capitalists and pious Christians and scantily-clad women and communist students and Buddhist bartenders.

I'm going to be doing a lot of writing while there, and I vow to update this blog at least twice a week as well as my travel blog, Travellingrox. I'm over my baseball-doesn't-matter-when-people-have-no-food-to-eat stuff, and I will write about why over the course of the next few months. Until I leave, I will enjoy this World Series, and though I am root, root, rooting for the Giants, I hope Texass can win a couple of games to extend it a bit.

You all can enjoy scraping your windshields and driving 30 miles per hour in a 55 zone over icy roads and shoveling your sidewalks and freezing your butts off. I'm going to the Mediterranean sunshine, where fifty-five degrees is bone-chilling and palm trees have Christmas lights and...oh! Christmas in Lebanon! A new experience! I love seeing the way other countries celebrate Christmas. (Yes, Lebanon has Christians - 30% of the population is Christian.)

All of this warmth comes at a price, however, for when the cold rains of February cascade from the gloomy Midwestern sky, the jubilance of rebirth becomes a glitter in a baseball fan's eye. Oh, who among us has not been filled with joy at the sound of the words "pitchers and catchers report?" The sight of these exalted beings, their shiny red shirts covering their wintry white skin until their arms turn brown from the glorious southern sunshine...a symphony for the soul!

Part of the joy Spring Training brings us has to do with suffering through winter. When you don't suffer through it, that joy is suppressed, as I found out last spring. But I was new to Beirut then. I had been in country for three weeks when pitchers and catchers reported, had no internet access in my residence, and didn't know where to go to get good enough internet to watch Spring Training games. Oh, but I know now. When I went back last month and it was time for the Reds to clinch the division (did that really happen?), I watched Jay Bruce hit the homer (The Homer?) two days after it happened. And I am just remembering now the guy at one of my cafes asking me if I was watching baseball as I sat there staring at my laptop. He knew. They all knew. It was funny to be watching the clincher in the same city I had watched the start of the season. (Though I had watched Opening Day in Cyprus.)

Anyway, being abroad when baseball starts is a bit dispiriting, even with the miracle of the internet.

I made my return ticket for March 30. Obviously there's a reason for that...

Short reflection

2010-10-28T14:26:00.002-04:00

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...

The Winning Team

2010-10-27T16:29:00.001-04:00

In the absence of a baseball game yesterday, I watched a baseball movie I had never heard of called The Winning Team, starring Ronald Reagan and Doris Day. It is a cheesy account about the interesting and somewhat tragic life of Grover Cleveland Alexander, one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history.

After awhile I forgot it was actually Ronald Reagan in the film, which was interesting in its own right. The fact that we had a not-so-great actor become POTUS says a lot about this country.

Anyway, Alexander, who was for some reason nicknamed Pete and for obvious reasons called Alex the Great, was beaned in the head by a throw while trying to break up a double play before he even made it to the Majors. The accident left him unconscious for two days, and he suffered from double vision for a year. Then, by some miracle, it cleared up right before Spring Training in 1911, and Alex made his Major League debut with the Phillies, winning a stellar 28 games against 13 losses. He completed 31 games that season with a league leading 7 shutouts.

Granted, Alex pitched his best years during the Dead Ball Era, so his pitching stats are padded by that, but in a category that transcends time, he excels by even today's standards. The guy had impeccable control, posting a 1.6 BB/9 over his career, contributing to a 1.121 career WHIP.

Alex went 19-17 in 1912, 22-8 in 1913, 27-15 in 1914, 31-10 in 1915, 33-12 in 1916, and 30-13 in 1917, all with the Phillies. Then, at age 31, Alex went to war.

Sergeant Alexander spent most of the 1918 season trying to save Europe from its own destruction and save himself, too. He suffered shellshock, what we know today as post-traumatic stress disorder, losing some hearing and suffering from dizzy spells. It is said that his wartime was cut short by alcohol abuse and insubordination.

He had been sold by the Phillies, who were broke, to the Cubs. He started 3 games in 1918 and returned to his Hall of Fame form the next year. You can figure out from deduction that he never played in a World Series for the Cubs. He pitched for Chicago until 1926, when the Cubs cut him because of his alcohol problem. What they didn't know, what no one knew, was that Alex suffered from epilepsy that may have been a result of his war experience, and his frequent blackouts were often epileptic seizures. He hadn't even told his wife about his illness, as he was afraid he wouldn't be allowed to play baseball if anyone knew. His alcohol use was partially a result of the stress from his secret.

When Roy O came into the Phillies game last week, it was reminiscent of old time baseball. Alex, in what would become the best-known moment of his career, came into the 1926 World Series game for the Cardinals the day after he had started and won a game. He was pitching for the Cardinals after being out of baseball for part of the season. According to the movie, Alex's wife called Rogers Hornsby and convinced him to sign Alex, who was working in a circus. Who knows if that's true or not? Like I said, the movie is cheesy. Anyway, Alex got a Yankee to strikeout with the bases loaded and a one run lead to end the seventh inning, and he finished the game to give the Cardinals the Series.

The movie showed actual footage of the Series, and the most interesting part of this was footage of a square in St. Louis full of hundreds of people who were watching a scrolling sign that gave updates on the game. Now we can watch games from anywhere in the world thanks to signals from outerspace. Really incredible to think about.

The Winning Team ended after that World Series game, but Alex's career went on for three more seasons and part of a fourth. In 1927 at age 40 he went 21-10 for the Cardinals, won 16 more games the next season, and went 9-8 in 1929. He was traded to the Phillies in December 1929 for one last Philadelphia hurrah, pitching in 9 games (starting 3) in 1930. After he was released by the Phillies, he played with traveling teams until he was 51 years old.

Alexander wore no number to retire, but the Phillies retired the P logo they wore back then in his honor. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1938. While The Winning Team is not that great of a movie, it is still worth watching.

A Bankeele$$ World Series

2010-10-22T23:36:00.002-04:00

I can genuinely say I am happy for Rangers fans.

Forty years of nothing, and they finally get to the World Series.

Colby Lewis (there are TWO players named after cheese in baseball?) pitched the game of his life, and I hope he doesn't drink too much tonight, because I want him to remember this night forever. Three hits? Against a team full of All Stars and Hall of Famers?

Congrats. Now, GO GIANTS!

Time to give some thoughts on the game

2010-10-22T17:12:00.009-04:00

My friend Ash says that time does not exist. He's British of Indian decent who grew up with a religious father well-versed in Eastern philosophy. We met at the best dive bar in the world that happens to be in Beirut owned and operated by a Lebanese guy who is as equally in touch with his spiritual side and has become a dear friend of mine.

What Ash means by that is that time is a concept that measures the movement of celestial bodies that we use to gauge the aging process. He doesn't put it that way, that's my own simplified explanation, but he's right. Time is a product of our minds, nothing more. Of course, most people can't wrap their heads around that notion because it is so ingrained and let's face it, most people don't spend much time reflecting on abstract concepts as they go through the motions of their daily lives. It's a shame, really, because there is so much more to existence than birth, childhood, schooling, marriage, death. Few people question the notions that are part of their perceptions of "reality."

Take, for example, the idea of space. Not Star Wars space, but physical space, like distance (which is part of the time/rate equation.) I am physically sitting in a room in Washington DC. I am trying my best to be mentally here, but I lack focus and discipline and my thoughts seem to be stuck somewhere across the ocean. It is quite possible that our minds and spirits are separate entities from our bodies. There's a reason people use the term "whole" to describe various states of happiness. If someone is physically, mentally, and spiritually all in the same place at the same time, he is most likely to be happy.

In the past, I experienced baseball with my full being, but this year has been a little different. I felt distant from the game. I thought I lost my faith in the great religion of baseball. But there was a moment last night as I watched the Phillies-Giants game when I was fully into it, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Nothing in particular had happened in the game at that moment, but I felt the excitement surge through me, like I had been transported back to days past.

It reminded me of how the notion of time is an inherent part of baseball. Nostalgia is as much a part of the game as what is actually going on on the field. In no other sport do we speak with revelry about players who died a hundred years ago. In no other sport do we argue with such passion about the criteria for entering a Hall of Fame. For many of us, we are raised on baseball, so as adults the game is inseparable from our childhood memories, and indeed, as parents we try to instill the love of the game in our children and dream that they, too, will do the same for our grandchildren.

In baseball, there is no separation between the past, present, and future. The game cannot exist in one phase of time without the other two, so there really is no time in baseball. Just look at how it is measured - in 9 innings, not with a clock (although we'd love to see fewer commercials and shorter games.) These games will go down in history books and talked about fondly (or for fans of the losers, with heartache) just like all the other post season games.

I'm sure there was a point to all this rambling when I started it. Oh well, bring on the game! Go [insert team playing Bankee$]!

Twitter Playoff Notes

2010-10-21T14:32:00.002-04:00

This is the first baseball playoffs on Twitter for me. Last year, I had an account but didn’t really use it during the playoffs. It has allowed me to connect with baseball fans across America in a way that I never have, and I’m seeing some interesting things.

1. Most people find the Rangers-Bankee$ series dull. Most of us are rooting against the Bankee$, not for the Rangers. God, has this series been dull.

2. Last night’s Giants-Phillies game was amazing. Many folks were commenting about how exciting it was, and it really was, although I wouldn’t go so far as MLB on Fox did and say it was one of the most exciting NLCS games in baseball history. It was pretty great, though, especially since Roy O took the loss.

3. Bankee$ fatigue is real. While Fox and TBS and MLB executives salivate at the thought of a New York-Philly World Series, in the real world, the only folks that would care about that series are in New York and Philly. Fans of other teams are sick of the Bankee$.

4. Lots of Reds fans aren’t watching the rest of the post-season. I’ve never understood how you could be a fan of one team, but not of the sport. Next year at this time I hope to be hearing The National play the National Anthem in Cincy.

