The Time for Patient Riffing is Over
The Reds deserve a full-blown rant-o-rama. Here ya go.
John Bonham, ranting in a very particular way.
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Welcome to FreeForAll Wednesday, when we open our hearts, close our wallets and share our brilliance with the masses. Come one, come all. If you enjoy yourselves, it’s 8 bucks month for 5 TMLs a week. We do hope you enjoy yourselves.
The difference between a riff and a rant is the volume. Riffs are instructive, rants are therapeutic. Riffs are reasonable. Rants are anything but. As we wrap up another Empty Box season of Reds baseball — in, sigh, July — what are youse in the mood for?
Riffs sound like Beethoven’s piano. Rants sound like the inside of John Bonham’s bass drum.
I could riff about the need to stay the course. Look at Greene and De La Cruz. Looka that young, cheap starting pitching. Looka Marte and CES. Oh, wait. Don’t looka that.
Patience, peeps. Trust the process, follow the plan.
Or. . .
I could crank up the umbrage, like a kid in the basement with his records, when mom and dad aren’t home, blowing out speakers while pumping Led Zep IV.
(ew.com)
“Ours goes to eleven.’’ (OG movie ref, kids. Lookitup.)
Trusting process requires a short memory and a kind heart. It relies on a benefit of the doubt wider than the gulf between the Reds and the Dodgers. It rationalizes failure and overlooks 29 years without a W in a playoff series.
If you’re 30 years old or even 40, I could see that. If you’re 50 or 60, not so much.
I’m 50 or 60. You know, give or take. Battle scars are everywhere.
I’m all outta peace, love and understanding, better known in the fan business as optimism, rationalization and excuses. Someone fetch me my Zep IV cassette.
What’s a cassette, Doc?
Baseball seasons aren’t supposed to end in July, only around here they have for eight of the last 11 seasons, and that’s with giving the Reds credit for making the playoffs in the 60-game Bastard Season of 2020. And now, they’ve taken a standing-eight on 2024. I’m just tired of it. So damned tired.
I invented the term Lost Decade to describe the 90s Bengals. What do we call the Reds since 2012? Groundhog Decade?
I’d love to give The Club some slack, but it hasn’t earned it. Trust the process? Why?
I get no relief from the public words of Nick Krall. Here’s what he said in the past week, about deals done and not done:
“We’ve got a good group of veterans.’’
“We haven’t won the games we should have won. We do have a shot.”
“We could have traded three-or-four more relievers if we really wanted to.’’
“We made some offers. At the end of the day, we came up short.’’
That last sentence is the only sentence that makes any sense.
At the end of the day/week/month/year/decade, they’ve come up short.
I don’t know if it’s forced optimism, weird denial or an awkward attempt at scrubbing the mustache off the Mona Lisa. But judging from their words, Reds folks inhabit a parallel universe. Earth 2.
On Earth 1, folks see this team for what it is. A disappointment. On Earth 2, the view is decidedly different. A most recent example:
In describing the losses of Frankie Montas and Lucas Sims, pitcher Nick Martinez said this on Tuesday: “We lost some good guys. Guys that helped us win.’’
They must think you’re stupid.
The Reds line all year has been, “Injuries have wrecked our season.’’ Truth is, other clubs have suffered worse, to the extent that what the Reds see as a reason, we view as an excuse.
It’s as if Matt McLain were Alex Rodriguez. He’s not.
The Braves lost a Cy Young frontrunner in April and an MVP candidate in June. Since, they’ve lost their CF, their No. 2 starter, their No. 3 starter and their all-star 2B. No Strider, Acuna, Harris Jr., Fried, Lopez and Albies. Tell us again about Reds injuries.
Orioles: Three starting pitchers and a closer.
The Dodgers have lost an all-star team: Buehler, Kershaw, Betts, Yamamoto, Muncy. Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin.
Brewers: Yelich, Woodruff, Miley, Gasser. Two closers (Williams until this week, McGill now).
Boston: Two frontline SPs, a closer, a SS.
And so on.
Part of being successful is a willingness to take a hard, honest look at where you are and why you’re there. The Reds could start by not insulting the collective intelligence with how OK they think they are and how close they are to being Good.
