Do you like to meet real live Central Ohioans from the internet like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin and James 'Buster' Douglas?

If you're going to be in (or near) Central Ohio on 'Leap Day' (Wednesday, February 29th) you should join some fellow Red Reporters for a little celebration of nothing in particular. (Perhaps.. maybe.. hopefully... someone will raise a glass "To healthy women!"... Who's to say?)

KA-POW! It's gonna be a good time you don't wanna miss skip leap.

It's been determined that Barley's Smokehouse (on 33 just outside of Grandview) will be our regular spot for meeting and greeting and eating and beating the National League later this spring and summer (and early fall) so let's start off a good year with some Spring Training and see what our pitchers and catchers report.

7pm or something like that? Discuss.

Also, feel free to throw out any other February dates that yous guys might wanna get together. We missed Abe's and Chuck's birthday but we don't have to miss Pistachio Day (2/26) or Walk Your Dog Day (2/22) or Sleeping In Public Day (2/28) or Tortilla Chip Day (2/24) or whatever else might be important to you.

I was browsing and searching for any news or speculation about why Ryan Ludwick has not yet been officially added to the Reds' roster when I found this article at FoxSportsOhio.com. The article didn't provide any insight on what brilliant masterstroke Walt might be planning with the roster but it did provide this list of players that the Reds have sent packing since last season ended:

DEPARTURES: RHP Edinson Volquez, 1B Yonder Alonso, RHP Brad Boxberger and C Yasmani Grandal (traded to Padres); LHP Dontrelle Willis (free agent, signed with Phillies), C Ramon Hernandez (free agent, signed with Rockies), LHP Matt Maloney (waiver claim by Twins), LHP Travis Wood (traded to Cubs), OF Dave Sappelt (traded to Cubs), RHP Francisco Cordero (free agent, signed with Blue Jays), LHP Jeremy Horst (traded to Phillies).

OTHERS: RHP Levi Jared Burton(free agent, signed with Twins) and RHP Daryl Thompson (free agent, signed with Twins)

FREE AGENTS: SS Edgar Renteria.

"Whoa," I thought, "That's a lot of guys."

Personally, I've been pretty happy with the moves of this off-season. The Reds had a considerable number of good-to-great players but the level of collective talent on their entire roster was somehow kinda stuck on good. Now, we've been over this and over this and there's really no reason to go over this again: DId Walt make all the right moves in order to help the Reds win now?... Hey. Whatever. That's not what this FanPost is about.

As I looked at that list it occurred to me that even though I was okay (and sometimes even thrilled) with all of the moves that let all those guys go, there are almost certainly going to be two or three guys that have great seasons in 2012 and 2013. And that's what I wanted this FanPost to be about... (Well, that and all the movies in those '2012' and '2013' links ;)

So, who did the Reds let go/trade away that you think might now outperform their assumed career projections and make us think, "Daaaaaamn. That guy was a Red!"

(And by the way, here's the awesome scene that inspired that not-as-awesome animated GIF.)

Saturday morning, the middle child (Tommy, 5) and I ate some toast and eggs, dropped some cake balls off at the church's bake sale and braved the little blast of wet snow to head north to Polaris Fashion Place. The Reds' Caravan was in town and we felt we needed to be there. Not sure why I felt I needed to be there but I told Tommy it was a "baseball party" and he was sure that he needed to be there so that was good enough for me.

We were a few minutes early and turnout was somewhat light so we were pretty confident that we'd be to able get around pretty easily and get what we wanted. The first thing we wanted was a picture with 2007 first round draft pick Devin Mesoraco. ..Check.

As you can see, the kid is an absolutely gorgeous hunk of classic American boy. Give him a Sharpie and hold him up so he doesn't get stepped on and.. Boom! Autographs. He got the Reds' top prospect to sign one side of a little foam baseball and then got the Reds' perfect-game lefty workhorse to sign the other. I'm not usually one to ooh and ahh at autographs but I think Tommy had the coolest little piece of memorabilia in the joint and it wasn't even 10am.

Soon, that one mascot (FIIK!?!) was done warming up the crowd and Thom was bellowing about the great sports fans in the capitol city Buckeyes and introducing everyone for the Q&A session. About this time we bumped into the lovely Mrs. Charlie Scrabbles. Tommy chatted her up (piano.. waffles.. Mario.. Fellas, y'know how it goes, right?) while Chuck and I tried to catch any tidbit Walt was offering about Chapman not going to the bullpen or the awesomely top secret plan to sign Oswalt Thursday afternoon.

