Dream Until Your Dreams Come True

April is baseball's month for guys like Jason Vosler

THINGS YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T EXPECT TO HEAR. . .

Your 7-year-old enthusing, “More peas, please!’’

Your boss saying, “We’re transferring you to our Maui field office.’’

Reds pitcher Derek Law announcing, “Thank God we have Jason Vosler.’’

Confession: Never heard of Jason Vosler. He started at 1B on Opening Day. I Googled him. Still never heard of him. He was right up there on my Derek Law radar, under my Fernando Cruz microscope.

Cynically and altogether snarkily, I thought, “the Dodgers have Freddie Freeman, the Reds have Jason Vosler. Perfect metaphor for moneyball 2023.’’

It might still turn out that way. April is the game’s most misleading month, just ahead of September. It’s also the game’s dreamiest. Vosler’s livin’ it. He bashed a 3-run homer Monday night that turned a 4-6 Reds deficit into a 7-6 Reds win. He made a nice defensive play in the 9th to protect his good hitting deed.

Vosler has four hits, all for extra bases, in 11 at-bats. Two longballs, 6 RBI.

He’s 29, well past the age of proving himself. Or so you’d think. When you’re 29 and still scufflin’ in baseball, well, your best move is often for the door. If you’re Vosler, you’ve had four organizations kick your tires. You have played for teams loved by ornithologists (Boise Hawks, Myrtle Beach Pelicans) and for teams who don’t like each other (Sacramento River Cats, El Paso Chihuahuas.)

At age 29, you have to be asking yourself, at least occasionally, “Can everybody be wrong about me?’’

And yet. . .

This is the sort of move that will keep Nick Krall employed. Any team with a lot of cash can go buy itself starting pitching (Mets) or buy and retain a left side of an infield (San Diego). Krall is like Gold Rush Guy in 1849 California, pitching a tent and jiggling his pan in a stream.

Dandy Andy

The Reds have done well finding nuggets in recent seasons. Brandon Drury last year, Derek Dietrich before that. But for every Drury, there is an Aristides Aquino. His Andy Warhol Moment (lookimup, scholars) lasted a month.

Vosler’s truth will come soon enough. The Book on him is being written as we speak. What to throw him, where to throw it. Baseball is life and life is adjustments. Changing, adapting, coping, growing. Dealing.

Will Jason Vosler deal?

At the moment, he’s a walking cure for despair. Vosler is an antidote for the case of cynicism currently running rampant in Reds Country. Theoretically, the fun to be had this summer is in the development of Greene, Lodolo, Ashcraft and the off chance that opportunity will equal unexpected success for players we had to Google.

Carry on, Jason Vosler. We’ll be watching.

Now, then. . .

HERE’S ANOTHER REASON TO BE ANGRY, AS IF WE NEEDED MORE. I’ve been following this whole Caitlin Clark-v-Angel Reese dust-up. I’ve tried to have an opinion on it because, well, because that’s what we do in This Space.

And I gotta tell ya, I couldn’t care less.

Clark is the best women’s college hooper in existence. Reese is right there with her. After the national title game Sunday, Reese started celebrating, or whatever it is you’d like to call it, by pointing to her ring finger, then following Clark around the court, mimicking Clark’s “you can’t see me’’ gesture which she’d displayed in an Elite Eight win over Louisville.

Observers observed and offered instant social media opinions on Reese’s sportsmanship or lack thereof.

Reese responded to the responses, media showed up with hot takes and gas cans and before you knew it, melodrama overwhelmed what had been a terrific tournament, on and off the court.

Why do we keep doing this?

(Newsweek)

Why is it so important we be right, or wrong at the top of our lungs?

Athletes behave this way now. Now? For the past couple decades, at least. I’m not a big fan of the behavior, but I am old. When I was young, nobody behaved this way. That doesn’t make the current histrionics wrong. Just different from what OGs grew up with.

You know what’s irritating? Not the acts themselves. The responses to the acts.

Sports, politics, race, sex, whatever. It doesn’t matter. The noise obliterates everything.

Makes me wanna lie down in a cool place.

Angel Reese’s behavior reflects only on Angel Reese. Ditto Caitlin Clark. It doesn’t impact the rest of us at all. It’d be good if we stopped living in a permanent state of Pissed Off, yeah?

We have it great in this country. Realize that and act accordingly.

Time for gratitude. Write that on your TikToks.

THE MEN’S GAME WASN’T nearly as interesting. It left me hoping Adama Sanogo would have chased Lamont Butler around the court postgame, pointing at his ring finger.

Two weeks of fine chaos were great, except they produced one dull championship weekend. The UConn machine was beautiful in its ability to, as Mike Tyson once put it, “destruct and destroy.’’ I’m not sure any team could have given the Huskies a game Monday. They ended up winning six Madness games by an average of 20 points. I do know this: I sure wish Gonzaga/Alabama/UCLA/Kansas would have been given the chance to try.

That’s the paradox in an overly mad Madness. It yields San Diego State on Monday night.

What an elitist thing to say.

Sure is. But who can disagree? SDSU was a gritty bunch and good for them. As shooters, they couldn’t hit the ocean from a boat. They went more than 11 minutes of the 1st half without making a basket. They had no answer for Sanogo or that kid Calcaterra, who launched successful rockets like he was playing long distance P-I-G.

On defense, UConn looked like the good Syracuse teams, only without the 2-3 zone. Octopus arms everywhere, athletic big men contesting everything. Props to the Huskies, but it didn’t make for great watching.

Were you supremely entertained?

(CBS)

PROGRAMMING NOTE. . . Actually a question. I’m a Masters geek/loser/apologist. No event I’ve covered comes close to it. I tend to gush.

How do youse feel about that?

Two days of Masters pregame, tomorrow and Thursday: Too much? I wanna give you what you want in This Space, not just what I want. Lemme know.

MEANWHILE. . . From the NY Times:

First-time visitors at the Masters tournament are always obvious. For starters, they tend to walk slowly with their eyes wide. As famed as Augusta National Golf Club is, to a newcomer parading around the grounds, the landscape is a bevy of surprises that no television broadcast — however technologically advanced and exhaustingly thorough — can grasp.

For example, every Masters first-timer is stunned that the vertical drop from the 10th tee to the 10th green is a stunning, and difficult to traverse, 85 feet.

AND FINALLY. . . I think Rory McIlroy finally gets a green jacket. He hits the ball as far as anyone, his putting lately has been fantastic. He knows the course, he has dealt (not well) with the Sunday-back-9 pressure. If he can keep himself a safe distance from his own head, I say he’s wearing the green Sunday evening, like a proper Irish lad.

What say you?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . This early Isleys hit has a Motown feel. I preferred the funkier Isleys, but this one still shimmies.