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The most fascinating team in baseball put on a show Monday night. It’s what the Reds are good at, these Technicolor moments of made-for-Sports-Center brilliance. It’s impossible not to watch the Reds, even if you can’t stand them.
As the Brewers infielder took the relay throw from RF Jackson Chourio, Elly De La Cruz was just rounding third base. Surely, his try at his first inside-the-park homer would end in gallant failure. Run-DLC runs like a cheetah, but surely not as fast as an infielder can throw a baseball.
De La Cruz beat the high throw by a step.
This followed a 4th-inning when he scored from first on a bunt attempt by Santiago Espinal and of course, that 450-foot space launch we gaped at in the 5th.
I never thought I’d see again what Deion Sanders produced in his short stay here, in the mid-90s. Prime scored from 1st on a sharp single to center, among other feats of pure legwork. DLC has done this half a dozen times in less than a full season.
De La Cruz will be the face of the franchise soon enough, if he isn’t already. Might he become the face of baseball?
The great irony of last year and this is, a boisterous, swaggery, fully aggressive team is led by the humblest of managers. David Bell’s ego wouldn’t fill a sandwich bag. He knows the footlights belong to those doing the dancing. And so, he lets them dance.
That’s more important than any lineup configuration or in-game move all you ball-geeks like to skewer Bell for.
Speak softly and carry a big, green light.
This is where the path diverges, though. This is where everything I just wrote gets tagged with a Maris-sized asterisk. The Reds are fun. Winning big is more fun. And if the ‘24 Reds want to be more than latter-day vaudevillians, they need consistency from De La Cruz more than they need his highlights.
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