Seasons of Baseball

As I am watching the Tigers game on account of the Reds off day and the Nats versus Giants game late tonight, I thought I'd reflect a bit on what I remember of the 1984 Tigers.

It was a time when I was first becoming cognizant of the world around me, when I had already realized that change is a fact of life. I had recently moved to Ohio - it was my second baseball season there, and I had already attended my first Riverfront game. The details of the season are hazy, as I was seven years old, so I can be permitted a little fuzz in my memory, right?

I have a very clear recollection of Sparky Anderson in the Tigers dugout. Sparky had become somewhat of a mythical creature to me after hearing my family tell stories of the Big Red Machine, so I understood the greatness that encircled the man. Back then, some of the playoff and World Series games were day games, so I was able to see bits of them without having to go to bed. But what I remember most about that year wasn't the games. I can't tell you how many games Jack Morris won that season, or how many home runs Kirk Gibson hit. I don't remember what Lou Whitaker's batting average was, nor do I know how many double plays Alan Trammel turned. No, my greatest memory of that team was the Lance Parrish poster on the basement door of my Great Aunt's house in the suburbs of Detroit. (She is a big Tigers fan; I'm sure she's thrilled about the team's success this year.) He became the face of the Tigers in my very young mind - he looked so cool on that poster.

The Tigers beat the Padres four games to one that year, their last appearance in a World Series. Lance Parrish only played in Detroit for two more seasons after that, seeing limited playing time in his final year. By the time I started collecting baseball cards, he had gone to the Phillies, and my '87 Topps card of him in the Tigers gear was outdated. The man who had defined the Detroit Tigers for me would never again don their uniform. I felt great disappointment, only one of many disappointments the game would give to me over the years, and I wondered what my Great Aunt would do with her poster. But I had already learned a fundamental tenet of baseball, of life - change will always happen, and that is the only thing you can't change.

I suppose change is good. After all, if it didn't happen, teams like the Tigers and the Reds would never get their occasional chance to take a shot at the World Series. I'd love to see the two teams play each other in October.

Holding breath...

Click!

I can't help it. I have no control over what my hand does today. Five hours to go, five hours of suspense, anticipation, hope, dread. I check the news, nothing. Return to work.

Click! There it goes again. This time, there is something. Cormier for Germano? I guess I can handle that. Cormier's had a good year. Casey goes to Tigers. Good for him. (Eyes look down at the document, up again at the screen.) What? Lohse for Ward? What!?! Click for stats. Have we just traded away a future star for another Joe Mays? Disgust. Click.

Click! Oh, only ten minutes have gone by. Getting a little mouse happy.
Click! Soriano's still a Nat. Four hours to go. Back to work with worry on my mind.

Click! Checking Lancaster, Red Reporter, Redleg Nation. Reading what people have to say about the moves so far. Checking the Natmosphere, silence. Oh, the agony. (Please keep Soriano, please keep Soriano, please keep...)

Click! Fingers crossed, eyes closed. Open one eye, picture of Soriano! Ahhh! Wait, it's only about the trade rumors, no trade yet. A's the latest. This morning it was Red Sox. Click...

CLICK! TWENTY MINUTES. Texas and KC have made a deal. Still no word on Soriano. Still no word on a Reds starter. Click, click, click, tick, click...

Fifteen minutes, my heart races. Another trade! Those words make me dizzy. Cubs and Padres. Mets and Pirates? Oh, please don't say Soriano goes to the Marlins. Click!

Tick, tick, 4pm and all is well... Click, click. Maddux a Dodger? Pirates land Chicon for Wilson? Hmm...no Soriano?...I'm still holding my breath. Click!

BREATHING NOW! YES!

Bonsoir elle est partie!