It all went by pretty quickly and before we knew it Thom was looking around and bellowing for "Any last questions?..."

Young Thomas Wesley has a lot to learn about baseball on the field but he's seen me spend enough time analyzing the league at Red Reporter to know that being a Reds fan is not all brushes with fame and shmoozing pretty ladies so he shot Brennaman a confident glance and headed right up to the stage where he could be seen and heard clearly took a cue from me and let Thom pick him up like the 36-pound jelly-mold of cute that he is.

"Mr. Castellini," Thom bellowed, "this young Reds fan has a question and he's taking it right to the top...What's your name and what's your question, big guy?"

"Hi. Tommy. Umm... Can I have a balloon?"

It was a good day for at least two Reds fans in Central Ohio.

So, I had no idea until a few weeks ago that Bill Walton was a literary figure in any way. Seems that in 1979 David Halberstam stashed his Pulitzer in his bottom desk drawer and sat down to tell his countrymen everything they had no idea they wanted to know about the Portland Trailblazers. And about some other things as well: the NBA in general, Walton and his career-threatening foot injury, Kermit Washington's roundhouse that nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich, and even a little bit about the 'big picture' of American race relations at the time. Halberstam won another Pulitzer for The Breaks of the Game and it's on my list of sports books that I'll never get around to I plan to crack it open this weekend after my wife and I finish the first season of Downton Abbey on Netflix. (Seriously. It was her idea. It's okay. Not bad.)

Anyway, I'm about to get more of BIll Walton then I ever thought I would in my life. And I've suffered through so much of his 'aren't I sooo representative of the counter-culture?' shtick when he use to do weekly spots on The Fabulous Sports Babe in the late 90's. He was always like, "BlahblahblahBLAHblah.. I talk a lot and I read big words from this script I wrote last night and it's funny because you know I just burnt one and I couldn't possibly come up with this stuff if I hadn't written it last night."

"Yeah, whatever," I would think as accompanying strains of the Grateful Dead wafted from my boss's AM radio and tired-cliched in the air. "I get it. You're old and you smoke pot. Good for you. Enjoy yourself. Can you do it without like.. joking about it?"

And I gather that's how a lot of you feel about the main subject of this Serious Issue, Seriously thread: the NBA. Hey, pal, watch it, if you like it and you must but please don't come over here where I'm not talking about the NBA and start telling me things about it. It might be cool for you but I've tried it and it's not cool for me.

Buuuuut, I've also discovered that there are a few NBA fans here at Red Reporter and there may even be a couple of folks who are ready and willing to sit down and watch an NBA game if only there were someplace fun to blog about it.

And here we are.

I'll try to add something of a little game preview later this afternoon. For now, just know that you need to get some hooch because you have some friends who wanna drink and watch a game with you tonight after you get all your chores done.

FanGraph's Game 2 Preview is something worth checking out and discussing.  They (and Slyde) called for Dusty to go to the bullpen early in Game 1 (and he did! ..though perhaps not early enough?) and they're saying he should do it again tonight:

I’d argue that the Reds best chances of winning tonight involve pulling Arroyo early. You’re tempting fate every time you ask him to get the Rollins-Victorino-Utley-Howard group out more than once. With Aroldis Chapman fresh and the day off tomorrow, I think the Reds should empty their bullpen tonight, regardless of what the score is early. Arroyo gets the first 11 batters and that’s it. If he gets 11 outs, great. If he only gets five or six, well, you live with it.

Once Utley comes to the plate a second time, I’d have Chapman on the mound. Yes, Utley is good against left-handed pitchers, but Chapman is not your average LHP, and the odds of him putting one over the wall are substantially higher against Arroyo. You’re going to want Chapman in against Howard and Ibanez anyway, so maximize the batters he faces by bringing him in to face Utley.

Chapman firing in a playoff game (or two.. or six;) is going to give us one of our better 'just happy to be here' moments for 2010 Reds fans.  But will it also be a good managerial tactic?  Depends on when he comes in, right? ...It's hard to imagine that we won't see him tonight.  Even if OurROYo deals six or seven shutout innings, it's hard to think of him being given a shot at a complete game.

