And there you go, Charlie. Friday’s feelgood was doomed from jump. Just because.
I have lived here since 1988 and when it comes to sportslorn cities, no place tops this place. Our motto should be, “Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.’’ Cincinnati teams have let you down in so many ways. We’re the medieval chamber of sports horrors. Thumb screws or Kenyon Martin? The rack or Carson Palmer? If you were born in 1993, you’ve never seen a local team win a title that anyone east of West Union would get excited about.
You could blame the lost weekend on the bullpen. You’d be right. Never has a team’s problem been so easily identified and so remarkably unfixed, at least to this point.
The Reds have done with their bullpen woes what the Bengals historically have done with everything: Applied a little magical thinking and outsized optimism. (There are signs this thinking is changing at PBS. I’ll wait for the proof.)
The Reds have built their 2021 house out of Ifs and Whens. They might as well play in a trailer park during hurricane season.
We saw Saturday night what happens to Ifs and Whens. The Reds Plan A had been to look forward to the return of Michael Lorenzen. Just wait ‘til we get him back. Upon his return, Lorenzen immediately injured a hamstring while scoring on a sac fly.
So very Cincinnati.
You wanna analyze this? Have at it. Engage me with numbers. Hit me with examples of lax defense that can’t happen in tight games. Tell me Castellanos got hurt at exactly the wrong time. All true. But some things can’t be quantified. Not if they’ve occurred consistently for 30 freaking years.
The karma will change. One of these centuries. I mean, it has to, right? What city compares to this one, on the Fan Misery Index? No, not even you, Detroit. The Pistons won an NBA title in 2004, the Red Wings an NHL title in ’08. The Wings made the playoffs 25 years in a row. Get on outta here.
Phoenix? The Suns currently await Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
San Diego? San Diego is 80 and sunny every day except when it’s 81 and sunny.
Misery’s real deal lives here.
Now, then. . .
IF YOU WANT TO BE OPTIMISTIC, that’s you’re right. The cold, hard fact is, the Reds are seven games out of October, with 69 to play and just three of them against Milwaukee. Unless the Brewers starting pitching falters, a long losing streak seems unlikely.
(Actually, as mentioned last week in This Space, a regression from the Big Three of Wooduff, Peralta and Burnes isn’t out of the question, given their relative youth and big workloads.)
Good news is, of the 69 games left, 23 are with the Pirates and Cubs. Beginning 8/3, 33 of the Reds next 40 are against teams currently under .500, including 10 of the last 12 to close the season.
The Reds still run out a better hitting lineup every day than Milwaukee. Castillo-Mahle-Miley are good enough to give the offense a chance. The Reds don’t have to pass other teams.
A bullpen, though. A bullpen would be nice, and not one based on the twin Ifs of Sims and Antone or the stardust speculation over Lododo and Greene. A couple solid major-leaguers to cover the turf between the 6th and 8th innings, the way Barry Larkin used to cover the ground deep in the hole at SS.
It’s time to get serious or turn out the lights.
TRIP REPORT. . . Prose does no justice to the cherished value of a fam vacation. Johnny Thinwallet is tight on lots of things. Not on vacations. I think it’s one of the most important things a family can do for itself.
Last Saturday morning, as we planned to set out to South Ponte Vedra Beach, I casually checked our reservation status, to see when we’d be OK to check into the house. It was then I discovered that, uh, our rez had been canceled in May.
An e-mail that landed in my wife’s Spam said the house had been sold and the new owners had canceled all rentals. Long story short, the property manager did an amazing job and immediately found us a condo 20 miles up the beach, very near the TPC Sawgrass golf course.
The different locale made it easier to check out the chi-chi PV surroundings, but harder to get to St. Augustine. We’re not PV people, so we hung out at the condo.
That part of Florida has the best of all worlds. Miles of broad beaches, many of them not crowded. Chi-chi and city stuff if you want it, old world St. Aug if you don’t. Easy day trips to Orlando or Daytona, if that thrills you.
What we mostly do is nothing. The best part of the day is happy hour on the porch, staring at the ocean. Toughest call to make is beer or bourbon.
We get reacquainted all over again. My son, his fiancé, my daughter, her husband, my wife and I. For a week, time stands still. This is what we work for . This is what matters. This is who we are.
I’ve been all over the world. I’ve spent vacations mad-dashing from this sight to that one. That’s fine, in a check-list kind of way. The bigger OG I become, the less the lists matter. What matters is the full and lovely emptiness of an unburdened day and the joy of spending it with exactly the people you want to spend it with.
COCO GAUFF deserves no sympathy. The 17-year-old tennis player is out of the Olympics after testing positive. ”It is unclear whether Gauff was vaccinated, but her busy tour schedule would have made getting jabbed a challenge,’’ the New York Times reported.
That is complete crapola. Gauff became eligible in December to get vaxxed. She is sports royalty. These days, shots are available everywhere, to anyone wanting them. At the Memorial Golf tournament in May, fans entering the tournament could get a shot. Just like that. It’s bad enough Gauff let down her team; she let down her country a s well.
I will type this and type it again. If you are not vaccinated, you are the problem. If I have to resume wearing a mask, it’s your fault. The wildfire re-spread of COVID-19? Your fault. Hospitals beds filling up in Arkansas and Missouri? Your fault.
I simply can’t fathom the stupidity, the laziness, the irresponsibility. You’re not getting vaccinated because why? Because it’s dangerous? It’s not. Because you believe some conspiracy-spewing losers on Facebook? Because you think going unvaxxed shows support for a former president? He got the shot in January .
In the past year and a half, we have done the amazing and what once would have been considered the impossible. We’ve developed and tested and distributed en masse a vaccine capable of beating a virus we’ve never seen before. It’s remarkable, but maybe no more than the intractable and willful stupidity that has kept it from being a complete success.
The biggest crisis in the country now is one of intellect.
I feel better now.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Love me some Apple Music. I spent a little time lately filling up the phone with tunes. Some were from Johnny Rivers: Summer Rain, Secret Agent Man, Memphis, I’m The One, Tracks of My Tears. And this one.