5. When football is on, baseball does not exist for many people. Sad that people would watch a game versus two teams they are not fans of over the playoffs of the “National Pastime.” (We all know that bird flew a long time ago. Still, you’d think with all this faux patriotic nonsense that floats around America these days, baseball would be more popular.)

6. Many folks are not of the sieg heil mentality and despise the playing of God Bless America as I do. Hallelujah.

7. There are as many commercials as there is baseball, and we can’t help but comment on all of it. Geico “Stanley” bestiality ad is disturbing. I wish there’d be a requiem for that DirecTV commercial. It’s generally acknowledged that the Conan commercials are retarded. And please, UPS, please stop making Dean Martin roll in his grave.

TBD

2010-10-11T09:38:00.002-04:00

It hasn't sunk in yet. Actually, I spent most of the playoffs trying to grasp that we were actually IN the playoffs.

I'll write something here later about the series and the season. Right now I feel like my pet goldfish has died of something preventable.

Well, crap.

2010-10-10T23:29:00.000-04:00

Go Giants.

HATE HATE HATE!!!

2010-10-10T14:33:00.003-04:00

I never hated the Phillies. They were one of my "surrogate" teams I rooted for in the playoffs in the absence of the Reds. I had liked them since the Daulton and Dykstra days. I rooted for them over the last few years.

But no more.

I hate them. I hate them with the same level of intensity as Albert Poopholes. I hate them like dogs hate cats. I hate Chutley. I hate Werthless. I hate Coward. I hate Ruinz. I hate Plunko. I hate Victorpeeno. I hate Ibumez. I hate Boweladay and Bozowalt and Camels and Sludge. The earth could open up and swallow them and I'd laugh as they were screaming.

Phillies, I put a curse on you.

The Hangover

2010-10-09T12:15:00.005-04:00

The beers were cheap, $1 bottles of Miller Lite, but they weren't as cheap as the loss. As soon as it began, things seemed right with the world - a leadoff blast into the leftfield stands, cheering and high fives in the bar, a genuine happiness. Another run, another blast, another run, and the starter who could do no wrong in the eyes of the phans was out of the game.

We were cruising. We had Chapman. We had shots of Jaegermeister.

The television next to the one with the baseball game had been tuned to the Caps hockey game. Now it was filled with paramedics and a stretcher and what seemed like a corpse in goalie gear. The Thrashers goaltender had collapsed on the ice when no one was around him. He laid motionless, unconscious, and suddenly I forgot there was a Reds playoff game going on.

The universe was out of line again.

A blown call by the ump, a ball lost in the lights, miscue after miscue and we were sent home in misery.

Today my head aches from the cheap beer and my heart aches from the cheap loss, but my perspective is as clear as ever. It's a game, nothing more. It may give us moments of great pleasure or pain, it may give us bonding with friends and family, it may even nourish our souls when our spirits are in the midst of famine, but in the end, it is still a game with no life or death implications.

Of course, I am still overwhelmed with disappointment and desperation.

I umpire you when you're stupid

2010-10-08T10:43:00.011-04:00

Let's get one thing straight: I have no tolerance for people who refuse to think or who are not as smart as they think they are. The worst is people who think they are entitled to their opinions even though they have no clue what they are talking about and have never put an ounce of thought into forming arguments to support their opinions. Nor do they understand that simply saying something doesn't make it true, that you need evidence to back up a case, and they don't even understand that they don't understand, that their underdeveloped, underused brains are not capable of grasping the notion that they don't understand.

Take, for example, the needlessly outraged who claim Major League umpiring is getting worse. Not only do they have no evidence to back up those claims (nor is it possible to obtain that evidence), but they fail to take into account that technology is what is permitting us to see more bad calls. Some guy writes "Major League umpiring has gotten progressively worse over the last 20 years." Prove it, I say. You can't - it is impossible, because the technology to capture it wasn't there. There was no X-mo twenty years ago. There weren't cameras at every angle with the zoom power we have now. Hell, there really wasn't internet 20 years ago. Technology has given us the power of sight that our eyes can't give us and the ability to spread that information in a click. Technology is the reason umpiring seems worse now. Major League umpires have been umping baseball for decades; they didn't suddenly become incompetent.

Umpires have always blown calls just as players have always made errors. Our "I'm Special!" culture makes people believe they are perfect and they can do no wrong, so when they see others being human, their blood senselessly boils. This is the epitome of American stupidity. Baseball is a game played by human beings, managed by human beings, watched by human beings, and umped by human beings, AND HUMAN BEINGS BY NATURE ARE FLAWED. YOU TOO.

Calm down, STFU, and just enjoy the game of baseball. The Braves had 27 opportunities to score a run but did not do so. The umpire did not lose that game, the Braves did.

Edit: I'm not making a case for or against replay, just that umpiring hasn't gotten worse and the screaming is out of proportion to the "crime."

Thoughts on the non-Reds part of October baseball

2010-10-08T09:49:00.004-04:00

I sat drinking one of those frou-frou seasonal coffee drinks, outrageously priced, contemplating my future on a fairly warm October afternoon. The Reds had been no hit the previous day. The Rays and Rangers were playing but still I sat, not in the office, not doing work, just sitting there sipping that pumpkin latte with my faded old Mr. Redlegs cap atop my head.

After awhile, the latte was gone and I was done sitting there, so I sort of moseyed towards home, but along the way, I decided to stop in a sports bar to watch the game that was going on as a sort of obligation or something. In years past, I wouldn't miss a playoff game. I'd sit for nine hours straight if I had to, rooting for one surrogate team after another or at least rooting for whoever was playing the Bankee$ or the Braves. This year, since the Reds are in it, I find myself disinterested in the other games. A strange feeling, indeed.

I do like the Giants, as I have written about in the past. I am happy they won the NL West and would love for the Reds to defeat them in the NLCS. But I didn't even watch the end of that game. I had the Bankee$-Twins game on as I made a video of my Paris photos, but I really wasn't watching. I did not watch either ALDS Game 1. I find myself asking if the worst happens, if the Phillies come out on top, will I even bother with the rest of October baseball?

So GO REDS! And remember, a Roy O is a broken Arroyo.

It's only a fifth of our lives

2010-10-07T08:39:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, baseball was such an easy game to play, now we need a place to hide away...

But I believe in tomorrow.

The day was spent staring at the clock, waiting, waiting, tick tock tick tock. We were excited, we were nervous, we were anxious, we were hopeful, we felt like all was right with the world for a day. We gathered around television sets in bars around the country, we were there on the national stage, waiting to prove to the country that they were wrong, that this wasn't just a lucky team from a backwards part of the country to go down in history books as also-rans.

Then we had to go and support their words with offensive inactions.

Ah, but it's history! they tell us, unable to comprehend how long is 15 years in a desert of disappointment. Even those old enough to remember 1975, 1976, 1990 struggle to recall what it feels like to have electricity surging through the veins. Our excitement was innocence, our nerves were inexperience, our happiness was...shortlived?

We were numb. Our faces were heavy and dark. We could barely make eye contact with each other anymore. And the outs kept coming in consecutive order, ugly outs, without a glimmer of hope as they left bats - if there was even contact. Sure, the strikezone was a bit unfair. Nobody wants the Reds to win - it'd be murder on the ratings! But few Reds had a clue at the plate, most of them swung wildly at pitches out of the large strikezone, and they all swung early in the count. Without looking it up, I'd bet 20 of the 28 Reds at bats swung at the first pitch. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

And so today, we wait. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty place. Our innocence is destroyed, our hope more desperate, our lives inching ever closer to their ends. Fifteen years is a long time to wait. Let's get a messiah in here to get us out of this desert, because I sure as heck am thirsty for victory.

The clock is not moving

2010-10-06T13:11:00.004-04:00

I woke up early this morning, got dressed, threw my Reds jersey over my sweater, put on my faded, filthy Mr. Redlegs cap, and walked to work at 8am. I never leave before 9, yet I arrived in the office at 8:15. By the time 9am rolled around, I was clock watching.

Three hours and forty-five minutes until game time, and I can't sit still. I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm anxious, and I'm a little peeved that the nation has written off the Reds as also-rans. If you had asked me yesterday how the series would go, I'd have said the Reds would lose Game 1 but maybe win the series in 5. Today, though, I feel like the Reds are going to win tonight, too.

I finished all of my work for the day - I really don't have anything else to do, as I'm waiting on some responses from other people, so I can't help put look at the clock as each minute passes. I swear it's moving backwards. My friend Ash says time doesn't exist, that it is only a figment of our minds. Well, my mind is incarcerated by the clock, and my stomach is in knots.

I got some comments this morning about my jersey. There's an appreciation in baseball fans that the Reds have made it, that they're finally back as a legitimate baseball team. The respect still isn't there, but that will come.

Really?

2010-10-05T06:38:00.004-04:00

I was sitting in Camden Yards one afternoon when the Phillies were in town. The Orioles were celebrating the 20th anniversary of their last World Series win in 1983. I remember thinking how sad it was that a team went twenty years without a World Series win and hoped the Reds would never get to the point when we were celebrating a twenty year drought. Then we did.

Even more improbable to me at that time was going 15 years without a playoff appearance. It had been eight years since the last one, four since the 96 win 1999 team. It just didn't seem like it would be possible that we'd be losing much longer. We had Ken Griffey, Jr., after all, and he couldn't always be hurt.

Well, it took some time, but those days are OVER. I still find myself saying the Cincinnati Reds won the division with disbelief. It hasn't fully hit me that the Reds are in the playoffs. The Reds are in the playoffs. The Reds are in the playoffs. THE REDS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS!

