Defunct since May 2005

3.27.2005

spring vacation (part two).

as i finished writing my diatribe on spring training (below), i thought that i would try to cover the rest of the issues i wanted to discuss a little more expeditiously. so here is a laundry list of things i've wanted to talk about over the last few weeks:

  • i was extremely disappointed with the NCAA selection committee's seeding of louisville for the tournament. how could a team that was ranked #4 in the nation...a team that won both their conference's regular season and tournament championships...a team that won 18 out of their last 19 games not be a #1 seed or at least a #2 seed. it was downright insulting that louisville was given a #4 seed and the committee should be ashamed of themselves.
  • keeping on the subject of the NCAA tournament, i just wanted to mention how well i did on my bracket this year. currently, i am in the 97th percentile of ESPN's tournament challenge contestants, and it looks like (pending the outcome of the kentucky-michigan state game) my final four predictions were spot on.
  • even though it is old news now, i wanted to mention (this one's for you tommy) how happy i was about the bengals' signing of rudi johnson. rudi is the best running back to ever play for the bengals, and it would have been shameful to "franchise" him just to see if the chris perry experiment works out. in my opinion, drafting chris perry was the only mistake marvin lewis has made in the past two years, but resigning johnson has rectified that. my last words on this topic can only be: RUDI! RUDI! RUDI!
  • finally, on an entirely different note, i have nothing to say about this terri schiavo issue, and neither should congress. unfortunately, this very personal family situation has been exploited by the media and turned into a circus.

i think this pretty much covers what i wanted to talk about. i will be sure to have my login information with me next time i go home so i don't get this far behind again. oh yeah, i forgot, only 7 days, 19 hours, 3 minutes, and 45...44...43 seconds until opening day, as sean casey would say, "I'M PUMPED."

spring vacation (part one).

it has been nearly two weeks since my last entry and i am kind of embarrassed about that. even though i've been on my spring vacation, i've still had plenty to talk about. unfortunately, i didn't have my login information for blogger at home, thus i could not access my blog. so i would like to spend the next several paragraphs catching up on things.

visiting cincinnati reds spring training in sarasota, florida (with my father and brother) was by far the most interesting thing i did over the break. it was my first time going to spring training, and we were lucky to see a couple great games (against the twins and devil rays). but, as everyone knows, the games mean very little, and so i found myself more intrigued by the atmosphere down there.

baseball in spring is in its purest form, and as a fan, it was wonderful to witness this first hand. it is very hard for me to pinpoint what is so special about spring training--maybe its the intimacy of the ballpark, maybe its the rawness of the minor league camps, or maybe its a concentration of all these things baseball into one place. i really think you have to be there to truly understand. it is a magical place.

so magical in fact, that as we walked through the parking lot after our final game, a baseball materialized from the clear blue and rolled gently along the gravel straight into my father's feet.

3.10.2005

run-in with "the red letters."

here is my recent correspondence with matt allen from ESPN and "the red letters." i wrote to him:

mr. allen,

i am a realist. but why must all of your opinions be so cynical? even when you are empirical, your writing still seems treacherous. i can understand that you may feel disgruntled by the reds organization, but no reds fan wants to hear only negative things about their team, and certainly a true reds fan would not write them.

this is not to say that you should not criticize the moves that the reds have made, some (or all) may turn out to be foolish, but you never talk about the upside.

my problem with you is that you assume the negative, and you think that those who assume the positive are buffoons. when in actuality, you have just as good a chance of being wrong as they do. why can't you find the middle ground and give a more balanced account?

i know you would be very happy (and very embarrassed) if all the new starters had career years (15+ wins each) and the relievers lived up to their potential. if griffey and kearns had healthy years and if dunn cut down on k's. BUT your writing would still be negative. for example, if the reds picked up (what you would consider) a middle of the road pitcher to bolster the staff at the trade deadline you would still rip the move. that is sad.

i pray, as i'm sure you do, that the reds win this year--that they make the postseason. but i do so as a life long reds fan, and you do it as a bitter commentator.

please recall the days when you actually liked the reds while you write your next entry, i'm sure at some point you really were a fan. however, it seems like all you care about now is making a buck off of biting commentary. give us a little hint of hope, that is all i ask. if i had your gift--if i were a clever writer--i would at least pay a little homage to my allegiances.

a true life-long reds fan (you could be too),

bobby o

cincinnati, oh (displaced in champaign, il)

matt responded:

Bobby O,

First off, let me apologize for getting back to you so long after you wrote. I’ve had major computer problems for the last few months but I’ve finally gotten them fixed. Now, I just have to get through my huge backlog of e-mails.

Secondly, no need to call me Mr. Allen. Matt’ll do (although if you have something particularly nasty in mind, I’d rather be called Mr. Allen).

To your e-mail. I appreciate that you stayed civil in your criticism of my writing, but I wonder just how long you’ve read my work at ESPN for the Reds. I think that you described it best in your first sentence—realism. I don’t think I portray an overly harsh view of the Reds, I just want my team to win and like any educated fan (like, I assume, yourself), we all think we have ideas that would help our team improve and fortunately for me, I have a platform (albeit a small one) for those opinions. I agree that my offseason assessment when compiled together may have seemed a little harsh, but I feel I have the opportunity to express my disappointment with the organization for what I feel was a subpar offseason. So, in that manner, I don’t take back any of the things I wrote, because I believe them. However, I certainly respect your opinion that maybe this offseason wasn’t as bad as it seemed to be and salute you for it.

