Hi, My Name is David

I'll be your minor-leagues tour guide today

Greetings from TML southern headquarters, Mobsters. Sunny south of Tampa somewhere, where the blue skies and bathtub weather have got me in no mood for tolerating anything that doesn’t suit my (highly unusual and open to suspicion) good mood. This very moment, I’m hangin’ in a chaise on the pool deck, wondering who Adam Busenitz is.

Uh, Doc. Man’s name is Alan.

The Reds already have set one record in their 2023 Season of Fun: Most players rostered we’ve never heard of. I’ll see your Jason Legumina and raise you a Levi Stoudt. If you fold, you owe me a Fernando Cruz.

For the record, Adam. . .

Alan.

. . . Alan Busenitz spent the previous four seasons pitching in Japan, where he went 10-8 as a reliever, with a 2.60 ERA in 179 innings. The Reds signed him to a minor-league deal over the winter.

Busenitz is the 22nd pitcher the Reds have used to navigate seven weeks of real hardball, 23 if you count position player Kyle Vosler, who made two relief appearances.

Jason. Jason Vosler.

I’ve listened to all or parts of every game this season, and I do not recall Severino Bracho.

Silvino.

It says he pitched one inning of one game, um, Sunday in Miami. He’s 30 and has seen more towns than Willy Loman. (Lookimup. Hint: He wasn’t a ballplayer.)

You say DBell doesn’t know what he’s doing and should be replaced. I say his roster is straight from a Fodor’s travel guide. When Bell leaves baseball, he can lead tours through the backwaters of Mexico and Venezuela. “Today, we’ll be visiting the ancestral home of Santorini Bracho.’’

From the crowd of tourists, a man yells, “It’s Silvino!’’

Yes. Sorry.

Matt McLain

After 40 games, roughly 25 percent of the season, the Reds are 18-22, which is also known as Right on Schedule. Seventy-two Ws, maybe 74. With this roster. Starting today, we’ll see what Matt McLain can do and hope it’s better than what Jose Barrero did. Recall that Barrero, too, was hyped as the Future at SS.

McLain has excellent AAA numbers and has been assured he’s the everyday shortstop, though “everyday’’ comes with pliable definitions. Eventually, Elly de la Cruz will cease making highlight videos in Louisville and (maybe) begin making new ones here. And so on.

Youth is hope. Hope springs eternal. And infernal, often at the same time. We take what we can get. Paraphrasing Phil, “What else you got?’’

Now, then. . .

REDS NEW UNIS are, I dunno, OK. I guess. The national and ongoing fascination with the color black was a bit much a long time ago. Plus, I’m standing on the field at the Small Park on a Friday in deep July at 7 pm, it’s 88, it’s humid and the whole place feels like the inside of a dog’s mouth and I’m wearing. . . black?

(Courtesty of the Reds)

The Reds will debut the uniforms against the New York Yankees on May 19 and will wear them every Friday. Yahoo!:

The Reds hope the new look and revamped C-logo marks a new era for the franchise's history.

"We drew parallels between this city and this team," said Reds vice president Ralph Mitchell. "Cincinnati is an up-and-coming city. It was important to us to be able to represent the fan base and the organization in a unique and modern way."

Among the most notable changes is the revamped "C" logo. The Reds have featured the "C" wordmark dating back as far as 1913 featuring moderate updates to size and thickness. The Reds and Nike hoped to modernize the logo with wavelength lines. The width and height of the modernized design matches the current "C" logo marking, hoping to provide symmetry between uniforms.

I’ve never been one to diss uniforms. Most are very attractive. A few — vintage San Diego Padres leaps to mind, 80s Astros, too — are unfortunate.

I don’t know how messing with the wishbone C represents The Club in a “unique and modern way.’’ Maybe you do.

The Yankees never mess with the “NY’’. Their unis seem memorable enough.

I KNEW THAT GOOD MOOD WOULDN’T LAST. . . Tommy Tuberville said something stupid during a radio interview. Stupid Tommy Tuberville is redundant, so we’ll just say Tommy said something Tuberville.

To wit:

"We are losing in the military so fast.’’

Why’s that, Tommy?

“Our readiness in terms of recruitment. Why? I’ll tell you why, because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden’s agenda." 

Translation: Military recruitment lacks because Democrats are discouraging people like the people who attacked the capitol from signing up.

Waiter! Comfy couch, cool place, tall rum drink!

Tuberville’s office clarified those remarks, telling AL.com that Tuberville’s comment “shows that he was being skeptical of the notion that there are white nationalists in the military, not that he believes they should be in the military” The senator believes members of the military are “patriots.”

Tuberville didn’t clarify Tuberville’s Tuberville. Did we mention he’s a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee?

This new run of Tubervilles arguably surpassed the Tuberville that Tommy offered last October, when he decided Dems “want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that," Tuberville added. "Bull****! They are not owed that."

In response, a former UC football player who started for the Bearcats during the Tuberville Era has suggested players who played for Tommy should be owed reparations. Zach Edwards was a UC safety and Middletown HS grad.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG. . . Twice in two months, NBA star Ja Morant has been seen on social media waving a handgun. Allegedly. He got suspended the first time. He’ll get a bigger suspension this time.

Question: What’s the point, Ja? Even if we overlook the fact that showing off your gun at a time when lots of innocents are being murdered by guns is somewhat lacking in discretion. . . why would anyone in Morant’s situation do something like that?

It’s just a very Tuberville thing to do.

AND FINALLY. . . I recommend highly Mike Miller’s substack on places in Florida that time mercifully forgot. Once a week, Mike details the little places we pass by in our endless quest to be somewhere else.

Home of writer MK Rawlings

I’ve been to several he has suggested, might do another this week, as long as I’m in the neighborhood. Crystal River (manatees) was fabulous, as were Micanopy and Cross Creek, the dot on the map where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived and wrote The Yearling.

TML sez ckout Mike Miller.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . As mentioned previously in This Space, The Famer and I might be the only connoisseurs of Southern Beach Music in the Tristate. Unlike West Coach Beach Music (surfing, cars, girls) SBM is largely a Black phenomenon. In the 50s and 60s, talented Black performers played a unique form of R-n-B to largely white, mostly collegiate audiences.

The dance spawned was called The Shag. SBM is a very regionalized sound, epicenter-ed in Myrtle Beach, but in its heyday was seen everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi.

Here’s one typical of the genre.