Paul Wilson was released a week or so ago.  Looked like his hair was getting pretty long there.  Apparently not Samson-like, but long nevertheless.

Homer Bailey is in AAA Louisville.  It looked like his hair was getting kind of long too.  Seems like several others have long hair.  Majewski.  Of course there’s Arroyo, who was known for his long hair before he got here.  Bunch of Hippies!

I tried to get those Opening Day tickets earlier this month, but didn’t win a chance to buy any.  Maybe next year.   

Griffey has been playing.  He’s been in a couple of games; got a couple hits.  He played today vs the Red Sox.  Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsuzaka pitched.  I don’t really know the exact details of how the Red Sox signed Dice-K, but the Sox paid like $51 million to his Japanese team to get permission to ask him if he wants to come pitch for the Red Sox.  Something like that.  He said he did, so the Red Sox gave him some big fat contract (Dice-K pitched very well in the WBC, so teams with tons & tons of money were eager to win a chance to sign him).  I saw a few innings of this game today on ESPN.  Matsuzaka had walked a guy in each inning, but hadn’t allowed a hit.  He looked just wild enough to keep the Reds hitters off-balance.  The annoying thing about it was the announcing.  The ESPN guys must have said three or four times that this was the Reds A-Team.  Their Regular Starters.  Their Opening Day Starting Line-up.  "And they don’t have a hit!" Like they were rubbing it in.  Five innings and not one hit!  But were they saying the Reds have some serious hitting problems, or was that their way of saying Dice-K must be really good if he can actually no-hit the Mighty Reds?  I couldn’t tell for sure, so I assume now it was the latter.  Of course, the Red Sox meanwhile only had one hit off Livingston, and neither team had scored yet.  That was all I saw of it.  Five innings, one hit, and no score.

Later that night…  While I flipped through the channels during commercials on some Ballroom Dancing show that I, for the sake of a tranquil home life, didn’t make a fuss about watching,  I stumbled upon that very same Reds game that I’d left many hours ago!  And the sun was still shining on Sarasota!  Only now the game was on FSN Ohio.  It was the seventh inning, the Reds were batting, Dice-K was no longer pitching, the Reds led 2 – 0, had the bases loaded, somebody walked in a run, Francona hooked the pitcher, there was a hit that drove in two more runs.  And then John Ratzenberger danced the Fox Trot or something like that.  It’s been a strange day. 

So there I was growing up rooting for the Big Red Machine.  Rose wasn’t my favorite player, but I did try to emulate his hustling style on the old Knothole (like Little League, but a different name) field, which used to be a rotation of corn and soy beans, and still had plow ridges in the deepest part of the outfield.  A lot of us would run around out there like we were a bunch of little Pete Roses, doing the head-first Pete Rose slide, lost in a cloud of dust, getting up spitting out dirt and loving it because that’s the way we thought you’re supposed to play the game.  If we weren’t dirty, we weren’t doing it right, so we’d be doing aggressive head-first Pete Rose slides whenever possible.  And it never failed to impress our manager. 

I remember watching my brother play a Knothole game one time (he was in a different age bracket). He had a couple of girls on his team (I think it was the first year girls were allowed to play Knothole, but I’m not sure about that), which was a big deal to some people, but my brother and I were used to it because we played pick-up games behind our house with a mix of boys and girls all the time.  And in this game, one of those girls was on base, and a guy got a big hit.  Well, she comes racing towards third and the coach is holding up the stop sign, and she runs right through it.  She wasn’t very big.  The catcher stood at least a foot taller, and there he was, straddling the plate with the relay throw coming in.  And that little girl launched herself toward that plate in a head-first Pete Rose slide and was lost in a cloud of dust…the throw was a little up the first base line, so the catcher had to leave his spot to go up and get it, but he lunged for her with the tag, and she was safe!  Well, people just went crazy.  They couldn’t believe it.  That little girl! – a head-first slide! – into home of all things! – and she was safe!  She’d run through the stop sign because she hadn’t even see the coach, she was so excited.  People asked why she did the head-first slide, and she just shrugged as if to say, "I don’t know.  I just did."   Of course she did.  That’s the way we played.  Most of us anyway.  It was the Pete Rose influence.  Play hard and get dirty.

