2006 Reds season R. I. P.

And so it ends. With barely a whimper the Reds dropped a 4-2 yawner in front of 10,000 bored fans to politely excuse themselves from the 2006 playoff discussion. The offense, which has been asleep for months, failed to rouse themselves even with base runners sprinkled around the infield. This is a familiar story. Harang, one of the few constants on the Reds pitching staff lost his command in the 7th inning and let the Padres scare up 4 runs. It might as well have been 40.

The Reds were 12 games over .500 on June 8. They have gone 36-50 since. I am not sure what is the bigger story: The Reds slow descent in the second half of the season or the fact that nobody in Cincinnati gives a crap.

I have heard Reds fans (alleged) list off the reasons they will not go down to see a game all year. The top three reasons are:

1. They have other things going on
2. It is too expensive
3. The Reds are a mediocre team and will eventually fade away so why should they support a team that is not going to make the playoffs

First of all, I think all these reasons are weak but the last one really gets me. Especially because now all these pessimists feel justified in their stance and can obnoxiously proclaim ‘SEEEE, I told you they would blow it.’ Well, good for you. I for one do not regret all the games I went to. It was FUN! The Reds were in the playoff hunt so the outcome mattered. There was drama and frustration and gut wrenching losses and hopeful streaks and sickening errors and walk-off home runs. And that’s what it is all about.

Here are the facts, as I see them. Cincinnati, quite simply, is no longer a baseball town. And I think the biggest factors are television, patience and laziness.

The people of Cincinnati watch a lot of television. Cable TV, reality programs, commercials and everything spouting out of the picture box is loud and obvious because it has to be. With so many options (Time Warner Cable has over 300 channels), a message has to be slapped in the viewers face to resonate. This has conditioned human beings to have short attention spans. People, even rabid sports fans, do not have the patience or attention span to take in a 3-hour baseball game. It’s too slow and the nuances are too subtle to pick up. Most would rather catch a 45-second highlight reel on SportsCenter – the Cliff Notes of sport.

Furthermore, people are just too damn lazy to get off their fat asses, start their cars, drive to the stadium, search for a parking space, park, walk a few hundred yards to the stadium and climb some stairs to their seats. It’s too daunting. They might go if they have free tickets, but they sure as hell are not buying them.

But I will say this: the baseball season is too damned long. Do we really need 162 games to figure out who the best 4 teams are from each league? We could not accomplish this in 120? They always say a baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. Well you know what? Marathons are long, painful and boring. By August I was running out of gas. By September, I could not tell the difference between Adam Dun and Ryan Freel. Just end already and get to the playoffs.

If MLB played 120 games, the regular season ends on August 16. The playoffs start the weekend of the 19th. We would be playing the World Series right now. Instead, they drag this thing on and on and by the time week 1 of the NFL season kicks off, everyone has forgotten about baseball except the 8 cities that have playoff teams. And even those cities are a little sick of it all.

Whatever. I had a good time. And I did my part, compiling a personal record of 20-15. More impressive was I was able to ring up 35 games AND maintain a relationship with a woman who would rather take a nap than go to game 7 of the World Series. Granted, she does fancy me a bit of a lunatic. And the worst part is she compared me to Jimmy Fallon in ‘Fever Pitch’ which made me throw up in my mouth. Oh well. Go Reds.

Bowie's Reds record:

Overall: 20-15

April - 6-4

May - 4-1

June - 2-2

July - 3-2

August - 3-5

September – 2-1

Night games: 13-8

Day games: 7-7

Record of games I went to when I should have been at work: 4-5

The Bill

150 – tickets (I got free tickets to about 15 games and when I did buy tickets, they usually were the $5 cheapies)

320 – beer ($6/beer – 1.5 beers a game)

70 – parking ($2 lot on 6th street. Good times.)

75 – food (I rarely ate at the games. Discipline, people)

$615

I hear a heart beat

I was prepared to write a Reds Eulogy today, saying goodbye to the 2006 season. The West Coast calamity, followed by a series loss to the Giants, had killed my interest. I detached myself emotionally from the team – I vowed to no longer let a Reds loss affect my disposition. My Reds bracelet was coming off, I would not watch them on TV and would no longer go down to the ball yard unless I had a free ticket.

It’s not so much that the Reds went on a 3-13 skid following an August 22 victory over the Astros. It was HOW the Reds were losing. Runners stranded in scoring position. Poor base running. Lousy fielding. And, of course, the bullpen. Krivsky has been relentless in bringing in new arms to bolster the pitching staff. He has dealt young starters and said goodbye to prospects to strengthen the one weakness he knew would kill the Reds down the stretch. His efforts have been in vain. Guardado had to have Tommy John surgery. Majewski is a disaster. Bray has been inconsistent. Cromier has been consistently bad. He purchased every cleaning solution in the store to get out a nasty stain and was only able to make it a different color of terrible.

But damnit, these boys are still ALIVE! The Reds face the NL Wild Card leading Padres in a 3-game series starting tomorrow – a sweep and they are a ½ game out of the playoffs. The Reds are right there. And they don’t even need a 10-game winning streak. A 13-6 record in the final 19 games gets them in the playoffs. That’s not unreasonable.

So I am putting the Reds bracelet back on for one more series. I am re-opening the doors to my heart. Go ahead Reds, cut it out again. Anything you can do at this point will heal fast because I have the medicine. Football.