Everyone is rested and there's another off day tomorrow.  The 'pen is one of the strengths of our squad.  We don't wanna go down with bullets in our gun. And Chapman is no cardboard cutout.  He's no goddamned phony.  So, whaddya think?

Charlie Scrabbles and I are meeting up this evening to watch the Braves @ Giants game.  We're also meeting up so he can give me $100 for something he's been wanting since he was a little boy.

We decided to try to blog the game live from Bob's barstools.  We won't have any audio so we won't be able to hear what the TBS guys are yapping about but we'll be reading your comments so come hard with the funny.

No Red Reporter ever asked but I've made it known here that I think 'Zoolander' is a fanfriggintastic wack-nut comedy.  Completely overlooked and underrated.  More people should see it because I think more people would enjoy it.

And I watched 'Greenberg' a coupla weeks ago and I loved it.  ("No effort? I'm making my brother's family a dog house!) I'm not gonna say it's also overlooked and underrated because it's just not the kind of movie that most people will enjoy.

But I have thoroughly enjoyed both of these Ben Stiller movies and it got me thinking that I know that there must be a half dozen other enjoyable Ben Stiller movies that I have not yet seen.  Case in point: 'Tropic Thunder.'

I've seen 'Something About Mary.' I thought it was funny but didn't think it was particularly unique and wonder about it's status as a 'classic.'

Loved 'Anchorman' but he only had a cameo in that.

'Meet the Parents' was pretty meh as I remember.

A pretty substantial crush on a younger Miss Sarah Jessica Parker led me to see a boring and contrived crap movie of his called 'If Lucy Fell.'  Stay away from that like it's radioactive guano.

I'm sure I've seen others but I have to clear and put away 317 pounds of GeoTrax and put a bigass luggage pod on a minivan in 112% humidity so I don't have time to truly consider his entire filmography.

Here it is.

Whaddya'll think?

Hey, I have a litter of four tickets for Saturday night's game that need a good home.  Do you love the Reds?  Do you need something to do Saturday night?  If you answered "Yes!" and "Yes!" then I am trusting you to take good care of these free tickets.  They're for seats in the upper deck down the left field line. No, they're not great seats but they're free and they're in the "All-You-Can-Eat" section (free hot dogs, free popcorn, free peanuts and free fountain soda, maybe free something else but I can't remember.)

Send me an email at FatVegasAlan@Gmail to let me know you if you want two or four of 'em.  We'll exchange cell numbers and then I'll meet you tonight at 9pm at the Columbus-area Chipotle or Starbucks nearest you.  You can buy me a burrito or a pound of coffee.  I'll give you the tickets and you'll have something fun to snuggle and play with all weekend.

(It's pretty much a no-strings-attached deal but I must add that if Carlos Fisher makes a mess on the carpet Saturday night, it's up to you to clean it up.)

*** UPDATE *** ....SOLD!  I low-balled all the other sellers on StubHub and got rid of em quick and easy.  They prolly went to a Cubs fan and that thought kinda irked me for a second.  But then I thought about Alfonso Soriano's contract and that made me smile.

Rather than deleting this FanPost I'll leave it up just to see if that ugly puppy on the right has any chance at all to keep from going to the pound and being euthanized.

Did I get ya?
                                           

From Rotoworld.com:

Reds prospect Yonder Alonso will primarily play left field for Double-A Carolina this season.

Interesting. With Joey Votto blocking his path to the majors at first base, Alonso will begin the transition to the outfield. The former first-round pick (#7 in 2008) who turns 23 this month, batted .292/.374/.464 with nine home runs and 52 RBI in his first full year of pro ball last season and was ranked as the organization's No. 2 prospect by Baseball America over the winter.

Here's what BK wrote about Alonso back in January when Red Reporter readers voted him the #2 prospect (behind the Louisville Bats' leftfielder... hmmmm):

...narrowly being edged on the first place ballot, Yonder ran away with the 2nd place rank, getting almost 50% of the vote.  A lot is being made of his hamate injury, with the belief being that it's an injury known to sap a player's power stroke for about a year.  This may have even lost him the #1 spot on our rankings.  I'm here to tell you to simmer down, kids.  

