Clear Eyes, Full Hearts. . .

Can't lose.

(Ellen Mavriplis)

*

Ryan and Dizzy are best buds.

The former would be my son-in-law, the estimable Ryan Mavriplis. The latter is Dizzy Peyton, the baseball coach at NKU. Above is a picture taken of them last week, after the Norse were eliminated from the Horizon League tournament. They finished 30-27, a terrific run given they were 17-31 as recently as 2021. In 2020, the COVID year, they went 0-17.

So, ‘23 was pretty good. But here’s the thing: Seasons come and go. They show up, they matter for a time and then they go away, no more permanent than the bloom of a crocus in the false spring of March.

Oh, but what those seasons can forge.

Ryan might remember the sad end to this good season, but he won’t dwell on it. I saw him last night. He was already looking forward to next season. Given the success Dizzy has created this year and last, I’m guessing he feels the same.

After all, their friendship isn’t going anywhere.

Words can’t convey what Dizzy has meant to Ryan over the years. And vice versa. This is what can happen when we See each other, rather than simply Look. Seeing is active, empathetic and engaged. Looking is lazy, judgmental and dismissive.

Dizzy has given Ryan a sense of place and the simple dignity of belonging, of being a valued part of a bigger whole. Ryan has given Dizzy the massive power of perspective. The transaction has made each of them more fully human.

This is how it’s supposed to work.

Did I mention Ryan has Down syndrome? Did I need to? Only for context, I suppose. The bond shared by coach and manager has nothing to do with disability. That would diminish its value. It’s all about a-bility. Man-to-man, friend-to-friend, equal in their hearts.

Congrats to NKU baseball, which lost its last game of the season (almost every team does) but won every time it took the field. Seasons come and go. They’re no match for human kindness.

Now, then. . .

BASEBALL IS FOR DREAMERS, suckers and incurable romantics. Of the Big Three American sports, it is the hardest to predict. It has so many moving parts. Unlike hoops and football, its workers punch a clock six or seven times a week.

We stumble around in the darkness of our predictions. What sounded impeccably wise yesterday/last week/last month looks suspect today. We’re more misguided than weathermen.

All of which is a fancy way of saying I might have been wr. . . wr. . . wr. . .

Not totally right about the Cincinnati Reds.

Steer. (Fieldlevelmedia.com)

This comes with an asterisk. I’m wrong today. I’m especially wrong since Friday, when The Club began its three-game rampage through Wrigley Field and the already-slumping Cubs. I reserve the right to change my tune at any point, and crow about it loudly. I’ll change it more than a 1950s DJ on a cool-cat Saturday night. That’s the nature of the game. That’s baseball.

I don’t create the reality. I reflect it. The Reds will make their own truth.

But a couple assumptions made in March have emerged, for now, as flat-out wrong.

Assumption 1: The Reds won’t hit. They’ll lose lots of games, 3-1. Look at that lineup.

Well. They scored 25 runs in three games in Chicago, on 45 hits. Everyone, it seems, is hitting.

TJ Friedl, four two-hit games since coming off the IL.

Spencer Steer, .386 in his last 13 games.

Jonathan India, bat hot enough he can hit 1st or 3rd, two lineup spots with entirely different approaches and objectives.

Nick Senzel, 23 RBI in 31 games since the last week of April.

Maybe you saw all this happening. Maybe you also envisioned the early success of Matt McLain. Not me.

Assumption 2: David Bell’s laid-back style would not put the needed sense of urgency into impressionable kids. I didn’t believe that, but I considered it. Bell’s personality has had the opposite effect. The kids appear to be playing relaxed and with the sort of swag unusual for a team that as recently as eight days ago had the 2nd-worst record in the NL.

“We found our identity early on in spring training," Steer said Sunday. "We’re going to outwork teams, we’re going to play hard and to the last out.’’

Maybe so. That was the case over the weekend. The Cubs played like Dead Team Walking. The Reds played like they were running from the law.

The most noticeable difference between these Reds and the ‘22 version is their fearlessness. They’re playing like kids should play. Take that extra base, turn that single into a double, don’t fear making a mistake. You’re a kid. You can get away with mistakes. For the time, being, your big-league career comes with an eraser.

Credit to Bell. He has his team playing respectably even as a major cog, Tyler Stephenson, hasn’t found his mojo. Bell has a roster short on power and starting pitching depth and a bullpen mostly pulled from the lost and found.

Far be it from me to be skeptical, but. . .

The Pirates were 20-8 on April 29. They’re 6-18 since. You could look at their roster and see a few proven commodities. Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen have been all-stars, Carlos Santana is a capable veteran, Ke’Bryan Hayes has shown potential. More veteran leadership there than here. Mitch Keller has proven more effective than any Reds starting pitcher.

Thank goodness for the AL Central, the only division as lacking as the NL Central. The NL Central is so bad that fans can talk unashamedly about the Reds being playoff contenders and not sound (completely) foolish.

Long seasons are always won by teams with pitching consistency and depth, not by streaking hitters. Almost exactly a third of the way into the season and the Reds don’t have many more answers about their Big 3 starters now than they did on Opening Day. Greene, Lodolo and Ashcraft have not been huge reasons the team has gone 17-14 since April 24.

The only thing that makes consistent sense across 162 games is track record. We can dream on Steer, Friedl, Fraley, McLain and Lively. We can crush on De La Cruz, Encarnacion-Strand and Abbott. Falling hard for them would be a mistake.

But that’s what we do, isn’t? Without our dreams, baseball wouldn’t exist.

Now, then. . .

EVERYONE WANTS DE LA CRUZ UP HERE. No one can tell you where he should play. Can you?

FREQUENT PERUSERS know I listen to the Reds religiously, but I don’t watch them. And so it is with authority (and love in my heart) that I respectfully wonder why Tommy and Cowboy 2nd-guess ball-strike calls several times a game, more often when the questionable call goes against a Reds batter.

Are the umpires that wrong?

HAVE YOU SEEN A PITCHER PITCH-OUT THIS YEAR? Even once? I haven’t.

And finally. . .

HOW DOES A GROCERY STORE that’s part of a prominent chain of grocery stores not have propane gas on the 2nd-biggest grilling holiday of the year? Does, say, WalMart run out of fake Christmas trees in December? Does O’Daugherty’s not have Guinness on tap on St. Patrick’s Day?

How can Kroger not have gas for the grill on Memorial Day weekend?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I finally gave up trying to convince my son Kelly of the worthiness of Brooooce when he was unmoved by this particular version of this particular tune. There are a few Springsteen songs even small Bruce fans really enjoy. Jungleland, for instance. Thunder Road, Badlands perhaps.

If you can’t get into the 1980, live version of Hungry Heart, you frankly have neither a soul nor a pulse. We Springsteen fans shake our heads and leave you be.

Jack.