Doc's TML: It was easy for me to leave Pirates flock. Will it be the same for Reds fans?
The Reds return to the Small Park Friday for six games, starting Friday against St. Louis. Now’s your time, all you malcontents and disappointeds. The Reds are free-falling into a perfect storm of awful-ness. Vote with something other than your rhetoric.
The weather is supposed to be great over the weekend, and it is the Cardinals who are in town. When the Reds were competitive, Looie was loathed as much as the Steelers around here. Great weekend for baseball, in other words.
Where you gonna go?
Readers have been on me lately, for (1) writing that it’s time to move on from the nasty, unproductive Word War between fans and Reds ownership and (2) praising Hunter Greene as the team’s best hope for a return to the good old days of ’21, when the Club won a whopping 83 games.
Point of those essays: Stop complaining and do something.
That would involve the usual (and rarely used) forms of protest: Don’t buy tickets, don’t watch or listen to the games, don’t use the products advertised during broadcasts. I leave The Enquirer and other print/online media out of it, because we have no financial partnership with the Reds, unlike TV, radio, Kroger and whatever they’re calling Cincinnati Bell these days.
Doc's Morning Line: With Reds struggling, there are two ways to look at Dodgers sweep
Attendance has been lacking in recent years, but the TV and radio numbers have held up. You bitch while still paying attention. That won’t help you much.
Understand: I’m not urging you not to buy tickets. I’m not in the habit of telling people how to spend their discretionary dollars. I don't openly root for the Reds. Not my job. But I want them to succeed. If you love baseball more than you love the Reds, by all means go down to the Small Park. Don’t deny yourself pleasure just to make a point.
Howevuh. . .
If your level of disdain has reached newly epic proportions, do what I did with My Pirates Who Suck: Ignore the Reds. At least until they field a team worthy of your renewed attention.
I did that a few years back – July 31, 2018, to be exact -- when the Pirates traded half their future (Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow, Shane Baz) to the Rays, for Chris Archer. That was my personal tipping point. I swore off the Buccos that day and have never looked back.
It was easy. Amazingly so.
I retain the right to return to the MPWS flock, but they’ve got to earn it. I refuse to care about a team that doesn’t care about me. Is that where you are with the Reds?
If so, boycott the best you can. Or stop complaining and enjoy the game for the game’s sake.
What say you?
Now, then. . .
OWNERSHIP SAYS IT WANTS TO BE LIKE THE RAYS, which begs the question:
Don’t they have a better model for success right in their own backyard?
I’m talking about the Brewers, who drew at least 2.5 million fans a year for 12 of 13 years between 2007 and 2019. They’ve made the playoffs four years in a row, including two division titles, without spending as much as the Reds have.
The Crew has numbers very similar to the Rays. In the last 11 seasons, including the faux season of 2020, each club has made the postseason five times and had seven winning seasons.
The only built-in advantage Milwaukee has is the retractable roof at Miller Park. That allows far-flung Brewers fans to plan summer weekends around a roadie to ballgames without worrying about iffy weather.
According to Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) numbers provided by the census bureau, Cincinnati is the 30th-largest region in the country, just ahead of Kansas City, Columbus and Indy. Milwaukee checks in at 40. St. Louis is 21.
And yet the Brewers are a successful franchise and the Reds are wandering the desert. Maybe ownership should look at what Craig Counsell and Co. are doing.
Mega-agent Scott Boras, who runs baseball in case you didn't know, recently said this about the Brewers:
“They draw 3 million fans why? Because I think they sign some of their core players. And they give fans an expectation that we’re going to be, we have the potential to compete. If not every year, a good seven out of 10, six out of 10. And I think if you do that for your fan base, you use that model, you’re going to, you’re going to be rewarded by the fans.”
That’s simply impossible to dispute.
ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR BEARCATS FOOTBALL. . . Running back Corey Kiner, Roger Bacon grad and Ohio Mr. Football honoree, is transferring from LSU home to UC. Even if Kiner never gains a yard for the Bearcats, this is a major win for UC. Just having the names “LSU’’ and “UC’’ in the same sentence is a win. The fact that a kid would leave the Baton Rouge Football Factory to play at Cincinnati will have long-term implications.
The beat goes on in Clifton, the one sure source of consistent happiness for the local sportslorn.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT. From Yahoo Sports. Who said this to the NFL recently?
"You have 'end racism' in the back of your end zones, you've got 'Black lives matter' on your helmet. Everything I've said should be in alignment with what you're saying publicly. It's a $16 billion business — when I first took a knee, my jersey went to No. 1. When I did the deal with Nike, their value increased by $6 billion. Billion, with a 'B.'
"So if you're talking about the business side, it makes sense. If you're talking about the playing side, let me compete. You can evaluate me from there."
Yep, Kaepernick said that, on a podcast called “I Am Athlete’’ with, um, Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, Adam "Pacman" Jones and Brandon Marshall.
Kaepernick has gone away from a football standpoint, and likely will remain so, at age 34 and five years removed from the league. But he continues to fight the fight. And sorry, his points are not without merit.
TIGER STUFF, from Golf magazine:
(Jack) Nicklaus, who sits next to Woods every year at the Champions Dinner, also shed some light on Woods’ decision-making process heading into this year’s tournament.
“He says, ‘You know, I know I’m gonna hurt. The doctors told me I’m gonna hurt. I accept that,'” he said. “‘What am I gonna be next year? And [the doctor] says, ‘You’re still gonna hurt.’
“He said, ‘Well, why in the world would I wait a year to play if I know I’m gonna hurt both years? Why don’t I just get back and start playing and just suck it up?’
“Which is basically what he did.’’
The Champions Dinner is the pre-Masters gathering where the winner from the previous year treats all his peers to a luxe dinner. In case you didn’t know that.
WELL, HE GOT ME TO READ IT. . . Joe Lunardi just did a bracket for, um, the 2023 Madness. At least he acknowledges his strange-ness, unlike the oh-so-serious professional mock drafters. (Imagine putting that title on your tax return.)
It is, of course, a fool's errand to compile any kind of "next year" bracket in college basketball. It takes an even bigger fool to attempt one with over 1,000 Division I players in the transfer portal. All of which suggests I am perfect for the job,
Xavier is a 7 seed in the South. UC misses the Madness again. government requires
CANADA STILL HAS RULES FOR COVID. . . ESPN.com:
To enter Canada, a person must have received a second COVID-19 vaccine dose -- or one dose of Johnson & Johnson -- at least 14 days prior to entry.
That means several unvaxxed Red Sox won’t be making the roadie to play the Jays, including starting pitcher Tanner Houck. "I'm bummed that I won't be able to make that start," said Houck, who has never been vaccinated.
Well, not that bummed, apparently.
TUNE O' THE DAY. . . Continuing the OG ride started yesterday, another gem from one of the better pop bands from the late 60s/early 70s. Indulge us here, youngsters.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds-St. Louis Cardinals series could tell where fans are