I wore my Reds skull cap today - it's freezing outside! - and wanted people to look at it and think I must be happy because my team's in the playoffs. Probably none of them thought that, but maybe, just maybe, one of them did, and even if he's a Phillies phan, at least he could acknowledge that wishbone C.

I have a hard time believing we're in it. But I have no problem believing we can win it.

HEY REDS FANS IN DC! COME TO THE BOTTOM LINE TOMORROW TO WATCH THE GAME AT 5PM!

Still in shock

2010-09-30T11:05:00.003-04:00

I finally got a chance to watch it.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce!

Wow, what a finish. My heart is racing and I am shaking.

Where bombs don't mean homers

2010-09-25T06:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was having a late afternoon latte when my friend who owns one of the old bars in Hamra passed by and invited me to stop by for a beer, so when I finished my coffee, I headed over there. It was around 7pm. When I arrived, only my friend and his friend were there. I stayed for about an hour and a half but no one came. I asked why, and he told me business was bad because of sectarian tension. Later I went to my very dear friend's pub. He was sitting there alone at 9pm on a Friday night. The night before, he had kicked out three Sunni men who were about to cause trouble with a Shia.

Things are bad. Last week Prime Minister Saad Hariri ordered the arrest of a man at the airport, and Hezbollah folks (who control airport security) ignored the order. The politicians go on television nearly every night giving propaganda speeches accusing one another of wild and stupid things. The Tea Party folks seem sane compared to the nutjobs in the Lebanese government. The decent ones who genuinely want peace, like Hariri, are ridiculed as weak or are even accused of being agents of Israel.

As my dear Amigo said, there is fire in the ground.

It's a reality the Lebanese people have to deal with every day. Right now I'm sitting across the street from a bullet-riddled building wondering which conflict put them there. A few weeks ago some idiots spent 5 hours shooting up one part of town with rocket-propelled grenades because some Hezbollah idiot and some Sunni group idiot got into an argument over a parking space and killed each other. The city has been molten since then.

Because I've spent so much time in Beirut, I've come to have many friends here, so the conflict here has become personalized. As the Reds sit poised for their first playoff appearance in 15 years, my excitement is tempered by a sort of - how to put it? - something resembling guilt for having been born in a country where we can devote ourselves to such trivial things as baseball. It just doesn't seem fair for these people to have to keep suffering one stupid conflict after another while us Americans sit on our couches watching sports. That's why the Tea Party idiots make me so angry. Instead of counting their blessings that they were born in the USA, they whine about petty shit and make up things to be afraid of. That mentality is no different than the sectarian bullshit that goes on here.

So, go Reds! But it's not the end of the world if they don't do well. It doesn't even matter.

Support the Troops!(TM)

2010-09-09T10:26:00.005-04:00

They are not saints.

The uproar over the decision of Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez, and Luis Castillo to forgo the team visit to Walter Reed has gone beyond nonsensical. I'm not talking about these Mets players not being saints. No, I am talking about the United States military. I have had it with the glorification of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines by a nation that has no concern for why these troops are fighting wars in the first place. I have had it with God Bless America(TM) in the seventh inning and the "Proud to Be an American" with soldiers on the scoreboard to standing ovations. Our troops are not saints. Some of them are good people. Some of them are great people. Others are scumbags who are only in the military because they couldn't make it anywhere else in life.

These are scumbags. Their names are Andrew Holmes, Michael Wagnon, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield. They are four of

twelve American soldiers [facing] charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

These are not isolated incidents. Many atrocities have been committed by these glorified folks that would make any real Christian - or any good person - disgusted. Yet many who call themselves Christian think this is ok, that the US military can do no wrong.

Somehow, the notion of US soldiers being akin to gods has taken root in the unthinking masses, and now, three baseball players are being crucified in the press for not worshiping at the altar of the BDUs. Why should baseball players be expected to visit wounded soldiers who may be great people or may be scumbags like Andrew Holmes? What's more, Perez and Castillo are not even Americans, and Beltran, while technically an American citizen, is Puerto Rican, a country where many don't call themselves Americans, either. Why the heck should they be expected to visit the wounded soldiers of a country not of their nationality?

How many of those outraged at the Mets players have visited wounded troops?

People who join the military have various reasons for doing so. Some do it to defend the country. Others do it for college money. Still others use it as a means to escape a life of crime or to get out of poverty. Soldier is a tough job and an honorable profession, when, in fact, it is done in an honorable manner. War is abhorrent, waged by the maniacal minds of the unjust, insecure, and ignorant. Sometimes, defending one's country from ruthless psychopaths is necessary, but war should NEVER be waged as a choice, and it is never glorious.

A visit from Carlos Beltran is not going to give a soldier his leg back. Enough with the outrage. If you want to be angry about something, be angry that soldier was put in the situation where his leg was blown off in the first place. If you truly supported the troops, you'd be taking action to prevent them from being put into situations which might force a trip to Walter Reed, altering their lives forever.

Make 7 Up Yours

2010-09-01T11:04:00.000-04:00

First Place version 5.0

2010-08-29T17:18:00.002-04:00

It is 92 degrees right now and the trees are still awesome summer green, but the afternoon light is waning and there's a rustling through the leaves that whispers August's impending death. One more month and I won't be sitting outside in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops. This beer I drink is Sam Seasonal, but it has changed from the fruity summer ale to the Oktoberfest variety. Oh.

But what a festive Oktober it will be.

For the last month, I've been writing about how I can't believe this is happening, how I expect it all to collapse like it always does. But it persists, this thing large cities call "first place," and it is swelling into something that can bring us immense pleasure. There is a whole generation of first place virgins that have been waiting for...I, uh, should leave this metaphor before I am excommunicated from this holy church...

Five games. Thirty-two games remaining.

Five games.

FIVE games.

We're talking magic number territory here, and today I have never appreciated the number 29 so much. I am right at this moment recalling a feeling, a vague childhood memory of the Reds smiley face on the front page of the Dayton Daily News with a quotidian reading of magic numbers. I am remembering the feeling of newspapers, Hal McCoy articles in his prime, turning my hands black with newsprint. I can feel the first cool nights, the crispness that accompanies pennant races, playoff baseball sans Tim McCarver or Fox or tea parties or terrorism when mudslinging wasn't laced with toxins and Americans were just Americans and not "real Americans" versus whatever the opposite of "real Americans" is. I have just experienced a return to childhood in my head, when the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club was a respected franchise, families sat down together for nightly dinners, you could arrive at airports and just get on your plane, and the internet was not yet a weapon of mass destruction.

Ah, the times they are a changing. Good thing, because if time weren't changing, it'd mean we're dead.

The excitement - or whatever is the chemical in my brain that reacts to the success of my tribe - is pumping through my body, producing physical sensations unknown to me or forgotten, unknown to all of us for a long, long time. I don't pine for the innocent days of childhood one bit, however. Innocence = ignorance, and ignorance, while perhaps producing a state of temporary bliss, only compounds our troubles in our lives. I, for one, would rather know and work towards solving the problems of the world rather than ignoring them and then fearing things I don't understand when they begin to affect my life. And though not being ignorant can result in worry or sadness at times, we have things like the beautiful game of baseball to give us respite.

What better way to experience that respite than to enjoy the fruits of the divine favor of the baseball gods who have finally forgiven Pete Rose for his transgressions and have ended our long suffering.

Unless they are just playing a cruel joke...

Mike Leake and Shoulder Fatigue

2010-08-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

I get it, Mike, I really do. A Major League Baseball season is so very long, and you have never pitched this much in a year. Believe me, I understand the lack of endurance, for I, too, am not used to this much baseball in a season.

See, for the past decade, the Reds have stunk. By the time late July or early August came around, they were done, and so was I. For the last few weeks, I have been suffering from season fatigue, from burnout.

Not all of it can be contributed to baseball. Politics, the internet, Washington DC, the United States – I’m kind of sick of everything. All I want to do is go back to Beirut and spend my days on the beach and my nights in Evergreen Pub and roam the streets of Hamra in the wee hours of the morning until the sun comes up and forget the whole stupid world. I hate this time of year, the end of summer, when the shortening days remind you of the cold wet misery that is just around the corner.

But back to baseball – I was a bit sad because I haven’t been able to be as excited about the first place Reds as I thought I’d be if this moment were finally ever to come. I suppose I was just waiting for the collapse. I had baseball fatigue, but I've had my rest.

In all of these losing seasons, though, September comes around and I start to be interested again, and I’m starting to feel that come back; I’m starting to feel recharged. You will, too, Mike, after you get your two weeks of rest and the crispness comes into the air and the word October becomes magic.

In case you're having a bad day...

2010-08-27T11:03:00.000-04:00

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	dc
Cincinnati	73	54	.575	-	N
St. Louis	68	57	.544	4.0	N
Milwaukee	59	68	.465	14.0	N
Houston	58	69	.457	15.0	N
Chi Cubs	54	74	.422	19.5	N
Pittsburgh	43	84	.339	30.0	N

Baseball = Not Important

2010-08-25T15:29:00.004-04:00

Some morons shot up Beirut last night and now the Army is patrolling the streets. They're having funerals for three dead idiots and there's concern that more violence might be on the way, especially considering a Hezbollah moron was involved in the conflict, which began over a fight for a parking space. Damn idiots better not mess up my trip to Beirut next month.

Meanwhile, we have idiots here stabbing cabbies (sounds like a great name for a white supremacist band) because the American idiots, who aren't much different than the Hezbollah idiots, have stirred up anti-Muslim hatred. It's only a matter of time before someone dies thanks to GlennBeckology. Trying to decide if the racist rally on the Mall this Saturday is safe enough to go to. I wanted to witness the zoo animals creep out of their cages, but I'm not sure it's a wise thing to do in light of rising tensions here.