I have some sort of cosmic connection to the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, some parallel pathway to fate with them, like some astrological force keeps sticking me with this team in some metaphysical room in the universe. It has to be true, for before they followed me to DC, I was one of very few people on this planet who watched Les Expos on television. "Why?" you might ask, bewildered by my confession, or perhaps you think I am lying to be "cool" like those people who buy Expos jerseys and caps to wear to RFK (losers!) Nope, sorry, that bandwagon garbage isn't for me.

It was September 1998, my senior year of an all too short college journey. I had spent the previous best-year-of-my-life-thus-far in Luxembourg, where I had learned to appreciate the art of food, good beer, and that glorious gift us English-speaking folk call life. I had developed a modest level of proficiency in la lingua franca ancienne, enough to be able to watch Rodger Brulotte call baseball for Les Expos.

That September gifted us with baseball memories as luminous as the autumn trees that lined the cobblestone streets of Oxford, where I watched them all unfold. It was a time when the whole country was watching, when baseball became our nation's pasttime again, when the man who gave home runs their magic was roused from his eternal slumber to stand in the shadows of two mighty sluggers. Oh, and Roger Maris, too. Proving that God is a baseball fan once again, the teams of the two sluggers played each other on the night the Babe decided it was time to step aside. I can't forget it. Skipping yet another social engagement for baseball, I spread books and papers across the floor of my room as if I actually thought I would study. But I couldn't. I couldn't take my eyes from the television, not wanting to miss a second of this moment in American history, a moment that could end up as legendary as Mr. George Herman himself.

Number 62 was not a thing of beauty; indeed, the mighty slugger in red missed first base as he rounded it. Still, the country had fallen in love with baseball again. I couldn't get enough, that's for sure, and that's when I began watching Les Expos. Yes, it was only a month of baseball, but my brain took rolls and rolls of film during those weeks, and even as many of those pictures fade from my mortal mind, some of them will be there when the last vestiges of my vitality melt away with time and my intellect succumbs to the gray senility of age.

Guerrero frappe un circuit et les Expos gagnent le match! I learned a lot of baseball terms in French by watching those games, though I've forgotten most of them by now. But I can't forget Rodger Brulotte's "Bonsoir elle est partie!" as a Vlad Guerrero ball sailed into the Quebecois night. (And it did that '98 season - they had to play outdoors since pieces of the roof of Stade Olympique kept falling off.) Thirty-eight coups de circuit that year, his first full year in the Majors.

Jose Vidro is the lone player who remains on the team from that year, and I'd love to have him for the rest of his career. I'm hoping that I can carry some Nationals memories with me into the future, recall with fondness games at RFK, capture some of that eternal magic that is baseball. I sure do love those Soriano coups de circuit.

Boy, it's hot today

The heat was always miserable, the air so thick with moisture you could feel yourself laboring to take in a breath. You had as little clothing on as possible – you had to, because what clothing you wore would be soaked through on account of your sweat and the humidity. It wasn’t like faraway Arabian deserts, where the driest air makes it possible, even necessary, to wear long, loose garments to protect from the sun’s inferno. No, this was the Midwest in a city by a river, a sticky, winding waterway where riverboats sat like you were living a Mark Twain novel, the oppressive swelter slowing you to a crawl.

But you loved it. You loved it as you stepped out of your air conditioned car onto the hot gravel parking lot and stretched your legs after your journey. You loved it as you walked across the bridge to eat lunch on Covington Landing, sucking in anything that resembled a breeze as you stood high above the water, swaying and shaking with the bridge and the rumbling of passing cars and trucks. You loved it as you stared up at the massive circular structure in front of you, marveling at its clever curves and concrete ramps, as you stepped on the soft black rubbery stuff on the sidewalk, as you listened to vendors trying to sell their wares, scalpers trying to make a few bucks, kids unable to contain their excitement.

I was born less than three months after the Big Red Machine had won its last World Series, but the spirit of that time haunted every corner of Riverfront Stadium until it imploded into the annals of history books. You could feel baseball there, feel the tradition, the memories of a glorious time in Cincinnati as you sat roasting with the new guys, the Oesters and O'Neills and Larkins who played on an oppressive fake-grass-on-concrete field, where 130 degree temperatures made your 90 degrees feel cool.