After coming back from his injury in August, Yonder did suffer at the plate, slugging a lowly .238 in August and hitting just .214.  However, he bounced back in a big way in September in Carolina and Louisville, putting up a .381/.447/.667/1.114 line in 42 AB.  8 of his 16 hits in September went for extra bases.  Now there's no way he's sustaining that, but it was certainly a good sign.

He finished the season strong, and has had a solid winter ball season.  He put up a solid line in the AFL (.267/.353/.395/.748), and although he's struggled at times in the Puerto Rican League, he's still hitting and getting on base at a pretty good clip so far this winter.  Is his power back to where it was before the injury?  Not yet.  But he's still being productive, which may be good enough to get him to the majors this year, and by the end of the year, his power should be completely back.

Here's a link to some Red Reporter commentary on Alonso from the thread naming Todd Frazier the community's top prospect.

Here are some highlights from Alonso's Wikipedia page:

* Alonso attended the University of Miami, where he played three seasons for the Hurricanes. He led the team to the College World Series as a freshman, with a team leading 69 RBIs.

* His sophomore year he batted .376, led the Atlantic Coast Conference with 18 home runs, knocked in 74 runs, and scored 57 times. He also ranked second in the ACC with a .519 on-base percentage and .705 slugging percentage.

* In 2008 (as a Brewster Whitecap in the Cape Cod League) he hit .373 with 15 homers, 51 RBIs, and eight stolen bases.

* He signed a major-league contract with the Reds worth $4.55 million through 2012, meaning he must play for the MLB club by 2012.

* He made his Minor League debut on August 26, 2008 for the Class A Sarasota Reds against the Clearwater Threshers. He went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. In just six games for the A-Advanced Reds that year, he went 6-for-19 with two RBIs.

* He started the season with Sarasota, played 49 games, and hit .303 in 175 at-bats with seven home runs, 13 doubles, and 38 RBIs. After receiving a promotion to Class AA Carolina, he hit .295 in 105 at-bats, with 11 doubles, two homers, and 14 RBIs over 29 games.

* He also played for the Peoria Saguaros of the Arizona Fall League in 2009, .267 in 23 games.[8]

* Alonso remains on the Reds 40-man roster going into the 2010 season.

And here's my original content contribution to this FanPost:

* The Zebulon Mudcats (man, is that fun to say!) don't really get anywhere near most of us Ohio-based Reds fans but if ya'll are in Tennessee, look out! Yonder is likely to be on a Southern League diamond somewhere near ya.

* Happy Birthday to Yonder Alonso!  He was born on April 8, 1987, just a week after Prince gave us one of the 80's best damn albums and a coupla weeks before Matt Groenig and Tracy Ullman gave birth.

Hall of Famer and recently retired journalist Hal McCoy was the first to get the scoop on our Gold Gloved cleanup hitter's activity outside of baseball:

Phillips, an avid bowler, went bowling Sunday after a game with Milwaukee was rained out. Said the man who has three 300 games, "I bowled 225 and 205, then we had a little family match and they made me bowl between my legs. I bowled 154."

That's impressive stuff.  And Phillips's bowling skills are pretty good too.

I know that there is at least one Red Reporter that regularly hits the lanes.  And I know that there are several more of us who enjoy one or the other (or both) of history's two greatest bowling movies.  So I thought I might throw up a bowling thread and see where this thread might go.

• So what's your best bowling score?  (I used to be able to break 200 on a very good night.  Long ago.)
• Anybody ever read Bowling Alone?
• Good bowling alley food and drink?
• Is bowling a good 'date' activity or is that just too much forced retro irony?
• Shoes: rent or buy?
• 'Kingpins' or 'The Big Lebowski'?
• Do you want more of this sort of thing Hal can bring us about our boys or are we getting about the right amount? 

And there's also Skee Ball to discuss.

I've played fantasy baseball for many years. (My first team's rotation featured rookies Jason Bere and Aaron Sele. Jay Buhner and Mo Vaughn anchored my lineup.) But I haven't played it well since 2003 or 2004. My excuse? Kids. No, it's not that I fill my rosters with unproven youngsters. It's that my wife and I have too many. Too many to allow me the time necessary to have success in a competitive fantasy baseball league.