So Joey Votto's on the cover of Sports Illustrated? Is that SI's way of collaborating with Fox so the small market Reds don't get into the playoffs because they would bring poorer ratings? Remember the SI curse?

So after the sweep...

2010-08-19T23:21:00.001-04:00

I stopped watching the Reds. And they haven't lost since. Now I'm afraid to watch.

Gone fishing in the Mediterranean of my mind

2010-08-15T22:47:00.009-04:00

So I checked my Blackberry (that people probably died to make) this afternoon to discover the Reds had swept the Fish. I watched exactly zero of the games in this series. I had exactly zero interest in watching these games. I blame Arcade Fire. And a bartender in Beirut. And the St. Louis Pigeons, who crapped all over last week, crapped out the trash they eat, those giant rats with wings.

First, the Arcade Fire album (number one in the USofA.) Something so amazing shouldn't send a person spiraling into the mire of depression and despair. But a hundred years from now when Chinese and Indian scholars are studying the demise of the American empire, they will make this album a big part of their research, because it says exactly what is happening now with nice music to go along with the narrative.

As for the bartender in Beirut, well two phone calls from Lebanon in a weekend and a homesickness for a place I don't belong and have no business longing for has plagued me to the point where I'm shaving days off my trip to Paris, a city I have pined for over the last decade, to go to a city where war could break out at any time, a filthy city where I can't breathe from the smog and the smoking and that gave me food poisoning five times in four months because of a lack of health and safety regulation enforcement, a virtual anarchy...but the human body is 75% water, and my slowly aging body is 75% Mediterranean water. Oh, this is a place where you can see snowcapped mountains next to the most beautiful body of water on the planet, a place where you can ski and go to the beach in the same day, a place where there is a bartender who drinks his Almaza beers with a Cincinnati Reds jersey coolie. Hmm...I wonder how that got there...

And the freaking Deadbirds, well, where's Dickhead Cheney when you need him? That series just made me realize how much making the playoffs and then NOT winning the World Series is going to stink. Because I really believe we are going to the playoffs. But I don't believe we are going to get to the World Series. I just don't think we have that extra It you need to win it all. They couldn't step it up when it mattered. But hey, at least I'm developing that little shield thingy around my heart so it won't hurt so much when we Paul Keels over. And hey, it's a heck of a lot better than Paul Keelsing over in June.

Isn't it?

Aftermath

2010-08-14T19:36:00.001-04:00

Second game in a row I'm not watching. Still reeling from the sweep. They couldn't step it up when it counted.

Even more voodoo

2010-08-09T22:14:00.002-04:00

More Voodoo

2010-08-09T19:12:00.001-04:00

For tonight

2010-08-09T15:31:00.003-04:00

In case you hadn't heard, a couple of weeks ago Kings of Leon canceled a concert in St. Louis because they kept getting crapped on by pigeons as they were playing. Well, being as juvenile as I am, I've run with the whole Pigeon Poop thing for anything dealing with the Deadbirds. I wanted to have this graphic done in time for the series, but didn't finish. Maybe tomorrow. The voodoo just needs to be put out there now.

Here we go

2010-08-08T21:14:00.000-04:00

Come on Reds, beat those Deadbirds! (Keep watching...)

In Dusty We Trusty?

2010-08-06T18:24:00.003-04:00

If you had asked me in April or even May if I thought Dusty Baker should be given a contract extension, I would have said no before you even finished the question. Three years ago, I was pretty happy when the Reds brought Baker in due to having followed the Giants in 2001-2002 when I was in California. But 2008 happened, and 2009 happened, and I had all but given up hope for 2010.

But now it seems like Baker will be back. And I feel ok with that. I mean, why shouldn't we be? We're in first place on August 6th.

Today, he put together the best possible lineup he could (Phillips, Heisey, Votto, Rolen, Gomes, Bruce, Hannigan, Janish, Arroyo) for the first time in maybe ever. Old dog, meet new tricks? It was shocking for me to see Heisey in the two hole. Folks, your 2010 National League World Series starting lineup? We can dream...

It's funny how winning can change your outlook.

Next year, we pretty much get everyone back. Harang will be gone, but he hasn't been missed this year. I hope Arroyo's still on the team. Cordero can go away, for all I care. Cabrera and Gomes? Well, I don't know what to think about them. They seem to be integral parts of clubhouse chemistry (vastly underrated by statheads who were never good enough to play on competitive teams), but Cabrera doesn't contribute anything on the field (despite announcers drooling over his shadow), and Gomes is really bad when he's bad.

This club is in it for awhile. Our decade of suffering is finally over. And I don't mind Dusty controlling the reigns.

As long as we're winning.

No Sweat

2010-08-04T17:19:00.001-04:00

Psst…it’s August. August 4, 2010, to be more precise. The bank sign says 99 degrees. I’m pretty sure it’s wrong, though, because aside from the sweat rolling down my back, it’s pretty comfortable. What? You don’t think sweat rolling down your back can be comfortable? You’ve been spending too much time inside air conditioning. Here’s a little secret: sweat is your body’s very own built in cooling mechanism. Without it, we would have died out a long time ago, like the dinosaurs and the dodo bird and common sense. Here’s another secret: if you don’t use your air conditioning all the time, hot doesn’t feel so hot. Honest.

Hot doesn’t feel so hot. It’s August 4, 2010 and the Reds are in first place. But it doesn’t feel like first place. I mean, yeah, we’ve gotten kind of arrogant and expect to win every game now and we’re filling up a baseball stadium, but the seesawing is like sun then thunderstorms then sun then thunderstorms then light drizzle then partly cloudy then night then day then a rain delay. Oh sure, it’s fun and we can write real time comments with a lot of exclamation marks every time a Reds player does something good, but the minute Caca Cordero walks someone, it feels like someone has bombed the Promised Land.

The Deadbirds are panicking. They’re only half a game out but they’re already juggling their rotation with a couple of nice round juggling balls and a few sticks that are on fire. They just trashed their not-as-potent offense for a little pitching. (I vaguely remember a certain team trashing a quarter of their offense for a little pitching a few years ago…that didn’t turn out too well.) And why are they panicking? Because they know what winning is like and we’ve forgotten and so even though it’s enjoyable and the sight of Cincinnati atop the standings and Votto atop every offensive category is orgasmic, there’s always that nagging thing in the back of our minds wondering when it’s all going to end.

I asked my Phillies phan phriend about the first year the Phillies started winning and he told me much of what I am feeling is the same as what he felt back then. The logical part of my brain knows this team, even with its holes, is good, maybe better than the Deadbirds (without Pujols, they aren’t that great.) It also knows we play the Padres in San Diego during the last week of the season and that we have another West Coast trip a couple of weeks before that. The emotional part of my brain can’t handle even the thought of the disappointment I will feel if we don’t go all the way. And disappointment is something we know a little bit about.

La Dolce Votto

2010-07-28T20:17:00.003-04:00

• Ranks 1st in NL in BA (.322)
• Ranks 1st in NL in HR (26)
• Ranks 2nd in NL in RBI (70)
• Ranks 2nd in NL in R (72)
• Ranks 3rd in NL in BB (60)
• Ranks 1st in NL in OBP (.423)
• Ranks 1st in NL in SLG (.599)
• Ranks 1st in NL in OPS (1.023)

They're gonna have to change it to Most Vottomatic Player. If Crusty would stop batting Cabrera second, Votto would have more RBI. Holy crap - there's a guy going for the Triple Crown and he plays for the Cincinnati Reds!

(HT: Jake)

My Dream Trade Deadline Acquisition

2010-07-25T20:57:00.004-04:00

One of the top Dunn moments just happened yesterday.

Ballpark Bio

2010-07-25T12:25:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting outside at a cafe wondering if I should subscribe to MLB Gameday Mobile so I can listen to Sunday games (as I don't spend free summer afternoons indoors) and I started thinking about the ballparks I've been to. I was shocked to think about how I've seen as many Nationals games at home as I've seen Reds games in my life.

I'm really just estimating, as there's no way of knowing how many Reds games I've actually been to (although I have nearly every ticket stub stored in Ohio.) I'm 33 years old, didn't move to Ohio until I was 5, and missed a couple of seasons due to hurt after the strike. As a kid we probably averaged about three games a season - the straight A tickets, my grandfather's friend's season tickets in the blue seats, and another game sometime at Riverfront. In high school it was a bit more - I remember feeling triumphant at having attended one game in every month of the season and vowing to do that for the rest of my life, having no idea of what real life is like. In my days at Miami U in the late nineties I went to maybe five games - none in 1998 or 1999. It took the signing of Ken Griffey, Jr. to return to fulltime Reds fandom. Then it was Army time. I squeezed a couple of games in June before heading off to Basic for the rest of the season and spent two years in Monterey, though I still managed to get back to Cincinnati to catch a couple of games.

I ended up in Washington, where I've mostly been since 2003, aside from 2008 in Ohio, 3 months iin Bulgaria, and 4 months in Beirut. But my time in Washington has been as an adult with an adult salary, so I've managed to get back to Cincinnati for three games every year, though I'm not going to get back there for this season unless it's for October baseball on account of saving up for a September trip to Paris and Beirut.

So that brings me to how many times I've seen the Reds at home. I'd estimate that I saw 50 games at Riverfront and 20 games at Great American Ball(p)ark for a total of 70 games in Cincinnati over the course of my life.

The Nationals came to DC in 2005. I went to 50 games at RFK over 3 years, missed 2008 because I was in Ohio, went to 10 games last year and have been to 4 games so far this year for a total of 64, but given that I'm sure to go to 4-5 more this year, that puts me about even with games in Cincinnati and RFK about a tie with Riverfront.