Every now and then a hot, humid day like today can take me back to that place no matter what part of the world I am in, whether I am sipping Riesling in the Rhine Valley, walking along the Nile River, or gazing up at the temple of democracy near the banks of the Anacostia here in our nation’s capital. Sometimes, when I watch the condensation dripping down a cold beer, I think of an icy Coke in a plastic Reds souvenir cup wetting my hands in the red seats, where birds flew below you and the players looked like ants. I can watch the sausages race on television, find the baseball under the crab at Camden Yards, or cheer on Thomas Jefferson at RFK, but none of them compare to the primitive scoreboard technology of the Mr. Red race, where Number 2 always won in my mind. It was summertime in Cincinnati, and it was baseball.

Man, is it hot today. And I love it.

Baseball is Life: Parts I and II

Part 1: 0-2 and 722

The once mighty slugger, a fallen hero, limped up to the plate as if he were weary of chasing ghosts. Flashes lit up the summer night sky as they had for many years, but the venom of the boobirds rained down relentlessly as if he had murdered their children or something. Oh, yes, he was still imposing, he still had the ability to scare the opposing pitcher into walking him, and by no means could you throw meat at the plate and not expect him to hit another of his many homers. Still, there were ghosts in his swing, ghosts holding his bat back, slowing it down, whispering that he was nearing the end of his controversial journey.

There were signs, plenty of anti-Barry signs, including a copy of the Ruth with hotdogs line that has become the anti-Barry slogan. I stood up and cheered for every Barry at bat, feeling like a Democrat in a sea of Republicans. There were a few of us who rose to our feet to cheer on the man, knowing full well that this could be the last time we ever witnessed him in a Major League uniform. A few goosebumps popped up when the scoreboard said "second all time in home runs." How many of those had I seen in those two glorious seasons I witnessed in San Fran? Some memories flooded back, those days when that beautiful temple called Pac Bell Park was my playground, my escape from the realities of voluntary confinement and impending war, when I struggled to hold on to the last shreds of youthful innocence, memories that are my own ghosts. Those magic seasons of numbers, of 73, .370, 600, .585, a World Series, those are mine as much as his. They belong to me, to Giants fans, baseball historians, and lovers of the game.

Dear Boobirds: You don't know. You didn't watch him day in and day out. You didn't feel the way the air changed every time he stood on the on-deck circle. You didn't breathe in the magic, the electricity, the aura of the man who could do everything. You didn't love him for saving your storied franchise from moving out of San Francisco. (For the record, I can't identify with San Franciscans on this one, but I respect it dearly.) You hate him because you think he spoiled your game. You hate him because you think he stands for everything that is wrong with baseball. Look at these numbers! Do they not make you reach back into the throes of baseball history in your mind, make your jaw drop, make you think, wow, I was lucky I got to watch this guy play? How can they not? Is your baseball soul dead?

He wanted to be the best. While other ballplayers grew fat with vacation in the winters, baseball's second best home run hitter worked out six hours a day, six days a week. His body broke down. He grew weary from the constant scrutiny, the rude media, the critics. Tell me, is it so wrong to do everything you can to make the pain go away?

A walk, another walk, 0-2 he went as he limped around on his battered legs. If only he had been a nice guy.

Part 2: 5-0 since the Grand Reopening (and 3-0 for me)

Yep, I sure did go to my third Nats game in five games last night. Those $3 tickets are kind of difficult to pass up, and yes, suprisingly, they are decent seats, though there aren't many seats in RFK that aren't decent, not like old Riverfront where you'd sometimes see Jesus sitting on a cloud next to you. We had tix only two sections over from where I normally sit if I choose to sit in leftfield, which I did so I could watch Barry. Of course, the normal moving to better seats closer to third base happened.

Bottom of the ninth, home team down 3-2, a walk, a walk, a hit by the rookie! A game winning sac fly by Austin Kearns! Bang zoom go the fireworks!

It seems like the discrepencies between the announced crowds and the actual number in attendence are growing. There were not 30,248 bodies at RFK last night, unless there were about 5,000 in the new food court who left when it closed in the FIFTH INNING. (Not that I'm going to be spending $11 for a miniscule crab cake when I am supposed to be eating a HOT DOG at a baseball game, but the closing time is ridiculous.)

In light of yesterday's brief memoir of baseball card collecting, I think I should go out and buy every Ryan Zimmerman card out there since he is going to be the best third baseman of all time. (Michael Jack Schmidt from Dayton, Ohio, eat your heart out.) I keep forgeting he's a rookie on account of his veteran-like clutch hitting. It may have been Austin Kearns' sac fly that won the game, but it was Zim's hit that tied it.

What a game! What a night! What a show!

Cardboard on my mind

The pinging had ceased for the day, dirt was beginning to settle, and the little ballplayers who donned shirts with "Bob Evans," "Areawide Services," or "Tollhouse Tavern" ran to buy their postgame treats at the concession stand. It was the eighties in Englewood, Ohio, and Little League was thriving in a time when kids could just play ball and weren't pushed by parents with big league dollar signs in their eyes. We were all alloted 50 cents to spend after each game, and some bought Swedish Fish, others wanted Big League Chew. Dusty hands grabbed Sour Patch Kids, Lemonheads, Atomic Fireballs, Pixie Sticks, Fun Dips, Sugar Daddies, Blow Pops, and other stuff that makes my teeth rot just thinking about it. No candy for me, though. I was a ten year old girl who wanted 1987 Topps Baseball Cards. Nice wooden looking border. Hideous uniforms on the pictures. The smell of that gum and the wax. The thrill of getting the occasional Red. Lots of Kal Daniels, Ron Oester, Nick Esasky, though the Eric Davis cards were more difficult to find. I can picture them all - Soto, Browning, even Eddie Milner. The 87 Topps cards, my first baseball cards, were also my first exposure to the American League. Sure, I could name all the teams and I knew who was in the World Series, but I never really knew the players until I got my hands on those cards, players like Robin Yount and Paul Molitor, Graig Nettles, Dwight Evans, Eddie Murray, players who had spent their best years in the AL.

The next year, I collected the entire 1988 Topps set and then some, more than 1000 cards of a set that only had 792 in it. They were plain cards, kind of boring, and I always wondered why the Reds team name was in yellow at the top of the cards instead of red. My mother took my sisters and I to a lot of card shows, especially those who had players signing. I have more Paul O'Neill, Chris Sabo, Joe Oliver, Herm Winningham, and Dave Collins autographs than I can count. In those days, you could get the autographs for free. All you had to do was bring something to sign.

When I was in eighth grade I had a friend who would come over on occasion to trade cards, but you know, it’s difficult for a 13 year old girl to be rational when a 13 year old boy is paying her attention. Sure, I’ll take that 1988 Topps Ryne Sandberg for my 1989 Topps Traded Griffey, Jr. It will give me three of them and will look nice in my plastic page. And yes, I’ll take your two Paul O’Neill cards for my Bonds rookie card. I like Bonilla better anyway. [cringe]

One player I never gave up, though, was Jose Canseco. (Why, God, why?) I suppose at the time he was a “future Hall of Famer,” but why didn’t I like McGwire more! I’ll tell you why – it was because Jose was much better looking! I still have the mesh A’s hat I wore around during the Bash Brother days until about 1990, when the Reds went to their first and only World Series in my lifetime. (I was born when the Big Red Machine were still considered World Champs, but they would never be again.)

I still collected in high school, though towards the end I thought I was too old for the cards. I gave away a shoebox full of “commons” to a cousin at a time when it looked like Sammy Sosa would not amount to anything and Joey Belle was going to be the greatest player in Indian’s history, so you could say that my definition of “common” wasn’t entirely accurate. But hey, you know what they say about hindsight, right? It can make foresight see like Ray Charles.

I had already decided to collect only Topps because my best friend’s dad did that and it seemed to make sense in a time when they were starting to make “inserts” made of leather, plastic, and real wood. He was a diehard Reds fan and a baseball coach who knew a bunch of former Reds players. I can remember once spending the weekend at their house when Doug Flynn was staying there, and I tell you what, it was the coolest thing to sit around listening to his tales about The Show.

By my senior year of high school, I had only a handful of 94 Topps cards and can’t even remember what the 95 Topps looked like, but in the late 90s I suffered a renewed interest in the hobby. I went to all sorts of card shows and bought a few cards I had always wanted but never had the money for, but soon I had to choose between the cards and beer, and well, it was college. Since then, I’ve bought a few Reds team sets and a Nats set from the inaugural season, along with a few packs of Topps here and there, but that’s it. The card companies ruined the hobby for me with their greed, and they ruined their industry, too. You know what I want to do with my cards someday, what I’ve wanted to do with them since high school? I want to open a sports bar in Cincinnati, more like a baseball museum, and I want to put them under glass on the tables and on the bar. I knew it would look cool, but I didn’t realize how cool until I went to Red Foley’s Pub in NYC, where he had done the same thing. Only I won’t use staples in my cards.


Hat tip to Red Menace for posting the link on Red Reporter that provided the inspiration.

Free EdE!

Jerry Moron, please do not sit your young stud third baseman on the bench today against the Houston Asstros. His .293/.386/.505 numbers and his 41 RBI are too valuable to waste. If you must get both Richie and Scotty in the lineup, put Richie at short for a game. He was, after all, a star at that position in San Francisco, so he isn't going to hurt you there. And Del Boco Vista Retirement Communinity keeps calling and asking for Hands of Clay back.

Also, Harangutan is pitching tonight. You can keep him out there for 120 pitches if he's not having a bad night. He isn't Eric Milton, so you don't need to "build his confidence." We don't need Tex to blow another one tonight. Give him some rest, some time to get his head sorted out.

Last night I had a beautiful dream that both Mays and Stormy were DFA'd. I can't remember the exact details of the dream, but I remember something bad had happened to me and I was wandering around what I assume was Cincinnati in a dream-warped state. Somehow I ended up in the Reds dugout looking at the lineup card. On it, at the very bottom, were the names "Joe Mays" and "David Weathers" with three big dark blue letters next to them: D-F-A. I woke up with a sweet feeling.

Thank you, Mr. Lerner

Thank you for everything. Thank you for the red curly W cap and the red Nationals shirt you gave me this weekend. Thank you for putting the red carpet around the stadium, a sparkling crimson invitation to enjoy baseball at RFK once again. Thank you for getting the players out to shake the hands of those who give them the chance to play a game for a living. Thank you for the flowers outside that are in the form of the curly W, the trees around the park, the newly paved and painted VIP parking lot. Even if we aren't VIPs, it still looks quite nice. Thank you for the new food court, and even though I couldn't afford the $9 margaritas, though they would have tasted wonderful in yesterday's heat, I still am glad that the food court is there for the fans who don't understand that you eat hotdogs at baseball games. (Shoot, my undying cynicism creeps up even in my sincerity.) Indeed, the food court may even bring the casual fan to the game, and more fans always enhances the quality of cheering. Thank you for opening more concession stands so we don't have to miss entire innings just to get a draft beer or a soda. Also, thank you for the kids' zone, where they made balloon designs in the shapes of brooms though the Nationals had only won one game in the series at that point. But most of all, thank you for making a baseball experience at RFK fun again.

I attended both Friday night's grand reopening and Saturday's game, and it was a very good weekend of baseball. I hadn't been that excited about seeing the Nationals all season (and I had been to 11 Nats games prior to Friday.) The magic of baseball was back; I could feel it as soon as I rushed out of the office on Friday at 5pm and headed down to the Metro to go to the park. The train was packed with red at that time; usually people don't stroll into the ballpark until right around or after the first pitch. Everyone seemed to have smiles on their faces, and the train was buzzing with anticipation for that beautiful game we call Baseball. Seas of red flowed out of the Metro stop amidst calls of "Tickets! Anybody need tickets!" and the ringing out of the resident busker's saxophone as the crowd bumbled about the changes that were taking place under the adoptive parents of the bastard team of baseball.

An arousal of the passions that ignite a baseball fan's fantasies swirled around us like a big tent revival for this heavenly game. Outside the stadium was a slice of that melodious joy that baseball can bring, red carpet royal like we actually mattered, brass band playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to a chorus of fans who sang along, sweet laughter of nostalgic innocence, spontaneous cheering, hands clapping, ushers and employees like jukeboxes of thankyous, grateful supporters from zealots to newbies, not a frown on a face. My delighted heart raced as I approached the main gate as enthusiastic as a child, and the whole world ceased to exist for those few glorious hours.

The game itself was a good one. The fans got into it early on account of the scoring but seemed to disappear when the Cubs came back to take the lead. However, in the eighth inning, section 534 was having a blast donning rally caps and screaming as loud as our cheap seat voices could muster. (If you were that guy in section 534 row 11, about seat 8, 9, or 10, please contact me. I was the girl in row 10, seat 18 with the backpack and the World Baseball Classic shirt.)

One of the biggest suprises was the lack of Cubbie blue perverting the stadium. Sure, there were some Cubbie fans, but no more than the number of Reds fans or Phillies fans or Dodgers fans when those teams come into town. The prices for the weekend were jacked up for the Cubbage suckage and my $7 tickets were $12, and since I had already paid for three games for the price of two, I did not go to Sunday's games. If you cheap it, they will come. I'll be getting those new $3 tickets on Tuesday and Wednesday to see Barry and the FIRST PLACE Giants. Woohoo!

Three letters: D-F-A

Baseball Inferno

Dante and Virgil watch as Don Fehr gnaws on Baseball while Steinbrenner, Boras, and Satan Selig look on.

From Dante And Virgil In Hell (1850) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time...

In case you haven't been to Yard Work, go there. Brilliant baseball satire. But I have to say, this post by "Jim Leyland" today blew me away with its incredible writing. Downright Salingeresque. I could have sworn it was Holden in a baseball uniform speaking. A selection:

Baseball ain’t a kid’s game. It’s a disease. It’s a mindless amoral blight that turns healthy young men into brittle shells of bone and skin. It’s a dirty, sweaty beast with thirsty teeth and coiled haunches, always on the prowl for fresh blood. They can try to cover this up with picnic areas and pavilion seating and free umbrellas, but that’s like trying to hide a corpse with Wet Naps and some Febreze.

Sometimes I love this bastard of a sport. Sometimes the smell of pinetar and cleat-cleaved dirt reminds me of cool early summer breezes and fresh lilacs and girls in sun dresses drinking lemonade on their porch swings. Sometimes I see a kid like Granderson gather a fly ball in his glove, or that beautiful bastard Verlander’s fastball slice past a batter’s stunned eye, and I forget that I’m a broken old man carrying enough tar in his lungs to fill the cracks in every goddamn one-way street in Manhattan.

I can only wish I could write something this goddamn good.

I have this wild theory developing in my warped brain that W.P. Kinsella is actually J.D. Salinger. Sure, Salinger went all crazy and all, but pain like that manifests itself in mysterious ways. No one with any talent for writing has ever stopped writing except in death, whether it be a natural death (which is rare for a great writer,) an alcohol induced death, or death by one's own hand. We all know that Salinger has written things that he suddenly pulled just before publication, but how do we know he isn't publishing under another name? We don't. And who knows, maybe Salinger himself is the brilliant mind behind Yard Work.

Why would my deranged brain come up with something as illogical as W.P. Kinsella being J.D. Salinger? Well, for starters, Salinger is the real writer in Shoeless Joe, the beautiful novel on which Field of Dreams is based. Secondly, the characters in the book are as jaded as Holden Caulfield. And frankly, the style of writing is similar. Read the book again if you don't believe me.

So why would Salinger write about baseball? Simple - baseball heals. There is something magical about the game, something you immediately feel when you enter the seating area from the concourse to a sea of screaming emerald, sun shining brilliantly, forcing the colors to compete for your attention, your passion. The sounds - the sounds make up the game, the leather on wood, the pop of a glove. The collective breathing of tens of thousands of people, holding their breaths as a ball sails towards a fence, sails into the night sky under the incandescent glow of the lights as dusk settles onto your little part of the world. The vendors calling out to your sense of taste, your longing for one of the few constants in this ever-changing world, that taste of a hot dog, some peanuts, ice cream in little helmets, a condensating beer. You think now of the smells, the smells of those hotdogs, of the fresh leather of a baseball, of a glove, of the grass...you are transported back into your childhood, when you learned to love the game, love the sensualism before you even understood what senses are. Those senses bring you back to innocence, the reason we love the game. Those memories, they remind us all of what is good in life, what is true, and no matter how much pain we feel, how many problems we have to deal with, it is baseball that takes us from these feelings, from these problems. Yes, baseball heals.

Ok, so it makes no logical sense that Kinsella is Salinger. After all, Kinsella has been interviewed, Kinsella was in a car accident in 1997 that he claims took his concentration and his ability to write. But it all sounds like Salinger to me, and conspiracy theories are fun. And no, it is not madness I have uttered. I just watched Field of Dreams.

Brain delay

Ah, the Banana Phone, the good old BP. Rain delays during Reds games would never be the same without it. The average IQ of callers has to be about 70. Take, for example, this call:

Adam from Milwaukee: Hello, Marty. Marty? Marty, this is Adam. (pause) This is Adam from Milwaukee.

Marty Brennaman: Hey Adam, how you doing?

Adam: I'm good, how are you?

Marty: Good.

Adam: Do you think Scott Hatteberg's a good player?

Marty: Yeah. (long pause) Hello?

Adam: Marty? Marty.

Marty: Yes, Adam from Milwaukee.

Adam: Do you think Scott Hatteberg's a good player?

Marty: Do you think he's a good player?

Adam: I think he's overrated.

Marty: Um, who would you rather see play at first base? I can tell you're a big fan.

Adam: I am. Um, maybe, uh, Luke Stowe?

Marty: That would, you think that he'd be an improvement?

Adam: I think so. Defensively.

Steve: He's a little bit young.

Marty: He's a little bit young, isn't he, Adam?

Adam: Uh...no. (long, dumb pause accompanied by laughter in the booth) Is it still raining in Cincinnati?

Marty: It's just about stopped, Adam.

Adam: Do you have your shirt on?

Marty: Last time I checked, I did. Yes, why?

Adam: Just curious.

Marty: Hey, listen, I'm gonna let you go now because I know that you gotta get your game face on because we gotta get ready to go back on the radio and I know you'll be listening to every word.

Adam: I love it. Have a good one, bro!

The funny thing about this conversation is that "Adam from Milwaukee" is actually Adam Dunn sitting in the Reds clubhouse waiting out the rain. I did not catch it while I listened to it live since so many other halfwits had called in. I just assumed this guy was another moron. Dunner has to be a blast to be around. This conversation is hilarious to listen to if you know it is him.

Slumpers of the world, unite!

Ballwonk has discovered that Comrade Kearns left his bat in Cincy.

Still miffed about Tuesday's game?

Me too.

Get in the ring!

We'll get them back tonight with Harangutan and tomorrow with our savior.