I've thought about hanging up my fantasy spikes but I really like playing it -not to win necessarily- but really just to keep an eye on good and great players from around baseball. Players like Adrian Gonzalez or Josh Johnson who of course come up on the Reds' schedule sporadically throughout the summer but then seemingly disappear. I like knowing about those guys and I like being able to talk to other baseball fans about those guys. So I play fantasy baseball. And I'm gonna continue to play. ...As long as at least a few of you folks wanna play in my new league: S(a.N.D)B.O.K.X. Fantasy Baseball.

The SAND is the tautologically redundant part of the acronym: Simple (And Not Difficult)

The BOKX explains just how simple (and not difficult) this league's scoring system will be: Based Only on Ks (strikeouts) and Xs (extra base hits).

* * * This league's scoring system has two only statistics: strikeouts and extra-base hits.* * *

Hopefully, this keeps things simple (and not difficult) and will thus require only a few minutes each week to seek out good hitters and good pitchers to replace not-quite-as-good pitchers and not-quite-as-good hitters.

We'll probably use only players from the National League and unless things change for some reason, it'll be a points league. It's gonna be on Yahoo! so it'll be free and unless things change for some reason, we'll just be playing for bragging rights (and something to do). I've had some help from Red Reporter's sabermetric higher-ups and I think I know how to weight things so that the NL's good, better and best strikeout pitchers are going to be worth roughly what the NL's good, better and best sluggers will be worth on draft day. But I've never seen or heard of a league like this so I don't know quite what to expect and if anybody can think of any reason that this format might go beyond just being quirky and we'll like end up ripping a hole in the space/time continuum, help us out, eh? So, if you wanna play and/or if you have any questions, let me know below. I have the draft set for Wednesday, March 31st at 8:30pm EST. This may change but I think we'll need to settle on a date and a time and I think we'll need to do it sooner rather than later.

I'm gonna go ahead and post an email address so that if there are any lurkers who wanna let me know that they want to play they don't necessarily have to create an SBNation account in order to do so. Just let me know what you're thinking: SANDBOKX.at.Gmail

(Yeah, yeah.. this shoulda been a FanShot.)

Sooooo... our Reds' pitchers and catchers have reported.  So far so good, I guess.  Today they'll get busy doing other stuff.  Hope that works out too ;)

Excuse if me I'm jumping the gun here but I'm locked and loaded and ready to fire off my prediction for the 2010 CIncinnati Reds: 82-80.

BOOM!

Again, I understand that there will be (at least one) semi-official Red Reporter 'prediction' FanPost (and I'm looking forward to that because at the very least I think we're all gonna be able to confidently look down our noses at the Pirates instead of disingenuously looking down our noses at the Pirates) so I'll try not to spoil all that fun here.  I'll just ask ya'll two things about 2010:

1] What do you think our Reds' record will be?

2] Do you think that our 21 year-old fire-balling Cuban defector lefty will outperform his $1 million salary?

 

via www.athbaseball.com

Okay, coupla more things: Did ya'll realize that that Smashing Pumpkins dude is releasing like 42 new 'Smashing Pumpkin' tracks one-at-a-time on the internet? For free?  (And so far people are actually digging it?)  And did ya'll know he was dating/doing Jessica Simpson?  Huh.  I bet they have quite the dinner parties.

                                                                                                          via farm2.static.flickr.com

I've been watching the most recent Reds games on DVR-delay which means that I'm usually pressing 'play' and enjoying the first innings (Ahem. I'm looking at you, Arroyo) after my three kids have been put to bed and the dog has been walked and all other remains of the day have been cleared away.  The good thing about this is that I get to see more of each game and I get to really watch the game instead of trying wash dishes, mix Similac, catch Votto's at-bat, stir up more bubbles in the bathtub, remove Legos from cans of Play-Doh, admire a Volquez strikeout or two, wipe someone's ass, read 'Go, Dog. Go!' and then wonder who grounded into that double play.  That's the good thing. The bad thing is that I don't get to join ya'll in game threads.

So I'm sitting here watching Willy's home run with Sea Bass's bat and it's great but it's 930 and I can't help wondering which Red Reporters are gnashing their teeth in the ninth and why.  <sniff> I miss you guys.

Now I'm sure you birds have had a gay old time in the threads without me and that's cool but it's left me wanting to contribute something to Red Reporter so I dug up a "This Date in Reds History" boxscore for some boring old FanPost fodder...

           May 8, 1976:   Reds 14 Cubs 4   ..Yay!