Because the Nationals weren't here when I first moved to DC, I got my baseball fix at Camden Yards for two seasons and have been back for one or two games a year since. I'd say I've been there 10 or 11 times. Next up is Giants ballpark, where I saw 8 or 9 games when I lived in Monterey, including a World Series game. It is followed by Jacob's Field, Citizen's Bank, and Wrigley Field at 4 games, though I saw a game at Municipal Stadium back in the day so Cleveland has the edge. Jack Murphy Stadium is next at 2 games, including my first Reds game ever at age 1, and Shea and PNC come in at 2 games as well. Old Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and Oakland are all 1 game a piece.

So that's my ballpark bio, typed on Blackberry. Is there any other game on the planet that could inspire such useless but ultimately nostalgically fun thoughts? I think not.

Sacred 600?

2010-07-24T17:40:00.004-04:00

Is A-Rod really about to hit number 600? Why does it feel so ho-hum?

I remember him as a wee lad, a skinny thing with an M's uniform and a genuine smile. I tore the cover off a Beckett Baseball Card Monthly with his face on it and hung it on my dorm wall in college. He's only a year older than I am, but he was playing Major League Baseball when I was still in high school.

I stopped liking him as a player after the things he said about Ken Griffey, Jr. when the Reds got him. I was even more disgusted at the outrageous sums of money he received when he went to Texas, but when he threw the fit about his contract with the Yankees - a contract HE signed - and demanded the contract be renegotiated despite the fact that he was the highest paid player in baseball, well, that made him become one of my least favorite players of all time.

I've written before how I really don't care about steroids, how they are just another technological advance that players didn't have back in the "good old days" and that it's a Nancy Reagan view of drugs that make steroid players evil in the eyes of society. I've written about how the "good old days" have never really existed, too, but that's not saying things haven't changed or that the business of baseball often drowns out the game itself. It's not just player salaries or greed. People criticize him but see nothing wrong with selling historic homerun balls for hundreds of thousands of dollars, average Joes and Janes who want to cash in on a bit of luck rather than just appreciating the game for what it is - a game. People complain about how expensive it is to go to a baseball game but they don't see that they don't need to buy concessions or souvenirs that will just sit on shelves.

The fact is, Alex Rodriguez wanted to be the best in the game, and he would do anything to get there, and that is just a product of the society we live in, where doing the right thing is only right when it doesn't come with a high dollar profit and enjoying life is a measure of how many possessions one has rather than the number of breaths he takes each day.

The number 600 feels cheapened, but I don't blame steroids. The mystique of the great game of baseball is vanishing, and that's not simply misguided nostalgia or a kids-these-days mentality. I don't know what it is. I'm struggling to understand time and space and the evolution of humanity, and baseball is a mere reflection of the rise and decline of an empire and the struggles of a society to overcome its flaws and wrongs. What? It is! From it being the first professional sport (evolution of capitalist entertainment industry) to its racial separation and subsequent integration (before the Civil Rights Movement began) to its becoming the corporate behemoth it is today, baseball is the story of America.

Someday I'll look back on the career of Alex Rodriguez, look at that long list of stats and just marvel at what he was able to accomplish. But he'll never achieve the mythical quality of those I never got to watch, probably because I got to see his entire career when I was old enough to appreciate it.

But I can't help feeling Ken Griffey, Jr. is already a mythical creature. And so is Bonds. Go figure.

It's deja vu all over again...

2010-07-23T14:18:00.003-04:00

I hate losing to bad teams. I hate losing to bad teams who think they are just a step or two away from being good teams. (Sure, if those steps are like a decade long, I guess they're right.)

It's funny how you can feel on top of the world one day but the next day feel like a season is over. Just like that, I find myself losing interest in the Reds. Two losses to a bad team and wham! I feel like moving on. I just don't want to invest any more emotion only to be disappointed again. I'm glad we don't play the Cardinals right now, because surely that would be the end.

I hate all this talk of wild cards, as if the tiny WC lead the Reds have can't be overcome by two or three other teams.

Maybe it's because I'm sick in the middle of summer and it's going to be 110 degrees this weekend. Or maybe I feel Disappointment creeping up again. Or maybe I'm just at the low point of a cyclical mood swing. Who knows? I'm not saying the season is over or that I won't be excited again next week. But something doesn't feel right.

And can't we wait until the end of the season before we start talking about contract extensions with Dusty Baker?

And I'll form the head!

2010-07-17T12:37:00.001-04:00

It's not a hill, it's a mountain...but we're gonna make it all the way to the light...

2010-07-16T23:35:00.008-04:00

Welcome to "If I Were a Sportswriter," the game where I pretend like I actually get paid to write about baseball.

Cincinnati, Ohio (CoB) - Sweltering summer heat was no match for Cincinnati Reds starter Bronson Arroyo, who earned his tenth win on the season with a victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night. Arroyo gave up two runs in seven innings in front of a large crowd of 37,188 at Great American Ball(p)ark, most of whom had found themselves in the stadium after being sucked through a time machine back to 1990.

Arroyo himself nearly was transported through the machine back to Toronto, Canada. After six brilliant innings and one ok inning, he gave up a homer in the eighth to Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo, which was needlessly reviewed and left the Reds clinging to a one run lead. Shaken and stirred after the umpires confirmed the homer, the blond haired rocker put two on with no outs before Reds manager Dusty Baker went to rescue him, replacing the one time All Star with current All Star Arthur Rhodes, himself having gone through a time machine earlier in the season back to the days of his youth.

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him," said Baker to Rhodes as his badass self reached the mound. But some Reds fans in the stands, who had witnessed too many bullpen meltdowns even as they worshiped at the alter of Arthur, shouted such things as "Oh god! The Deadbirds are up four nothing on the Dodgers!" and "If we blow this, we're gonna be in second place!"

Arthur replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." A bunch of fans ran to buy hotdogs and topped them with mustard. And so, after walking the first batter, he moved those Rockies off the basepaths with a popup and two badass strikeouts to preserve the Reds' one run lead. "You can't touch this," he said as he strutted to the dugout.

The ninth inning was not without drama, as Caca Cordero took the mound and allowed his customary coronary before he sealed the game and recorded his 25th save in 400 opportunities. As the last out was mercifully recorded, Reds fans could hear the immortal words echoing through the depths of their souls, the most beautiful seven words in human language: "...and this one belongs to the Reds!"

On MC Hammer night...

2010-07-16T16:21:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1990 the #Reds beat the #Expos 8-3. Tim Layana was the winner. Reds were 7.5 games up on the Giants at 54-31.

3013 Miles

2010-07-15T22:51:00.002-04:00

I can feel the heartbreak every time I think about it. It's like the souls of those New Yorkers who breathed Giants and Dodgers baseball can't rest, like they are condemned to roam the Earth for as long as California holds captive their beloveds. I feel the shadow of their devastation in the black and white footage of the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field, the cold fist of avarice smashing the innocence from a people.

Baseball. No other name for a sport can inspire so much emotion and memories as the great game of baseball. Football is named after the grossest body part. Basketball is named after something you put fruit in. Hockey is named after bored Irish shepherds who'd hit around a ball with their staves while watching their sheep. Soccer sounds like domestic abuse, and golf sounds like an environmental disaster. But baseball invokes feelings of safety and security, the foundation of nostalgia.

Ken Burns' Baseball is not about baseball. It's about America.

This documentary has been on PBS for the last couple of weeks. I had never seen it before (surprising, I know), but I've been watching several segments of it after Reds games, and I have to say, it is beautiful. But it seems to hurt more than anything.

Baseball has always been a business. In fact, the whole history of the world is business. Commerce - that's the sexier term - Chamber of Commerce and Department of Commerce and Commerica. Business is busy, but commerce is calm, smoooooth. Games are supposed to be leisure but then leisure became business and we were left slaving away in business so we could enjoy leisure. The Dodgers were Brooklyn more than anything else in Brooklyn but then they were gone and a hole was left in dark blue hearts, and hallowed Ebbets became hollowed and then it vanished. Where was the loyalty, they asked, but there is no loyalty in business. There is no loyalty or love or life, only money. Only money. They said it felt like a death in the family and I can imagine it. There was no Paxil or Prozac then but they could have put it in the water supply if there had been.

You look at the old footage without the colors and the high definition and you are taken back to a time that never really existed. We look back at shots of the Babe and Stan the Man and the Splendid Splinter and we are flooded with nostalgia for something most of us never experienced and we think about the good old days. The fans - mostly men - in their hats and suits seem so...innocent and happy in the time before California baseball. Yet if you asked them, they'd see nothing wrong with the way they treated people with dark skin.

We're not that far removed from that time, and it seems that racism is back en vogue. Racism cut short Jackie's career. It killed Josh Gibson. Curt Flood said, "I am pleased God made my skin black. I wish he had made it thicker." It makes me physically sick to my stomach when I watch footage and interviews of what black players had to go through and see tears well up in the eyes of a guy like Flood. They well up in mine.

But we still cling to this notion of the good old days and we are excited as children in talking about these mythical creatures who are the gods of this religion we call baseball. We filter out the past or pat ourselves on the backs for how far we've come, and why shouldn't we? When it all comes down to it we are really just stupid creatures who don't even know if the universe is infinite or not, so we take our pleasure in games and look at the past as if it is merely a story book. Baseball when it isn't breaking our hearts is filling them with joy and that is enough to get through another day.

Los Angeles is 3,013 miles from New York City, just about as far away from Brooklyn fans as O'Malley could get. Hard to believe that Dodger Stadium is the third oldest ballpark in baseball these days. Things never change. My, how we've thrown away our heritage and our history in the name of the Almighty Dollar. But that is life and we've been doing it for eternity.

More Cubs Vottoversy

2010-07-15T00:15:00.002-04:00

This is too awesome.

They just grow up to be Cubs fans anyway. Ha ha.

