Thursday, August 5, 2010

It might be Dusty’s team, but I’m still happy for Cincinnati.

I won’t cheer for them…I still really dislike Dusty Baker…and I think some of their players are jerks…

But I am very happy that one of the best baseball cities in the National League finally has something to cheer for.

The fans of Cincinnati absolutely love their Reds and are some of the most knowledgeable fans in all of baseball and these people have been absolutely shit upon for the better part of 15 years now.

Endless stories have been written about what a joke the ownership and management of this team has been during this lost period of failure. And then, in the middle of the stadium building boom, their cheep ass owners constructed the most boring and uninspiring new ballpark of the last 20 years. Then on top of that, major league baseball snatched away one of the great traditions for the Reds where they got to host the very first MLB game of the season each year.

So, this past weekend I got to watch the Reds play the Braves on the Fox Saturday game of the week. Great American Ballpark (which, as I stated before, isn’t that “great”) was packed. The Reds fans have come back after years and years of mismanagement and failed expectations. Yeah…it was only one game, and the Braves travel well, but that city appears to be excited finally. It took a while…Reds fans have become accustomed to seeing their team start off well only to fade in the second half of the season.

So Dusty's team comes to town this weekend, and the truth is that warning flares should have been shot off in the very first week of the season for both the Reds and Cubs when these teams met for the first time this year. The Reds looked shockingly good and the Cubs looked shockingly bad...and that's how the season continued for both teams.

In the end, I cannot cheer for the Reds to beat out the Cardinals for the division title…I’m going to hold out hope that the Pirates can overtake them both.