A FEW MO' THINGS, 5/14/12

(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

-No matter how you consumed yesterday's win, whether it be in person, on the tube, via some sort of audio device (like say, a radio), Gamecast, word of mouth, late night highlights, town crier, messenger pigeon, or simply by glancing at the score, it was much-needed and very gratifying.

But it wasn't nearly as cool to nearly everyone else as it was to the few who were there.

If you were one of the 17 people who sat there for the entire thing, you endured the following...

*Bronson Arroyo looking less comfortable on the mound than a dog wearing one of those lampshade thingys.
*Rain
*The hot dog stand that ran out of hot dogs
*Rain
*The false hope of "The umps will meet at 2:00," the disbelief of "the umps will meet at 3:00," and the exasperation of "the umps will meet at 4:00."
*Cold
*The game defying the time and space continuum by coming to an absolute standstill after the fifth inning.
*Rain
*No one not named "Votto" hitting a ball hard for eight innings
*General crappy weather more suited for Dalton v. RGIII than Arroyo v. Jackson
*The Reds looking worse than the weather for nearly eight full innings
*Old dudes hitting on your mom (This happened to my mom.  More on this later)

.....and you were given was one the best and most memorable payoffs in recent (and maybe not-so-recent) Reds history.

Joey Votto's performance, which I think is the best individual, single-game performance in GABP history (I am saying this without looking that up), was incredible whether you were there or not, and regardless of who did or didn't see it, almost single-handedly lifted the Reds to their biggest win of the season.  A three game sweep at the hands of the Nationals, with mounting concerns about Mike Leake, an injury issue at third base, and continuing offensive woes would have positively sucked, especially with a seven game road trip against decent teams up next.

That was true whether you were there for the entire nine or whether you weren't, and there's a 99.93% chance you weren't.

But if you were there....

You were given a gift that sports rarely give: a reward for patience, a payoff for the time and effort.  And you'll be one of a handful of people who endured one of Great American Ballpark's most frustrating days before enjoying one of its best endings.

Rarely does going to a game a serve badge of honor.  And attendance never qualifies one as a better fan than someone watching elsewhere.  But the few who stayed have a pretty unique memory to share and maybe a cool story to tell....

Especially if yesterday's win leads to bigger and better things.

-Joey Votto is the best Reds hitter of my lifetime.  (Partially true. Pete Rose was a Red in 1978 and hit in 44 consecutive games, but try as he might, my dad was not able to turn me into a baseball fan in my first full year on earth so the Hit King doesn't count.)

That's not a statement about either statistics or raw ability, rather it's a statement about my belief in him in the clutch.

Last night, in arguably the season's most critical situation to date, I knew Joey was going to do something big.  There have plenty of Reds hitters that I hoped would come through when it counted most, and plenty of guys I thought had a really good chance to come up big with the game on the line, but they have had no one who, when they come up in huge situations like last night's, have my full and complete confidence.

I know he'll come through.

That doesn't mean he always delivers.  No hitter, not even those among the best of all-time, gets the big hit each and every time, not even close to it.  Joey Votto fails in big moments all the time.  But when he comes up in important situations there's a confidence I have in him, that I think is shared by most, that's to such an extreme degree that his failures in the clutch almost stand out more than the successes.

When Joey's up with the game on the line, the big moments never seem too big, the tough pitchers never seem too intimidating, and hopeless situations actually have some hope.

There have only been a handful of athletes who's success I came to assume in the biggest moments every time.  Jordan of course.  Montana.  Brady.  Jeter sometimes.  Tiger. Not many others.  Joey Votto is in that group, not as an icon who transcends his game, not as a player without peer in his sport (though getting there), but as a player who's heroics aren't something we simply hope for, instead we expect them.

-Let's give some credit where it's due to two guys we often beat up on for being undisciplined at the plate.  Drew Stubbs and Chris Heisey set up Votto's slam with a pair of walks.  Heisey did so after being down 0-2 and coming ever so close to swinging at strike three.  As much confidence as I have in Votto, I  had just as little in Heisey being able to avoid a strikeout once the count went to two strikes.

-I'm interested in seeing how the Reds those who had tickets yesterday.