The lowest rated All Star game in television history (since we kept track)

2010-07-14T00:39:00.011-04:00

I had only completed my freshman year of college the last time the National League won the All Star game. It was the first year of the new Bank€€$ dynasty. It was the fourth year after realignment. It was a year after the Reds went to the NLCS. It was two years after The Strike.

The last time the NL won an All Star game, Hank Aaron was the homerun king, cheating meant a corked bat, and the Br€ad $ox hadn't won a World Series since before women were given the right to vote. It was before no one came to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Kansas City Royals. It was before big screens in every room, before there was a word "blog," before the great game of baseball drowned in the corporatocracy of €mperor Selig.

Last night, the All Star game received the lowest television ratings since we've been keeping track. Why is that? I'd like to throw out the possibility that it's because MLB has allowed €$PN and Fok$ to dictate to us which teams we can watch for more than a decade now, and people are exposed to the same teams, the number which you can count on both hands, and those teams didn't dominate the field. The Br€ad $ox were hurt and there was only one Bank€€ in the starting lineup. There were four Cincinnati Reds and four San Diego Padres on the NL team. (Gasp! They have TEAMS in those cities?)

How else do you explain it? Maybe everyone just turned it off because they thought the game would never start after that five hour pre-game show. Or maybe everyone's electricity went off in thunderstorms. Or maybe everyone is unemployed and had to sell their televisions. Is there a new Harry Potty movie that came out last night that I don't know about?

Meanwhile, the ratings were way up in Cincinnati, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching our guys. That victory felt like a Reds victory for me. It was exciting, it was worth watching, it was fun. How awesome was it to see Rolen and Phillips on the same All Star infield or to watch Votto and Rolen bat back-to-back? (You may have missed Votto if you blinked during either of his two ABs.)

So when the Reds are playing at Great American Ball(p)ark for Game 1 of the World Series against the Texass Rangers, will no one in the country outside of Cincinnati and Ohio expats and Dallas watch? (Who DID shoot JR?) Will €$PN and Fok$ and NB¢ conspire to destroy these two teams to ensure they don't make the playoffs and lower their ratings? (My tinfoil hat has a wishbone C on it.)

Major League Baseball thought it was making baseball more popular by promoting a handful of teams while ignoring the rest. In the end, it's going to kill it. Only 36% of Americans say they follow the "national pastime." Why should someone from Milwaukee or Oakland or Houston who wasn't born a baseball fan follow baseball in their hometowns (even when their teams are winning) when it's like those teams don't even exist on a map of America?

Who except us diehards knew Matt Thornton or Martin Prado or Evan Meeks or Matt Capps or John Buck or Omar Infante or Cory Hart (the other one) or Ian Kinsler or Andrew Bailey or that Ryan Braun is in reality bad at defense? I mean, people don't even know one of the best players in the game - Joey Votto - or the best non-Chutley second baseman in the game - Brandon Phillips. How would they? They're never on national television, and the major sports sites rarely give them any attention.

The Reds are going to be good for a long time, but will there be a bandwagon? Most people don't know that Cincinnati had the first professional team or has won more World Series than all but five teams (and tied with two others, plus Boston won all but two of theirs before the existence of the Soviet Union, so do they really count? Also, the Reds won an American Association title in 1882 when the AA was considered a Major League. They were only in it because they got kicked out of the National League for selling beer and playing on Sundays.)

I know the All Star game is a circus these days. I know I complain about this small market stuff all the time. I know the Reds were awful for the last decade. I know the Bank€€$ have been to 40 of the 105 World Series that have been played and their dominance is nothing new. It seems something about the game has fundamentally changed, and the lowest rated All Star game in television history is an indication of that.

But baseball has always been a business. It's just enshrouded in nostalgia and mystique and childhood memories that keep it pure in our minds.

Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!

2010-07-13T08:38:00.004-04:00

In the last ten or fifteen years, I have probably skipped more All Star games than I have watched. Why?

1. It's a spectacle, not a baseball game. Excessive pomp and circumstance has buried the actual baseball. As a kid, I remember All Star games as fun - the memory of Larry Walker putting his helmet on backwards and batting from the wrong side of the plate stands out in my mind.

The phrase "pomp and circumstance" comes from Othello (Act III, Scence III):

I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

This is after Iago lies to Othello about his wife's infidelity.

Modern All Star games are infidel to the game of baseball.

2. There are too many teams in MLB, resulting in too many not good players on All Star rosters. People complain about the rule of having one from every team, but I wouldn't watch without a Reds player on the roster, and I'm sure there are others like me.

I'm an advocate of contraction. There should not be baseball teams in Florida - nobody goes to the games anyway. Florida is for Spring Training. Thirty teams has watered down the pool of talent and contributed to having guys like Omar Infante on All Star rosters (ok, so that one's Manuel's doing.)

3. The internet has destroyed any meaning the fan vote had. Granted, the fan vote has always had its flaws (Larkin should have started at least two or three of the games Ozzie did), but at least it was more, well, legitimate? Now you can vote a billion times with a few clicks. Bored at work? Click click click! It's gotten so bad that teams are actively trying to stuff ballot boxes (1957'd).

4. The unlevel playing field that arose during Selig's reign between large and small market teams, admittedly ignoring historical New York dominance, the advent of free agency, and the willful incompetence of Carl Linder, has made me disinterested in watching someone from the Pirates or the Royals come to bat. (I imagine people feel that way about the Reds, or at least felt, but at least we had some decent players like Griffey and Dunn over the last decade, though Dunn usually got the shaft.) Selig's inability to put more salary controls than the Yankees/Red Sox revenue sharing scheme has given rise to the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Angels/Cubs/Cardinals/token other two teams annual playoff scenario.

5. MLB has partnered with E$PN and Fox$ to dictate to us what teams to watch, instituting a blackout policy that has fans of other teams yelling at that television sets and cursing baseball. Without looking it up, I'd be willing to bet that 90% of nationally televised games on these channels have featured at least one of these teams: Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Cardinals, Phillies. There are 22 other teams in baseball. People see players from these teams and vote for them. I don't want to watch a Phillies-Yankees All Star game. I want to watch the best players on my team mix with the best players from other teams.

6. The current All Star games lack the luster of historical ones. Who among us has not seen footage of Pete Rose plowing into Ray Fosse or Tony Perez's blast in '67 or Reggie Jackson hitting the light tower at Tiger Stadium? But can you name one memorable moment from the last decade? I mean aside from the tie?

So I am usually indifferent to the All Star game for these reasons. The "this time it counts" nonsense is the moldy icing on the stale cake. The NL hasn't had homefield advantage in what - a decade? When half of the AL team comes from the almost $400 million payroll of the Yank Sox, how is the NL supposed to compete?

But this time, I'm interested. Excited, even.

Four Cincinnati Reds are going to the All Star game. FOUR Cincinnati Reds get to show that country that this historical franchise has returned to the glory of its past. Some past All Star facts:

In 1975, the Reds had four starters - Bench, Morgan, Rose, and Concepcion - as well as a reserve - Perez.
In 1976, the Reds had five starters - Bench, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, and Foster - as well as two reserves - Griffey and Perez.
In 1990, the Reds had two starters - Armstrong and Sabo - and three reserves - Larkin, Dibble, and Myers.

That is, of course, if Charlie Manuel plays them. He couldn’t even pick arguably the leading NL MVP candidate on the original roster – what are the chances he plays him after we took it upon ourselves to get him in? And even after all of the national coverage, Manuel still doesn’t get it, for he chose Ryan Howard as DH.

Guess it’s just another reason not to like the modern All Star game. But hey, FOUR Reds! GO NATIONAL LEAGUE!

Something is wrong with my site - I apologize

2010-07-13T00:40:00.001-04:00

I'll fix it as soon as I can.

To be the best

2010-07-12T23:06:00.004-04:00

Many of us baseball fans played Little League and other youth baseball. If you can think back that far, you might remember your post-game fifty cents at the concession stand when you bought Sour Patch Kids or Big League Chew, or maybe you remember wearing your uniform to the Dairy Queen after the game for a post game Blizzard or Dilly Bar. If you were a decent player, you might also remember your post-season tournament games, and, when older, you might remember hotel rooms and packed vans full of baseball equipment that drove across your summers.

Those traveling games affected my life in so many ways. I’m not sure traveling teams were as vital to success as they are now, but I can remember being asked to catch in a college league during the summer – when I was a freshman in high school. Those summers were awesome as far as being a kid went. I was introduced to the religion called U2 on one of those trips. I’m fairly certain I was introduced to several types of alcohol on those trips, too. I got to travel to Australia for one tournament, and I’ve been traveling every since.

But! This post is not about me. It is the story of a boy who played youth baseball and was good enough to advance to the next level, and the next, and the next, and was good enough for someone to pay him to play baseball so he could make a career of it. In small towns across America he pitched, and he got better and better and suddenly found himself pitching in Major League Baseball. It wasn’t a glorious position – though he started games early in his career, he soon moved to the pen. Middle relief may be vital to getting to the post-season, but it’s the least acknowledged.

He paid his dues. He pitched an inning here, an inning there, became respected among those who know but was a nobody among those who aren’t sure. He moved through his thirties off the radar, and then, what every young person fears – he turned forty years old.

On Independence Day 2010, almost four decades from the day of his birth, Arthur Rhodes made an All Star team.

The man hasn’t stopped smiling since. Can you imagine the joy he is feeling right now? Can you imagine winding down your career – good, but without your name in lights – and suddenly drinking from the fountain of youth, making your first All Star game one or two or three years from retirement? Can you imagine the accumulation of your life’s work finally culminating to being named one of the best in the entire world? Can you imagine the joy in your heart?

There are people who say Arthur needs the rest and shouldn’t pitch in the All Star game. I ask: why would you try to deny him this? Why would you try to deny him the joy of this, to be called the best, at least for one game. After all he’s worked for, after all the years of doing the inglorious job of middle relief? The man is having the time of his life right now.