Here’s one of my old Pete Rose cards.  I read that the Reds’ Pete Rose exhibit has a lot of Rose cards.  If it has this one, I’m guessing it’s in better condition.  I’m throwing symbolism out here with this one.  Try to imagine this card was once in mint condition.  But even hot off the presses there seems to be a problem – the picture is printed a little off-center, considered a flaw in card grading.  Obviously the years have been rough on this ol’ Pete Rose card. Forget the magnifying glass – the flaws are there for all to see.  It’s a mess, all creased and frayed and scuffed. As for monetary value, I might have to pay someone to take it off my hands.  But of course I wouldn’t part with it.  It has great sentimental value.

Aaron Harang tossed a couple of good ones out there the other day.  I don’t mean innings (3 innings, 4 runs, 7 hits vs Tigers).  He tossed some good lines out there, saying that he tried to do too much, and,"it’s still early."  These guys must get tired of the same old questions.  I was impressed that Harang went above and beyond the call by explaining what he meant by doing too much.  I’m still gathering up my cliches so I’ll be ready for the regular season.  I forgot about "it’s still early."  Hopefully I won’t have to use that one in April.

Torii Hunter has been playing, and got a hit the other day, which is good.  Boof Bonser pitched three scoreless innings the other day vs Pittsburgh.  There you go.

Let’s see, what else… if I’m going to chronicle this season, which is the plan, I should continue to set it up by pointing out the issues heading into the season, which I’ve been trying to squeeze in here and there.  Who will be the closer?  How many will close?  Who will be in the outfield with Dunn and Griffey?  Freel?  Hamilton?  Someone else?  Will Griffey be in center or right?  Questions, questions…

I think I already mentioned where they’ve been–just under .500 last year, which wasn’t as bad as it looks when you consider they were only 3 1/2 behind the winners of the World Series, although it was very frustrating from where I’m sitting to see the Reds stumble and finish close but no cigar.  Point is, I think it’s good to know where they’ve been to better appreciate where they’re going as they go about getting there.  And I think this is going to be a good year.   

3/1  CIN 9, PIT 7:  Josh Hamilton homered in the opener.  This guy has phenom written all over him.  Four other Reds homered in this game.  They all homered off different pitchers.  Milton however, gave up 2 homers.  Oh well.  It’s still a pretty good start.

3/2  CIN 5, MIN 2:  The scene that made the news was Kyle Lohse nailing ex-teammate Torii Hunter with a beanball.  Both players left the game after that pitch.  Lohse has some sort of hamstring issue.

3/3  MIN 1, CIN 14:  Bonser.  Boof Bonser.  He was one of nine pitchers the Twins used.  The Reds scored 3 off Bonser in the first.  A boof is a kayaking maneuver where you tip the bow up.  It’s also a slang term that would make Beavis and Butthead laugh, but Mr. Bonser is 6’4”/260, so you didn’t hear that from me.  Harang pitched 2 innings, gave up a run on 5 hits and got the win. 

3/4  CIN 10, PIT 4:  Josh Hamilton went 2 for 3.  I don’t know too many details about Hamilton’s story, but Hamilton was highly-touted in the Devil Rays farm system in 2002, then took an unfortunate sojourn in society’s seamy drugged-up underbelly.  He managed to somehow snap out of it, got himself reinstated (last year), and was snapped up by the Reds in the rule 5 draft, which means he’s on the Reds roster or Tampa Bay can reclaim him–something like that.  So he’s been out of the game for a long time and is attempting a triumphant comeback.  So far so good. 

Homer Bailey pitched.  He gave up three in two innings, I think, which was not exactly having good success.  Maybe he was trying to do too much.  Not playing within himself.  Not taking it one game at a time.  They say there’s no hurry with Bailey, and he’ll probably be starting the season in AAA.  But who is the Reds 5th starter?  The Reds used 24 players in this one.  The Pirates used 26.  Good ol’ spring training.   

3/5  PHI 8, CIN 9:  Said Wilson, "it was ugly." after giving up five runs on seven hits in 2 2/3 inn.  He’s trying to come back from a shoulder injury from last year.  Reds catcher Chad Moeller dropped down a successful squeeze bunt in the 8th to put the Reds up 9-8.  Moeller played with the Twins (2000), D-Backs (’01-’03), and Brewers (’04-’06) before joining the Reds.  Last I heard, the Reds were going to go with three catchers. 

3/6  CIN 3, TB 1:  Milton looked better, giving up one run on two hits in three innings–no homers.