Return to Earth 1, in other words.
Did I mention I’m tired? I’m tired of hearing about how great the kids are. Tired of spending every deadline watching the Reds trade a bag o’ nickels for a Cracker Jack ring. Tired of a lifetime of We Just Came Up Short.
Look: This franchise promised to bring championship baseball back. Its owner said he was tired of losing. Well?
Tired of watching the heathen Cardinals get Sonny Gray when the Reds get Frankie Montas. (Talk about coming up short.) Tired of broadcast media disrespecting our intelligence by gushing over a sub-.500 team.
Tired of regarding “patience’’ as a four-letter word. Tired of the optimism of March being treated like a footwipe. You deserve better. End of rant. Until next time.
Now, then. . .
FWIW. . . Yahoo says the Bengals are the 13th-best team in the NFL. It suggests they’re hard to figure, because of Burrow’s fragility. Fair point. One more injury and Saint Joe is Humpty Dumpty. Assuming Joey is whole for all or most of the year, The Men should make that ranking look silly.
Yahoo says the Jets are better than the Bengals. The Texans, too. And Cleveland. The Browns are No. 7. Fascinating: Cleveland was 11-6 last year, while getting 12 QB starts from Joe Flacco and three guys known best by their moms.
The Browns have a good O-line and a very good D. They also have Deshaun Watson. You wanna bet on that guy?
LIQUID FENCE SAVED MY FLOWERS from the insouciant deer(s?) who literally munched my knockout roses right outside my office window. I’ve tried all kinds of remedies, home and otherwise. Nothing worked until now.
You might say, “Gee, Doc, everyone knows about Liquid Fence. What took you so long?’’
To which I might or might not reply, “Twenty-four dollars a gallon.’’
I still have a problem. I have this squirrel-proof bird feeder that actually does a good job foiling the little bast——s. It doesn’t defeat the insouciant deer, who literally walk up to the feeder and start eating, thereby foiling the weight=sensitive mechanism that closes the food tray.
I’ve tried cayenne pepper in the seed. I’ve tried chili powder and rocks tossed from 20 paces. I even Liquid Fence-d the feeder pole.
No luck. Suggestions, please, Mobsters.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Let us now in good conscience rant all over the room. This should help.
The fans, this town, this local media, and the organization from top to bottom has to be honest and recognize that this is a bottom 5 MLB franchise. Three decades (mostly) of futility. The Reds are decidedly NOT a notch better than the Pirates. Or Royals. Or Athletics. Or White Sox. Or Marlins. Or Rays. Or Dbacks. Or even the Rockies. Each one of those teams has more playoff wins than the Reds do over the last 3 decades. 6 of those 8 teams have played in World Series and 4 of them have won it all at some point in the last 30 years. What's sad is that our fanbase is far better and more supportive than any of those 8 teams. Ownership/Management has been terrible during these 3 decades, 2010-2013 notwithstanding. In 2012, when the Reds were one of the two best teams in the NL, our big deadline acquisition that year was, wait for it...Jonathan Broxton. One of the telltale signs of decline is the eroded definition of success. Ownership and and even some players now think winning 82 games is a "great year". Emperor Bob truly has no clothes.
The Bengals may have The Lost Decade, but the Reds have The Lost Generation. 30 years is a whole generation of fans lost to somewhere or something else. My oldest son who is 12, lives and dies baseball, is a Dodger fan. I definitely am not, but I can't blame him. Why would anyone root for this? And more importantly, how could anyone get their kids or friends to root for this? We are all bearing witness to the slow death of a once-incredible baseball culture here along the Ohio River, where Midwest-meets-Appalachia-meets-South. And the blame lies squarely with the owners and management of the last 30 years. The Lost Generation indeed.
I believe if I was a Reds fan, I'd be pissed off. I mean, even the Pirates made some moves. No needle-movers, of course, but no one expected that. Losing sports teams are always wanting fans to "trust the process". But, often the process is flawed. And, by the way, trust has to be earned. What have the Reds done to earn that trust? From your post, Doc, it doesn't sound as though they've done much trust earning at all.