Go out and kick as, Arthur! We’re rooting for you!

Yep, I'm a Grinch

2010-07-12T12:45:00.000-04:00

I have lived in Washington, DC for most of the last seven years. I arrived with a car full of things in April 2003 and spent the first two baseball seasons watching the Baltimore Orioles. They were still semi-respectable then, as a decade had yet to pass without a post-season appearance. Camden Yards is still a great park today, though it echos sad songs of past glory among the empty green seats.

One fine March Saturday in 2005 I set my alarm clock for 6am and traveled to RFK Stadium for the first time to stand in line for Opening Day tickets. Baseball had returned to Washington. It was 7am, but I was wide awake, listening to stories told by old men who spoke of the Senators with a gleam in their eyes as if standing in that line had made them 30 years younger.

Was that a fun season, or what? No one expected that team to compete, yet there they were, sitting on top of the NL East at the end of June after losing only 6 games all month. Too bad July had to arrive. By the time the Cincinnati Reds rolled into Washington at the beginning of August, the Nats situation was so dire that I found myself rooting against my beloved Reds, for they had long since succumbed to their own mediocrity and were no longer in the race. Desperation filled RFK. The NL East lead had slipped away, and the Wild Card chances were unraveling, but the games were still meaningful. They haven't been since.

With the exception of 2008 when I was not in DC, I've gone to about 15-20 Nats games every season. In 2007, I had a partial season ticket plan that I received as a birthday present. I would call myself a Nationals fan.

But I feel that slipping away.

Why? Because I am so thoroughly annoyed by the Stephen Strasburg hype that I can hardly stand to read anything Nationals. Bill Ladsen, the Nationals beat writer for MLB.com, even tweeted to me that Strasburg was the second coming of Christ. They call Strasburg's starts "Strasmas." Half the city walks around in Strasburg jerseys. And they feel they were slighted that a pitcher who only had four big league starts was not chosen for the All Star game.

Guess what? The Nationals are still awful, and they will be for quite awhile.

I suppose I'm a bit spoiled because I was born a fan of the first professional baseball team. The Braves may lay claim to the "oldest continuous franchise" title, but that spans 3 cities. With the exception of 1871-1875 and 1880-1881 (we got kicked out of the National League for selling beer and playing games on Sundays), Cincinnati has had a professional baseball team since 1869. There's a reason we get to start every Opening Day at home. We've been around, and we know how to be baseball fans.

Were we pumped to see Jay Bruce's first game? Yes. Homer Bailey's? Yes. Johnny Cueto's? Yes. Mike Leake's? yes. Did I travel five hours in standstill traffic in 90 degree heat and no air conditioner to see Jay Bruce and Joey Votto play in Richmond a few years ago? Yes. Are we pumped to see Aroldis Chapman's Major League Debut sometime in the near future? Heck yes, oh heck yes.

But we also have perspective. When Jay or Homer or Johnny came up, we knew we weren't going to win in those seasons. Granted, they aren't of the same stock as Strasburg, but both Jay and Homer were the best prospects in baseball, hitting and pitching-wise.

Do Nationals fans have something to look forward to in the future? Yes. With young guys like Strasburg, Clippard, Storen, Zimmerman, and Desmond, it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel of the misery of the last five years. At last there is something to be excited about. But come on. On Friday, there was a Strasburg press conference after the game. A meaningless game. A meaningless game in which he only went 6 innings.

Don't get me wrong. I know Strasburg is a rare talent. But perspective is needed, and that's something Natstown seems to be lacking. It's pushing longtime baseball fans like me AWAY from the team while attracting casual fans who are always willing to jump on the bandwagon of the trendy thing. All I ask is for a little perspective. And to resign Dunn.

Perspectator

2010-07-11T16:43:00.005-04:00

Sports are an emotion thing. In fact, they're all emotion, because there is no rational or biological reason for a human being to follow a sports team. I'd venture to say that baseball is more emotional than other sports (at least when your team is in contention) because your team plays almost every day for six months, and one day you could feel invincible and the next you feel like your season is over.

It's one thing to comment about a player's playing time or to question why a non-performing player is repeatedly put into the same situation. Fans will get emotional and call for heads to roll on occasion. It's a whole other thing to declare:

"In all my years of watching Reds baseball, this is the most frustrating and disgusting series I have ever seen."

Unless the 2010 season is your first season of Reds baseball, that is just nonsense.

The Reds are in first place at the All Star break. They have four players going to the Midsummer Classic. One of their rookie pitchers took a brilliant game into the ninth inning and the next night another rookie took a perfect game into the ninth inning against one of the game's best pitchers. Another rookie pitcher gave up only one run in the next start. And this was a disgusting series? They lead the National League in several offensive categories, but a baseball season is long, and there will be hiccups along the way. It's called Baseball.

The ninth inning collapse on Friday was a horrific inning, but for 8.1 innings, the Reds played brilliantly. The other games were 4-3 and 1-0 in extras and 1-0 in regulation. Hardly disgusting.

Another gem:

"Reds are an embarrassment to the game of baseball."

Did I mention that the Reds are in first place at the All Star break? Or that they have four players going to the Midsummer Classic? Or that they lead the National League in several offensive categories? Or that their young pitchers kick ass?

Perspective. Seemingly as rare as common sense these days.

That Tottlin' Town - Part 3

2010-07-11T15:06:00.000-04:00

Sunday, July 4, 2010, Chicago USA. The day was hot but not blazing; the people were blue and red in the old stadium. Mike Leake was on the mound. We liked our chances. We never expected the ball to go flying out of Wrigley like Southwest flies from Midway, but it did, and it did again and again and again and again and again and again. Seven of them, three of them by Drew Stubbs and one by some guy named Paul Janish, who was only playing because a certain snubbed All Star first baseman had been thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes.

It was really unbelievable to see those baseballs fly out of the ballpark and watch the numbers on the scoreboard go up and up and up. We watched as a few of them off the bats of Stubbs and Miller leave the stadium and bounce on Waveland Avenue. You always see that on television, but it's really great to see in real life. I mean, when your team is the one hitting the bombs. Some Chub$ chump hit two out, too, but that was the extent of their meager offense. The Reds outscored the Chub$ 30-8 in that four game series.

The thing about our seats was the sheer number of beer vendors - sometimes there would be three all bunched up in the aisle and blocking the ballgame. Seriously, it's too much.

Chub$ fans were pretty quiet during the game for obvious reasons. I'd make a note about Mike Leake's greatness right here, but just his names stirs up painful memories of last night's travesty and Caca Cordero.

Here are my previous posts about the trip:

That Toddlin' Town Part 1
That Toddlin' Town Part 2

Other photos from the homerun derby:

That Toddlin' Town

2010-07-11T00:26:00.002-04:00

My trip to Chicago USA over 4th of July weekend 2010 to see the Cincinnati Reds take on the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Music by Frank Sinatra and Sufjan Stevens, both songs titled "Chicago." Photos are mine. I honestly don't know how the picture you see when the video isn't playing is stuck on the scoreboard, but HA!

Hope you catch my subtle jabs at the Cubs.

Feel free to share. (Just give me the credit for the photos, please!)

We are the lucky ones, not the better ones

2010-07-10T14:55:00.004-04:00

This is a church. Here is a sermon. Listen up and get rid of the vermin.

The game is played using a small, white sphere stitched in red by the hands of the very poor. They work long, hot hours for little pay, pumping out 2.4 million baseballs a year to be shipped to a place called the United States of America.

Once upon a time, this place called America was a land of dreams, a beacon of hope, a place of magic where you could come to escape persecution and oppression from any part of the world, where one could break free from the chains of poverty and make a decent life for his family.

Today it seems like a mythical land.

Yet the myth persists in the minds of so many, especially at this time of year when people wave their flags and proclaim their pride to be something most of them had no choice in being. Coincidence of birth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Each of those baseballs is only used for a few minutes until it is battered by men making millions of dollars to play a child's game. The workers in Costa Rica make about $2750 in a year. That's about $50-$60 a week, much more than the $15-$20 a week the Haitian workers made before a coup forced Rawlings to move its factory.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The consent of the governed. What does this mean? The Haitians didn't choose their government - it was taken over by military force. We didn't choose to be Americans, either. We got lucky. Our ancestors were for the most part the bottom dwellers of their societies, and we benefited. Did we consent to this government?

Well, yes. We have consented for 234 years, and when there was a problem, we amended our governing document. We consent with our actions, but not just voting. It is not difficult to go to a polling station once a year and spend five minutes in a voting booth. If that's all the time you have to spend on America, then you really shouldn't be complaining about the government.

No, action is much more than a ballot box. Action is volunteering for campaigns, knocking on doors, making phone calls. Action is donating to campaigns, not only for politicians but for causes that are just and right and in line with American principles which promote human rights and freedom. Action is writing letters to your congressional representatives and senators and executives in corporations and the editors of newspapers. Action is serving your country in the United States Armed Forces instead of cheering wars from the sidelines.

But most of all, action is informing yourselves and being aware of the world that you impact every time you make a choice.

Today is the anniversary of the cancellation of the 1945 All Star game due to travel restrictions placed during World War II. It got me thinking about how ballplayers fought in the war, and not just the B players, either, but stars like Ted Williams. Can you imagine today's pampered players serving their country? Everyone made a big deal when Pat Tillman joined the Army, but why? He was just doing his American duty. Hardly any Americans serve their country anymore.

Despite four Reds on the team, the 2010 All Star events will have a green theme this year. MLB has teamed up with the National Resources Defense Council (you can follow them on Facebook) to promote environmentally responsible practices. I am so proud of Major League Baseball, which has been at the forefront of social progress in America throughout its history, most notably when Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers more than a decade before the Civil Rights movement.