Thirty-three years ago I was just settling into my second season of Reds fandom.  I was a month shy of my sixth birthday so I was too young to really have an awareness of (and now remember) individual games.  I did know one thing- the Reds were reigning World Series Champions and if you were asking five year olds' opinions, I would have told you that the Reds were gonna win it all again!  Anyway, this game was played on a Saturday afternoon so it's possible that I watched it (or more likely listened to it) with Dad and it's possible that this was the day that he first explained to me what it means to 'hit for the cycle' and how close George Foster came to doing it.

Other notes from this game:

• The Reds scored fourteen runs without a home run.  At Wrigley.
  
• The Reds scored fourteen runs without stealing a base.
  
• Pete had a hit. And a HBP.
  
• Little Joe had two hits. And a walk.  And a sac fly.  And two runs. And three RBI.
  
• Concepcion had his eight and ninth errors of the season. In early May?!
  
• Reds pitchers combined on a two-hitter but Santo Alcala (of whom I had no recollection) walked a bunch of guys and gave up a home run to Bill Madlock (who would hit .354 that year- only his second full season).
  
• Rick Reuschel started 529 games over like thirty seasons and this might have been his worst. (Game score of 18.)
• Nick Swisher's dad was an All Star catcher this season but on this day he was 0-for-4 and he called all nine innings of crap from Reuschel and company.
• The Cubs would lose 87 games and finish fifth or sixth in '76 but did you know that the Cubs actually finished second or third a bunch of times between '67 and '72?
• Pete LaCock.

And Happy Birthday to Harry Truman and Gary Glitter. And Bill Cowher.  And Don Rickles.  And Roberto Rosselinni. And David Attenborough. And Henri Dunant. And Ronnie Lott. And Alex Van Halen. And Toni Tenille. And Enrique Iglesias. And Sonny Liston.  And Melissa Gilbert.

 And Joselito.

via www.chicagotribune.com

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Add another yarn to Wrigley Field lore. Let it be known henceforth as the "cat-tail-grabbing incident" at the Friendly Confines.

Animal lovers are head-over-tails about a security guard’s treatment of an errant feline during Tuesday night’s Cubs-Reds game. Speculation is flying about the cat’s origin and ability to gain a front-row seat at Wrigley Field.

Cubs spokesman Peter Chase has an idea of how the cat made its way onto the field.

"The leading theory is that it came into the stadium through right field — the Sheffield entrance — then made its way up to the bleachers and on the field," he said.

After scurrying across the outfield in the fourth inning, the white, orange and black calico mix was finally captured by a Wrigley Field security guard who was stationed at the left-field bullpen. The security guard picked the cat up by the tail and handed it over to a towel-wielding security worker in the stands, inciting boos from the crowd.

The kitty left, but not before leaving considerable carnage in its wake. Multiple employees were bitten by the cat and needed treatment at Wrigley.

"We’re assuming they’re fine," said Chase. "Once we get results back about how that cat is, that’ll give us a little bit more information."

The cat was promptly transported to "a local veterinarian" where it will be examined to make sure it's disease-free, said Chase. The veterinarian asked the Cubs organization to maintain its privacy.

Grabbing a cat by its tail is "definitely not the best way to pick it up," said Dr. Eileen Murphy of West Wrigley Animal Hospital (which she assures the Sun-Times is certainly not where the cat was taken). "You could dislocate a tail."

Chase said the team does not currently have a protocol for dealing with streaking felines. But despite fans’ protests, Chase defends the guard’s actions.

"This one was certainly something you don’t come across every day," said Chase. "The security guard did his best in a unique and trying situation."

via www.dispatch.com

Tickets to the Clippers' new Huntington Park went on sale this morning and it appeared that the opening homestand might be on its way to selling out.  (Hotcakesque, even.)  So I went ahead and purchased four reserved bleacher seats.  Six bucks each.  Second row.  Left field.  Behind Reds' Top Ten-ish prospect Danny Dorn.

I'm gonna hold one for '3 Fast 3 Furious' until he tells me to do otherwise and of course I'm gonna need a place to sit soooo.... I've got two left.  Who's in?

The game is Monday night.  First pitch is at 635.  Ideally, we could meet somewhere around 6?  (We'll figure all this out below.)  And of course, if there is more interest in this RR outing we can always figure out who else wants to go and how to get bleacher seats for them.

Go Bats!