Next game is going on right now, Reds at Yankees at Legend’s Field, Tampa. Top of the 9th.  I have it on XM.  The drawback of baseball on XM is that they only carry the home team’s broadcast.  I didn’t catch their names, but a man and woman do Yankees games.  Some opposing announcers make me cringe, but I like these two.  They throw some good info out there for both teams, mix in an anecdote or two.  Pleasant delivery.  I particularly liked when they said Hopper threw A-Rod out at home, trying to score from second on Matsui’s single to right. 

3/7  Game Thread:  At the moment, the Reds lead 1-0 on Votto’s 8th inning homerun.  I didn’t know Mientkiewicz is on the Yankees.  Isn’t he the guy who owns the significant historical final out ball of the 2004 World Series?  Ramirez just gave up two 9th inning hits and a run to tie it with one out.  With all the pitchers they use in these games, can they even go into extra innings?  It’s nice to hear baseball again.  I have yet to hear Jeff Brantley or Thom Brennaman.  Reds’ catcher Jorgensen just threw a guy out at second on what sounded like a failed hit-and-run.  Two outs.  There’s a ground-rule double over Bubba Crosby’s head.  A hit batter loads ‘em up (I skipped a bit).  Ramirez in a jam…full count…call strike three!  Gardener – or something like that – crumbles under the intense all-or-nothing, do-or-die, game-on-the-line Major League pressure.  Whew.  They’re going on to the 10th, and that’ll do it for me.  Good game so far.  I enjoyed hearing it.  Go Reds!

Here’s a nice view from Great American Ball Park in its inaugural season of 2003.  I think that’s the riverboat, Belle of Cincinnati, paddling by.  Sometimes you hear these bigger riverboats playing their calliope as they go by, which I think is a real treat.  I’ve even heard it over the radio.  I do enjoy that steam whistle musical sound.  Do the Reds have one?  They should get one and play Take Me Out to the Ballgame or something on it in connection with their riverfront heritage.  Or not.  Just a thought. 

This was a June interleague game against the Yankees.  The Reds took 2 of 3 from this other N.Y. team, but wouldn’t you know it, this was the game the Yankees won.  The lady sitting next to me was a Yankees fan (the hat was a dead giveaway), but it became evident that she was mainly a Derek Jeter fan, because as New York won 10-2, about the only time she cheered was when Jeter came up to bat, which was just as well, all things considered.

So here they were with this nice brand spankin’ new ballpark, and they finished the season in fifth.  The Reds had been around .500 since sweeping the Cardinals 4 games in early May, but won only about a third of their games in July and never recovered.  (Injuries, pitching, etc.)  The Cubs beat the Reds 2 out of 3 in the second-to-last series of the season, and won the division by one game over Houston.   

Skip ahead to new ownership.  Castellini and company are at the helm now, working hard to turn this thing around.  Great American still looks nice.  It’s about time to get a winning season in here.   

Some people use New Years to make a resolution to get into better shape.  I use Spring Training as my fitness motivation.  I’m not as active as I used to be–not by a long shot.  About the only thing I do for exercise now is biking.  I particularly like mountain biking on some hilly wooded singletrack, which there’s plenty of in rural southern Ohio.  But I went out the other day just on a bikepath and it was a bit more of a workout than it should have been.  The point is, while I’m trying to get motivated by these professional athletes who are efficiently using their oxygen, I’m out there huffing and puffing quickly out of breath with my oxygen trapped in some sort of intravascular logjam.  My muscles are crying out, "hey!  Where’s all the oxygen at?"  The lungs say, "hey!  Don’t look at me!  I did my part!"  Then the lungs utter some epithet under its breath, which only makes the muscles irate.  Meanwhile, the heart is pounding away like a jackhammer saying, "hey!  I don’t know what the holdup is, but I ain’t keeping this rate up forever!"  Then the muscles threaten to cramp up, and the lungs call the muscles a wuss.  Finally we hear from the oxygen, which is by now panting and all out of breath.  The oxygen gripes, "Look, it’s been years since I’ve been down some of these roads, and frankly it ain’t easy to remember the way.  Who’s got the dang map?!"  The muscles can’t believe what they’ve just heard.  "What do you mean you don’t know the way?!"  The muscles are yelling at the oxygen.  The oxygen is yelling at the heart.  The lungs are telling everyone to shut up.  Now everyone is yelling at the lungs.  It’s chaos, I tell you.  Chaos. 

Here’s a transition picture of Cinergy all cut open.  It’s December 2000, and Riverfront Stadium is finally getting the grass I for one wished it had all along.

I’ll add another transition picture, one from 2001, just to keep things moving along.  The grass looked really good.  The stands cut out in center and left gave the place a whole new feel.  I liked it alot.  It kind of looked like Shea Stadium, which was interesting to me beacause my first big league ballpark experience was at Shea.  I was too little to really remember much of it now, but one night, and one night only, my dad took my brother and me to see the Mets play in real life.  You’ve probably heard other people describe the ol’ First Ballpark experience.  You know, the awe and wonder of it all.  I really only remember seeing that field shining brown & green in all its vibrant glory under the bright lights, the wide open expanse of the stadium as we came out from the ramp, the excitement and scope of it all–seeing for the first time with all that wonderment what had before seemed like only a little thing on TV.  Yes, it really was an amazing experience.  The Mets played the Cardinals.  The Cardinals won.  That’s all I can recall.  Well anyway, this was the end of baseball in Rivrfront/Cinergy.  The dawn of a new era of Reds baseball in Cincinnati was just around the corner, or more literally, just beyond the left field fence.

Lottery or virtual waiting line–makes little difference to me.  The main difference is how many tickets are available from which to have a shot at making a purchase.  How the Reds do business is their business as far as I’m concerned.  If dangling the opener in front of people helps fill seats, more power to ‘em.  I love the energy and excitement of a full stadium as much as the next fan. 

  Here’s a quote I read in an article last week.  It’s by the Reds vice president of business development.  He says, "it’s not, ‘let’s take advantage of opening day demand.’  It’s, ‘let’s make sure we put together a package that our customers want to buy.’"  Is he kidding?  How could any one have the gall to deliver a sentence that contains so many quotation marks?!  That was the only quote I jotted down, but it seemed like there was more to the interview.  Hmm…

Reporter: I’m going to have to use a lot of quotation marks.

VP of BD:  I knew that.

Reporter: you’ve put the opener in most if not all of the ticket packages.

VP of BD: I know that.  Of course I know that.

Reporter: but knowing there’s a high demand for the opener and putting the opener in so many packages looks like you’re taking advantage of the demand.

VP of BD: I know that.  People like opening day.  They love opening day.  Do you think I didn’t know that?  I know that.

Reporter: but, you just said–

VP of BD: I know what I just said.  I’m the vice president of business development.  You think I don’t know what I just said?

The VP of BD looks comical in his evasiveness.  He puffs nervously on his cigarette, his brow shiny with beads of perspiration.  He looks half-sideways to the camera and gives a jittery little smile. 

Suddenly the reporter is called away to receive a crash course in how to insert a link into a blog entry.  He isn’t really sure what he’s doing, but makes an attempt…

historic first attempt at inserting a link

not so historic second link

And that’ll do it for all this ticket stuff.   

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By the way, that’s a picture of Martin Short doing a Saturday Night Live character named Nathan Thurm, a sleazy, nervous, chain-smoking corporate lawyer who often says, "I knew that" when confronted with some big legal issue.  Any similarity between Nathan Thurm and the Reds VP of BD is an unintentional coincidence.

"Thom is coming home," said Marty Brennaman on XM 175 last week.  The young Brennaman will be joining Marty in the booth this year; together ruling the Reds amplitude modulation as father and son.  Marty didn’t think it could be done, what with all Thom had going on with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Fox Sports and a number of things.  He credits Bob Castellini with seeing the value of the situation, and getting the deal done.  He also praised the D-backs owner, Ken Kendrick, for his generosity.  Well, Marty sure sounded thrilled, understandably. 

These are some other changes in the radio booth, as well as I can figure.  Ex-Reds pitcher and ESPN analyst Jeff Brantley is also joining Marty.  He’ll be doing most of the games, like 120.  I guess I should say booths, since both Thom and Jeff will also be in the FSN-Ohio TV booth.  George Grande and Chris Welsh continue to do TV.  FSN is to show 145 Reds games this year, last I heard.  Of those, Grande & Welsh will do 100 games each, T. Brennaman is to do 45, and Brantley will do 25.  How they’ll distribute themselves, I do not know.  By the way, Thom Brennaman is scheduled to do 45 games on Reds radio, and he has some sort of FOX commitments too, I assume.  Also, periodically throughout the year, we may hear The Old Lefthander, Joe Nuxhall, do some radio, which would be to my great pleasure.  All these moves sound good to me.

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Now here’s a little story I wrote a few years ago.  It has to do with that Cubs situation with Chip Caray and Steve Stone in 2004, and even shows how unexpected changes can lead to a father and son reunion.

Disclaimer:  the following names are real.  The situations are based on real events.  The rest is completely made up.  Do not use this as a source of factual information.  It is mostly fictional, meant for entertainment purposes only…

The Cubs season ended with Maddux beating the Braves.  Chip Caray, Cubs TV guy on WGN, who does play-by-play to Steve Stone’s color commentary, was so despondent over the failure of the Cubs to make the playoffs, he quit (you see?  That was some made-up stuff.  I didn’t really know why Caray quit.) He has taken a job with the Braves to join his father Skip in the TBS booth. 

All season long, even back in the off-season and throughout Spring Training, all we heard was how the Cubs are going to win the World Series (they came close in 2003, the year of the Bartman Ball incident.)  Over and over and over again.  "Win it all.  Win it all.  Win it all.  World Series Champions."  That’s all they (Caray & Stone) said.  They had the entire Cubs fan-base as well as the media brainwashed into believing it.  They chanted the mantra every day of the regular season, "the Cubs will win the World Series," right up to the Cubs’ elimination, which was a few days ago against the Reds.  That’s when the shock of reality seemingly cold-cocked them upside the head.   Then the season ended and the Cubs cleaned out their lockers and went home.  The end.  Lights out.  The perpetual noise of World Series hype buzzing constantly in everybody’s ears and brains for months just suddenly stopped.

The silence was cruel, cutting into the hearts and souls of Cubs fans one and all.  But the pain was most acute for the ones leading the way: Caray and Stone.  During those last few games, they both snapped.  Like rudderless ships they spewed words without direction, chaotic and strange.  They bad-mouthed Cubs players and the organization up one side and down the other in a misguided attempt to ease their own pain.  They thought they could lessen their own misery by inflicting pain on others.  But they lashed out to an already suffering audience, causing the audience to resent the announcers.

Caught in a torturous limbo of the hellish extremes of their own heinous creation, the announcers crumbled.  Caray, as mentioned, is going off to be with his father far from the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley.  Stone, still struggling to form comprehensible words, indicated in a made-up language like Jodie Foster used in the movie Nell, that he doesn’t know what he’ll do next (he drew pictures in the sand with a stick to help illustrate his feelings.) 

And so the Cubs booth on WGN is in a shambles due to two things: high expectations as detailed above, and the Reds taking three of four in the second-to-last series of the season.  Yes, baseball is indeed a funny game.  You have been warned.

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Final note:  good luck to you in whatever you’re doing, Steve Stewart.  I enjoyed your work, your enthusiasm for baseball, and your Bad Boy Blog.

Now I have a problem.  You know how you can get a song stuck in your head and it just won’t go away?  Well, here’s what I mean…

Don’t tell my hat, my stinky shrinky hat / I just don’t think he’d understand.

Obviously I have a problem.  I was going to continue with some of the rule changes for this season, but that song is making everything come out like bad lyrics.  If only there was something I could do about it, other than issue this warning: Please discontinue reading if you find bad made-up lyrics offensive…

>If the batter sees the catcher drop strike three / he can try to run down to first base (as usual) / but if he left the dirt before he broke for first / his chance to run to first will be too late.

>With game-ending home runs, the batter can still score / even if a runner leaves the field / but not when there’s two outs, that makes the runner out / and ends the inning with the game still tied (or whatever).

>Tell Ross and Valentin all they can do is lean / into the dugout rather than jump in / and let the pitchers know, that gloves that are two-toned / can be worn if the ump says it’s okay.

>Here’s another one – when there’s nobody on / twelve seconds is the time to throw a pitch / and with nobody on, he doesn’t have to stop / providing that he’s pitching from a stretch.

>Don’t scuff the ball, deface or mar the ball / unless you’re sure you understand / that if you scuff the ball, deface or mar the ball / there’s a 10-game suspension for this man.  Whoo-oo.

That’s going to have to do it for now.  There are other changes, like something about a tie game being resumed instead of started over, but I can’t go into that now because I have to go hit my head against a wall, an achy breaky wall…Aieeegh!!!