Clearly, some ticket-holders didn't even go.  Others went and left before a pitch was thrown.  Some saw some of the game, but unable to take a day at the ballpark and literally make it an entire day at the ballpark, they left before the game's conclusion.  And some stayed for the whole damn thing.

The question is, what do the Reds do for yesterday's customers, if anything.

If we go buy the book, than the Reds lived up to the spirit of the ticket holder/team contract.  There's an inherent risk of a weather delay when you buy a ticket, and no guarantee the game will begin on time. 

The spirit of the agreement says nothing about common sense, or doing what's right.

Common sense would dictate that very few people could, or did, see the either the entire game or even some of it.  The Reds may have no obligation to give rainchecks or vouchers the people who decided to either not go or leave early, but that doesn't mean that doing nothing for them would be right.

I know it's near impossible to determine who saw what portion of yesterday's game, but the right thing to do would be to reach out to those who never saw a pitch or who had to leave well before the game's conclusion by giving everyone a rain check. 

It might not make business sense, but it does make common sense.

And it would be the right thing to do.

-Everyone will be talking Votto today, and deservedly so, but we gotta talk about Friday's game.

1) The #RedsTweetup was awesome.  Met a lot of nice people, even if tweeting was a struggle.  The highlight was watching Joe Reedy do work.  The man never rests....

There will be another one later this summer.  Be there.  Say hi. And congratulations to @LisaBraun for putting on a great event.

2) Mike Leake is not the best Reds pitcher of my lifetime.  He pitched Friday and sucked.  Again.

In fact, he's the exact opposite.  He's channeling such cunnythumbers as Joey Hamilton, Jimmy Haynes, and Eric Milton.  Watching Mike Leake does what watching bestiality porn would make me want to do if I watched bestiality porn.  I want to run, hide, and rid my brain of all images watching him pitch.

His ERA is approaching 7.11.  When your earned run average is a name of a crappy convenience store, you probably shouldn't be pitching in the Majors.  It doesn't make any sense, either for the team or the individual, for him to be here right now. 

Jeff Francis is in the organization.  I don't think I want to watch Jeff Francis pitch.  But I know I don't want to watch Mike Leake pitch.  What I would like is for Mike Leake to go to Louisville and learn how to pitch again while Jeff Francis brings his brand of Major League mediocrity to the big club.  He can't be any worse than Leake so what's the harm in demoting him and letting Ted Power work his magic on him for a few weeks?

There is none.

-Also, I don't know who or what this is, but I did a YouTube search for "Jeff Francis" and this came up.  Enjoy.

-I attended Saturday's game.  The game didn't stand out for reasons that showed up on the scoreboard.  Mat Latos threw about 231 pitches in his five innings of work and the Reds looked mostly clueless against Jordan Zimmerman.   Also the crowd was huge, with some people receiving bobbleheads and others not.

On the bobbleheads....I enjoyed a cold one at the Holy Grail before the game and about 20 minutes before first pitch, I saw people who had already walked into the stadium, picked up their bobblehead and had walked out. Now I get that those dolls are probably up on Ebay now, but you buy the ticket and then don't stick around watch at least some of the game?  Is the payoff from the toy worth that much to totally waste a ticket to a Major League Baseball game?

Also, it was my first opportunity to stare at Bryce Harper's back.  I sat in the Moon Deck, which is of course in right field.   Bryce Harper plays in right field.  This means that given Bryce's high profile, he was due for some good-natured ribbing from the home crowd.

And I'm as game for a good heckle as anyone, provided the heckler abide by a few simple guidelines:

Dont be annoying, keep the language clean, and be funny.

We had a crazy heckler guy that adhered to two of these.

He didn't curse, which I'm guessing everyone who brought kids along appreciated.  But the problem is his heckling was limited to loud shouts of "HAAR-PER, HAAR-PERRRRRR."

Unoriginal, unfunny, and after his 56th "HAAAAAAR-PERRRRR" of the night, very annoying.