I can already hear a certain segment of the population moaning. I just don't get it. Or maybe I do. Most Americans cannot see the consequences of their actions, therefore do not think about them. Some even deny these consequences exist. They chalk it up to "propaganda" by their political opponents because it doesn't fit with their narrow world view. A small minority don't care that their actions are negatively affecting the world. You can't change these people because they are sociopaths (in the clinical sense), but you can help others understand that the choices they make in their lives DO affect others. I am a fairly well-traveled individual, my most recent trip being a four month stint in Beirut. I am pretty cognizant of the world around me, too, but wow, were my eyes opened wider during my stay.

The consequences of climate change in Lebanon are visible to the naked eye. Desertification is ravaging the agriculture industry and is responsible for the frequent forest fires that are destroying the biblical cedars of Lebanon and what little forest cover the country has left. Water is becoming more and more scarce in this mountainous, beautiful land.

Where there is no water, there is conflict.

We didn't know the consequences our actions had on the planet until recently. As human beings, we have a right to water to drink, air to breathe, and the food we need to survive. That's why environmental issues are human rights issues.

Once upon a time, America really was that thing so many of us think it still is. Do the world a favor as we head into the All Star break. Think about what it means to be an American. I mean really think about it. Think about how lucky you are to have been born here when so many people of the world have nothing. Think about what your ancestors went through to come here, how they had to leave their homes behind to search for a better life. Think about the leadership role we play in promoting human rights and liberties.

Think about the choices you make. Think about what you buy. Pay attention to the consequences of your actions. Think about how buying a new phone every time one comes out is contributing to the mass slaughter and brutal rape of Africans. Think about how your gas guzzling vehicle contributes to such disasters as the BP catastrophe. Think about how your coffee consumption could be fueling child slave labor. Think about how many people on this earth are working in dangerous conditions for very little pay so we can live our fat cat lifestyles. Think.

It's not liberalism. It's humanity. It's not being a hypocrite. It's being an American.

America was founded on the principles of human rights and freedom. Let's stay true to our principles and reclaim our place in the world as the beacon of light and hope that brought so many of our ancestors here. And GO NATIONAL LEAGUE!

(This was supposed to be published on Independence Day, but I didn't have time to finish it before I headed off to Chicago.)

The Morning After

2010-07-10T12:00:00.003-04:00

Rain falls softly on the East Coast on this Saturday morning, bringing with it not only a respite from the oppressive heat we have been suffering over the last week, but also bringing a heavy humidity that leaves everything damp and uncomfortable. The whole world seems gray and ugly. I woke up early this morning and smiled when I saw the time on the clock - I could go back to sleep and not feel guilty for sleeping the day away.

But this is a day to sleep away.

Still shellshocked from last night's whatever the heck that was, I feel the grayness envelope my spirit. I struggle to breathe the clammy air. It wasn't a nightmare, was it? It was losing a game after being up by six runs with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Suddenly, all of the confidence we had built up, all of the progress we had made in opening our hearts to this team after refusing to believe it was legit because we didn't want to be let down again, it was all blasted away by a few bats.

His name is Caca Cordero, and he smells really bad.

The league leader in saves, the league leader in blown saves, this piece of Caca of a pitcher reeks of processed meatballs and homeplates of wildness. He has always been an artery clogging type of pitcher who has induced his share of heart attacks, but recently he has been especially atrocious. Caca stinks, and his owner the Reds just leave him lying on the mound instead of putting him in the rubbish bin.

Are we overreacting? Perhaps. But for the past decade, there's always been that one turning point where seemingly decent seasons get pooped on by one or two games. This just feels like one of those times, and yes, do we know the feeling well.

But this team is different, isn't it? Isn't that what we've been saying all along? Well, flinging Caca at opposing hitters just makes them mad. It isn't working, and someone better cleanup this mess before it sets into the rug of victory and makes a stain on 2010.

I know we're still in first place (probably 2 games in front after tonight), but

2010-07-09T22:28:00.003-04:00

At least stop putting him into close games. This is ridiculous.

This is ridiculous.

This is ridiculous.

$#@!

Is this the real life? Is it just fantasy?

2010-07-08T10:06:00.002-04:00

I chose to watch the Reds game on E$PN last night for a national perspective and just to watch it on a big television screen rather than the tiny computer screen.

The beginning was a Joey lovefest. Joe Morgan interviewed him before the game and Joey couldn't stop smiling. He is clearly loving the attention, even if he says it doesn't matter - he looks like a kid at Christmas. And wow, he really was upset - rightly so - in not making the All Star team. I hope he mashes the Phillies this week.

I have the Rockies-Deadbirds game on right now, cheering for Colorado like I actually cared about that team. Dexter Fowler is a hero. Jimenez is, too. I don't think twice about these guys for 156 games of the year.

The season began ho-hum enough. Like a lot of Reds fans, I didn't have the same level of enthusiasm for the start of the season as I had in the past. It didn't seem like the team had tried to improve much, and I knew better than to be fooled for the tenth season in a row. Losing on our Holy Opening Day was just icing on the ho-hum cake. April seemed pretty crappy - the team went 12-11 and there was still a long season ahead. Then suddenly it was June 1 and we were in first and everyone was looking for signs that it was all a fluke. You know the Texas saying (maybe it's Tennessee), "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...uh...uh, you can't get fooled again."

We passed the halfway point in the season a few games ago and now we're three games up on the Hated Deadbirds and find ourselves wondering what the heck is going on. How are we supposed to act? Why are we watching a Rockies-Deadbirds game and cheering as the Rockies go up 4-1 in the 5th? Why did we just spend a great deal of time in the last few days voting for a fourth Red for the All Star team? Four? Really?

Last night's E$PN game seemed like they were introducing the Cincinnati Reds to America. From the Joey interview to the in-game commentary that was much more about the Reds than the Mets, it seemed like E$PN was showcasing our team for much more national attention to come.

Is this the real life? Or are we going to be let down like we have been so many seasons in the past decade? It certainly feels different. It certainly feels legit. And god, is it fun.

That Toddlin' Town - Part 2

2010-07-07T07:24:00.000-04:00

One can hardly imagine a more beautiful day than July 3, 2010 in Chicago, USA.

It would have been more beautiful with less Chub$ fans in the world, but hey, we can't always have everything we want. The Bleacher Experience at Wrigley Field is, well, if you're a grown up, not something you want to do again. (But if you're a Chub$ fan, go ahead and pay $50 for a general admission ticket to a baseball game where you have to line up at 10:30 in the morning for a 12:00 game and there aren't any beer vendors because you're all too drunk to handle them.)

We were staying near the airport and took a train into the city every day. Because it was the Taste of Chicago, the trains were running late, and we didn't get to the ballpark until 11am for a 12:05 game. (Oh, but that Polish sausage smothered with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and mustard I had at ToC the night before was divine.) I had to pick up tickets at will call, stand in the wrong line to get into the park, walk around the whole stadium to the bleacher entrance after we were told it was the wrong line, wait in line, get told the line on Waveland was shorter than Sheffield, stand in that line which wasn't shorter, enter, try to walk buy the beer concessions only to be told you had to have an ID bracelet, went to get the ID bracelet, went to find a seat, discovered there were no seats, asked the usher about it, got a rude answer, ended up finding seats, didn't move for six innings out of fear of losing the seats.

Because it was a holiday weekend, the tickets were more expensive than other games, which may have kept the really super obnoxious drunks away, because I didn't see any. Then again, the game started at noon, so that could have helped a bit.

The Reds didn't get a hit until the fourth or fifth inning. It's not like they were facing Cliff Lee, but they made Randy Wells look like Cliff Lee. I tried to start a #randywellsnohitter hashtag on Twitter to jinx it, and I guess it worked!

I should have started a #comeonredsletsgetsomeoffense hashtag, because they couldn't score runs. I thought maybe they should have saved some of those runs from the previous day's 12-0 romp. They ended up losing 3-0, but the Chub$ fans weren't rude to us in the Cincinnati gear. I guess they know their place in 2010! Anyway, some more pictures from the Johnny Cueto-Randy Wells match up on Saturday.

That Toddlin' Town - Part 1

2010-07-06T17:42:00.016-04:00

Have you voted Votto yet?

If there's anything all non-Chub$ baseball fans can agree on, it's that it's fun to make fun of Chub$ fans.

They don't deserve that gem of a park they play in.

I've been to Wrigley Field a few times in my life now, and it never gets old. I mean, yeah, the park gets old - it's quite old now - but the experience never does. This is how baseball is meant to be enjoyed - a day game, none of that Playstation garbage in the concourse, no pop music blaring from the speakers, no flashing television screen - just good old fashioned baseball, where people actually sit in their seats, watch the game, talk to each other, and enjoy each other's company.

For all the obnoxiousness of Chub$ fans, it sure is nice to see people excited about their baseball team, even if they haven't won a World Series since 1908 and have to resort to stories of curses to explain away their suckitude. I really love the rooftop culture, although it's sad how corporate it's become. Still, it's pretty freaking cool to walk down Sheffield or Waveland and watch people with their team's colors splashed across their bodies. If only they could name their team's starting lineup...

I love taking the train to a ballgame. Places where that isn't possible are missing that element of excitement that is found in places like Chicago, New York, and even Washington where you see the team names and know you're getting to go to a baseball game. There's none of the headache of finding and paying for parking, and you feel a sense of camaraderie with those around you on the train, even if you are rooting for opposite teams, because you're all Baseball fans, sharing this tiny quality in this vast universe.

It was nice of them to fly both an Ohio flag and a Cincinnati flag on the outside of the stadium. I can't think of any other stadium that does that.

I'll have more about my trip to see the Reds play at Wrigley last weekend, but I gotta go vote some more for Votto, so here are some other photos: