If college basketball were ever compelling around here in this weirdo winter of the plague, it got a little less so Wednesday night. UC won, but its pounding Sunday at Houston slipped the noose around its season, which now is strictly wait-til-next-year. It’s up to Xavier to carry the Madness torch, but the Musketeers have gone from shoe-ins to bubble-ites in the past week. Their blowout L at Providence and their home L to UConn have put them on double-secret tournament probation.
Xavier has a huge resume-building opp Saturday at 5 against #13 Creighton, at home. But their recent performances have been dispiriting. So. . .
Let’s talk a little hardball.
Eugenio Suarez sounds the way baseball in late February should sound. The Reds 3B made his spring '21 Zoom debut Wednesday and the day was brighter for it. The self-proclaimed “Good Vibes Only’’ man was full of optimism and himself. He’s fairly delightful to listen to.
“Geno’’ (he gave us the OK to use that name, so, yeah) has dropped 15 pounds, cut his hair and says his goal is to hit 50 homers in 2021. Who else says his goal is to hit 50 homers?
He lost the weight by cutting back on arepas and beer. Arepas are essentially cornmeal cakes, South American style. Beer is beer. “My body doesn’t feel very good last year,’’ Geno explained. He declared he was “a new version of myself.’’
Here’s what else Suarez declared:
“I feel very young now.’’
“I’m not a .200 hitter.’’ He hit .202 last year, a 69-point dip from 2019.
“My goal is to break my own records.’’
As for his hair, Suarez ditched the golden dye job for a cleanly shaved dome, explaining it made him look younger. “The Geno when Geno was young,’’ he said.
MLB needs so many more Genos. The seriousness ball-guys walk around with now projects a heaviness that should be foreign to the game. The ponderous weight of money has made everyone cynical and distrusting. Roy Campanella said this about his job:
You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too.’’
The boys are still there. Only now, they’re on the phone with their agents or studying statistics on launch angles and “Barrels.’’ Joey Votto is big on barrels. As he explained to the Athletic:
“There’s a couple of statistics that all the good hitters are a part of. It’s usually barrels and exit velocity, hard-hit percentage … but especially barrels,” Votto said. “The most important hitters are usually in that barrels category, barrels percentage, barrels per plate appearance category.’’
Well, I guess.
If barrel-gazing helps Votto turn back time, fantastic. But as helpful as they can be, stats have no personality. Does Baseball in 2021 have a personality? You sell your game with human beings that other human beings want to root for. Take that opinion at least as far back as Magic-v-Bird, whose rivalry revived the NBA. Baseball last was front and center in the summer of ’97. McGwire-Sosa. Sosa had a personality. Mac thrived as Sosa’s straight man.
Geno Suarez has a personality. It’s good for the game.
Now, then. . .
DEE STRANGE-GORDON is being billed as a shortstop candidate, but he has never played shortstop even close to full time. These days, he's best suited to be an outfielder. The Reds don’t need more of those.
THE REDS PICKED A BAD YEAR to make wholesale changes last year. Their mediocrity in 2020 was due in part to so many important new faces, seeking niches and comfort levels. Castellanos, Moustakas, Akiyama. Baseball’s greatest asset and largest luxury is time. It takes time for teams to come together. You could interpret what happened late in the stunted regular season as proof the Reds were just starting to come together. If you do, you can be cautiously optimistic about the potential of a Big 162 this year.
MLB.COM PICKED its top 25 players under age 25. No Reds.
TIGER’S MONUMENTAL REHAB just to walk again throws big doubts on his ability ever to play pro golf again. NY Times:
The crash caused a cascade of injuries. It smashed Woods’s shin bones, with primary breaks in the top and bottom parts of the bones and a scattering of bone fragments. When the bones in Woods’s shin shattered, they damaged muscles and tendons; pieces poked from his skin.
The trauma caused bleeding and swelling in his leg, threatening his muscles. Surgeons had to quickly cut into the layer of thick tissue covering his leg muscles to relieve the swelling. Had they not, the tissue that covers swelling muscle would have acted like a tourniquet, constricting blood flow. The muscle can die within four to six hours.
BEN WILL BE BACK. CAP GYMNASTICS TO FOLLOW. From a statement from Steelers own Art Rooney Jr.:
‘Ben assured me that he is committed to coming back to help us win, and I told Ben that we would like to have him back to help us win a championship. We both understand the next step is to work out Ben’s contract situation.”
The Ringer explains Pittsburgh’s predicament:
Last season, Roethlisberger posted his worst Pro Football Focus grade since 2008, and his yards per attempt was the lowest of his career for any season in which he played at least three games.
Roethlisberger’s $41 million cap hit would be the largest in the league in 2021, and the Steelers are already projected to be about $19 million over the cap. 24 players, or roughly half the team, hitting free agency. The Steelers have little chance of keeping some big names. Receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster will probably not return after failing to fill the post–Antonio Brown void and then being outplayed by younger receivers Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool in 2020. Running back James Conner wasn’t good or healthy enough to justify a new deal. Pittsburgh will have to replace three of its five offensive linemen, with left tackle Alejandro Villanueva and left guard Matt Feiler hitting the open market and longtime center Maurkice Pouncey retiring.
AND NOW. . .
Imbiber Dave turns his taste buds East. . .
My next wild whiskey comes from Japan. Ohishi Sherry Cask 8 year old Whisky. If you’ve never tried Japanese whiskey, you are certainly missing out. Like most products hailing from this Asian nation, they pride themselves on refinement and quality above all else.
So, I wasn’t surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’m at a complete loss of words however at the fact that this is a rice mash bill, and essentially starts out as shochu, the Japanese version of soju, which is the top selling liquor by volume in the world. This is like a lower ABV vodka, and similar but still unique as compared to sake.
Once being aged in sherry casks, this distilled spirit transforms into a smokey, peppery masterpiece. This is certainly more expensive than most readily available bourbons, and even more than many entry level scotches, but I certainly wouldn’t mind drinking it every day. If you can find it for less than $70 you are doing pretty well.
Let’s keep this new whiskey adventure going. Cheers! [email protected]
FunMaster Brien celebrates Black History Month with a sobering movie.
To commemorate this final weekend of Black History Month, Cincinnati World Cinema is showing Within Our Gates, which is the earliest surviving feature film made by an African American director. Oscar Micheaux’s film (repeatedly censored over the years) tells the story of an educated black woman with a shocking past, who, after being abandoned by her fiancé, “dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished black youths.”
Made over 100 years ago, this film was heavily edited, having been deemed “too provocative” with its depictions of rape and lynching occurring so soon after the 1919 Chicago race riots. However, in 1993, the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center restored the piece to as close as possible to its original print. Only one short sequence is now absent.
Films of the silent era are vastly different from our modern “talkies.” They are also able to work as historical documents of a bygone era. The presentation by Cincinnati World Cinema also includes a short documentary on the director himself.
Please head over to cincyworldcinema.org if you are interested in exploring this, or any of their other cinematic offerings. Use the code PIONEER to watch Within Our Gates free of charge.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Haven’t played this one in awhile. The most beautiful tune I’ve ever heard.
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