Mind you, this was the night after young Byrce, in a fit of rage, busted open his face, giving would-be hecklers some solid material.  But this guy came totally unprepared, lacking any workable material, and not even willing to stay past the third inning.  While I was happy that this man left early, giving the rest of us a solid six innings of HAAAAARRRRR-PERRRRRR-free baseball, don't you cut into your own heckler cred by bolting before the game is even official? 

I think so.

-Tomorrow morning I am doing a two hour megachat at 9:00.  Click on the thingy.

-I take my mom to a game on or around Mother's Day every year.  I do this because A) I am an awesome son and B) mom always buys quality gear for her son at the overpriced team store (yes, I'm 34 years-old).  Attending a game with my mother is always interesting.  Among the topics we covered during a long day of waiting for, and finally watching baseball...

*My dad's resemblance to Pete Rose
*The upcoming Presidential election and how offended she is about my apathy toward politics
*A Gary Carter/Johnny Bench comparison
*Why she thinks Dusty Baker is a great manager (this is a talk show in itself)
*Why her scalloped potatoes are not as good as she thinks
*The best household cleaning products
*Bourbon
*Summer Shandy
*Wine coolers
*Martinis
*Miller High Life
*Why she could never date a left hander
*How much I sucked as a little leaguer
*Fedoras

Also, we watched the game.  While we were doing so, some guy with a horrific white mustache and  UC hat straight out of 1987 approached my mom and starting working her pretty good.  I'm not one to get in the way of another man's flow, so I left him alone, focusing intently on the action on the field an resisting the urge to mention my mom's husband.  He left after a few minutes only to return a few innings later with a wing man in tow.  The wing man also had a bad mustache and also had headwear older than half the players on the field.  The wingman's job was to occupy me, which he attempted to do by halfheartedly engaging me in banter about baseball, the weather, and some insight he had into how the ballpark was built.  Then he laid it on me...

"My friend is hitting on your mom."

While I could appreciate his candor, it was still a little jarring and more than a little creepy.  I was sorta torn between understanding the unspoken code among guys that you don't interrupt another man's flow (calling what this man had "flow" shows you how generous I am) and wanting to just enjoy the game with my mother.  I could've maybe appreciated it if mom was the subject of a cougar hunt, but these dudes were her age and probably older, and had just awful mustaches.

The exchange lasted an inning, the guy handed my mom her phone number (which she discarded) and we proceeded to enjoy the rest of the game.  But the Reds need to do something about this.  If you hit on someone's mom while he is right there, immediate ejection, forfeiture of season tickets, and you get blacklisted on the stadium video board the next time you attend a game.

Great American Ballpark is a safe place.  Only in the summer when some beer vendors wear shorts that show their junk do I feel creped out.  But to make Reds games a little less creepy, the Reds need to do something to make sure that moms can enjoy the game in peace.

-Delightful UC basketball news....

Awesome.  Just the kind of pub the program needs.  I'm interested in the lack of a statement from the nightclub and I'm curious as to why we don't specifically know which players are alleged to have beaten this guy, did he just show up at the police station and press charges against "UC basketball players?"

I'm very interested in how this plays out either way.

-Day late on this one, and I didn't get a chance to watch a lot of hoops outside of Clippers/Grizz (I still can't help but root hard for Kenyon Martin) and Lakers/Nuggets, but your second round NBA predictions...

Boston over Philly in six.  The lack of 76er offensive juice will catch up to them.  And Rajon Rondo will control the series.

Miami over Indy in six.  Love everything about the Pacers except that the best two players in this series don't play for them.

Thunder over Lakers in six.  LA will have a couple of "last stand" kind of wins at home, with one where Andrew Bynum teases everyone with a productive game.  Then they'll spend the rest of the series looking lost on defense as Durant shreds them.

Spurs over Clippers in five.  I'm giving LA a game because they are playing games three and four on consecutive days.  Otherwise, no reason to think they make this competitive. 

-Wanna hear a couple of dudes talking about Billy Hamilton? Check out this episode of the always outstanding, Up and In Podcast.

-From Japan, we have a new candidate for worst first pitch ever.

-No radio show this week.  The two hour megachat is tomorrow at 9am.  Prepare for it by checking out Kate Upton in some Spanish magazine that I've never heard of.