The only thing I’ll take issue with you on is several assumptions that I feel you made in reading my writing. I’ve been a Reds fan for since 1986 when I watched Pete Rose hit 4,192 off Eric Show at Riverfront Stadium. I was there in 1990 when Todd Benzinger caught that foul pop up for the last out in Game 4 of the World Series and the Reds pulled possibly the greatest upset in the history of the game. I was there at the park when a great shortstop named Barry Larkin called it quits and thanked the Reds fans there from the upper deck over the public address system after coming out of the game early to receive one final standing O. To see you say that I “assume the negative” and I feel those who “assume the positive are buffoons” leaves me feeling that you’re making very brash generalizations. In addition, I realize that I all prognostications are just that—a “guess” at the future.
I’ve never claimed to be more right than anyone else. I feel I base my opinions on the evidence I have, and do the best I can, but I certainly don’t latch on the negative just for sport.

Also, to assume that my writing would be negative no matter what is a bit of an assumption of its own on your part. I’m also not sure that any prediction about how I would react to a mid-season move this season when it’s only March isn’t doing the very thing you’re accusing me of—claiming you’ll be right no matter what. If the Reds make a good move, I applaud it. Bad move? I remark in that fashion too, but I feel I stay pretty much to the facts.

To infer that I’m not a baseball fan, or a “true” baseball fan is a little misguided as well simply because I don’t see things the way you do. I love the Reds. Even more, I love baseball. I always will. But I have my opinion and you have yours. They’re each as valuable as the other (as long as we’re being honest or “true” and looking at all the facts). Having your allegiance blinded by team loyalty isn’t being any more true than someone who wants to see things the way they are and look for ways to
improve them.

Finally, just a note—I don’t get paid for this. I’m not “making a buck off of biting commentary”. I do this for free and will continue to because I love talking about baseball with people like yourself and being a part of the baseball community. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with my assessment of the Reds’ moves this offseason, but I feel I’ve stuck to the facts and they don’t look as good as I’d like them to as a Reds fan. I thank you for writing, though, and encourage you to visit http://theredletters.blogspot.com and see if you think that all my writing is negative or if maybe you may have judged me a little unfairly. Either way, it’s your opinion and I certainly respect that.

Let me again apologize for my delayed response, but I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree as far as my analysis of the Reds offseason is concerned.

Good luck this year. Have a good one.

Matt

i'd like to thank matt allen for taking my letter and explaining his position. i urge people to check out his blog (http://theredletters.blogspot.com). it is a good source for insight on the cincinnati reds, but i must issue the disclaimer that much of the content on the blog is harsh criticism of our dear ballclub.

3.09.2005


the white house. june 2004. Posted by Hello

3.08.2005

kilimanjaro.


posing at kilimanjaro's summit with my dad. july 2001. Posted by Hello

unfair stigma.

great american ballpark does not favor hitters. some of you maybe laughing right now, but this is an empirical fact. i am tired of the stigma that has been attached to our ballpark by baseball writers. nicknames have been coined (e.g. "great american smallpark") and the notion that the GABP is a hitter's paradise has worked its way into every broadcast from the park. but it is untrue and unfair.

my interest in this issue was sparked when the reds signed eric milton during the offseason. milton is notorious for giving up the long ball, and after the signing sports writers began to question why he would want to pitch in a home run launching pad. but they were wrong in their judgement of GABP--great american is actually a very fair park, if anything it favors pitchers. and my evidence for this claim comes from ESPN.

in 2001, ESPN created a formula that rates a ballpark's favorability to pitching or hitting. good pitching parks have a rating below 1.0 and good hitting parks have a rating above 1.0. in both 2003 and 2004 (the only years it has been ranked), great american ballpark rated a 0.992. so i ask that sports writers consider the facts and not just their intuitions when writing about the GABP. hopefully that will stop the proliferation of this myth--a myth that scares good pitchers from signing with cincinnati.

3.04.2005

only one more month.


there's austin kearns looking just as anxious as i am. Posted by Hello

3.03.2005

magical time of year.

the baseball season changes things. when you live and die with a baseball team, each day becomes a new adventure--i know that sounds cliched, but it is so true. and so my disposition everyday, from the beginning of march until october, is determined by a single factor--whether the reds win or lose. i don't mean to say that i lose interest in the reds over the offseason--i don't--but today, the first exhibition game of spring training, is when i become hardcore yet again. no more compromises with cubs fans, no more credit given to the cards or 'stros; from here on out it's reds or bust. 31 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes, and 15...14...13 seconds until opening day, and 31 exhibitions to enjoy between now and then. i am ready and i hope the world is ready--the reds win the NL central this year.

3.02.2005

hold it right there buster.

this will be a short one. i thought you had to be reasonably intelligent to be a baseball analyst for ESPN. well buster olney proved me wrong. in his preseason major league baseball rankings, olney ranked the cincinnati reds (the team ESPN claimed had the best offseason in the NL central) below the milwaukee brewers and pittsburgh pirates. now common sense says if you finish the season ahead of two teams in the standings, and you have a better offseason than those same two teams, you must be putting a better team on the field. but somehow, olney's warped sense of logic warranted him putting the reds behind the beggarly brewers and the pitiful pirates on his preseason list. come on buster, think about it.

the real cincinnati kid.


that's my new motto. Posted by Hello

some photo fun.


on the roof of africa. july 2001.Posted by Hello

test post.

i just want to see how this works. but plan on hearing from me a bunch.