Hey...I seem to recall a few weeks ago someone posted a link to an international stream of an NFL Network-only televised game that crept into a thread...unfortunately, I can't seem to find the thread and Googling for it has been kinda fruitless.

Might anyone out there still have that information? See, we don't have NFL Network and they are the only ones who are broadcasting the Insight Bowl game tomorrow night. My wife, a longsuffering ISU alum is bent outta shape about not being able to watch this game, so I am trying to give her an option.

 

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Longtime fantasy baseball league (in business since 1986) looking for dedicated individual to own a team in our league.

We rarely have openings in our league, but we have one slot left to fill in a year where we are totally redrafting the league.

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Like the dregs at the bottom of the coffee urn, we are reaching lower and lower into the depths of free agency. After watching useful pieces like Baldelli and Kotsay go off the market in the past few days, I am getting itchy for some action.

And unlike those coffee dregs, I think a few of these players could really help us and I am wondering why we aren't making more of a play toward signing them, bitter or not.

I am going to leave a couple of people out of the discussion -- Manny and Dunn -- mostly because I don't think the Reds have the stones to make an offer to Manny and Dunn deserves better than the way he was treated when he was here. In either event, it looks like Dunn is a divorce that won't get undone.

I am also going to set aside whether the person in question is a Type A, B, or otherwise free agent, because while I think draft picks are important, I am not at all certain that you can pass up a known quantity for an unknown quantity, especially if you can get that known quantity at a good price.

 

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With a new baby, I think it might be pushing it to try to take him to two games this weekend, so I have a pair of seats available to Saturday's game, if anyone is interested.

The seats are located in Section 529, row T...which is under the underhang just on the first base side of home plate.

I really like these seats...you get a good view of the scoreboard and the river and there's usually a nice breeze. Face is $29 each. Any takers?

 

I just wanted to say that I have managed to watch 2 games in the hospital with my now 4 day old son, and both of them are wins.

I'll take that winning percentage.

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I don't know if any of you have been following this, but this is a fascinating read.

http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/content.cfm?ArticleID=302&Entry=CurrentIssue

As you might remember, Stenson was a Reds farmhand in the AFL that was brutally murdered in a carjacking a couple of years ago.

RIP Dernell.

I have been sitting around since yesterday afternoon, sucking my teeth over the lack of deadline deals by the Reds.

But this morning, I came across the details (courtesy of Jason Stark) on what might be the worst trade since, well, The Trade, at least...maybe worse.

You might have heard that the Pirates got Matt Morris from the Giants. What absolutely stunned me was that Stark wrote that the Giants were offering to pick up major amounts of Morris' salary (9 mil) just to get rid of him for a bag of batting practice balls.

The Pirates apparently swooped in, offered them a decent prospect, a PTBNL, AND picked up all of Morris' salary.

Wow.

Suddenly, Wayne looks positively competent.

Hey! I am one of the Power Pack fools that have tickets for all three games this weekend. And although I love the Reds with all my heart and little mind, I cannot make the trip from Columbus three days in a row...so that means I have two tickets available for Saturday night's game.

These are good seats...upper deck...section 521, row K. Right behind home plate on the third base side. I would be happy to let them go for face value ($18).

As I said before, I am in Columbus, so if you are from here, we can meet up, or if you are in the Cincy area, I will be at the game Friday night, too.

Any interest?

Did I mention that we're playing the Indians? :)

For any of the lucky few that got to go to the game this morning, here are some random observatiosn...

Perhaps the others who went can chime in with some of their own.

* Paid five bucks and got a box seat toward the home plate end of the Bats dugout in the first row. I paid more for the dogs and lemonade than I did for the ticket and parking. Apparently, they run 2 for 1 promotions for these afternoon specials. WOOHOO!

* Homer was, in a word, unhittable. He allowed one hit in 5.2 innings, struck out 7. The one hit he allowed was a popped up bunt that went over his head and landed between the mound and the second base bag. Only two balls were hit out of the infield all day against him. Awesome performance.

The rumor that they started passing out ironing boards in the Columbus dugout was sadly false. It wouldn't have mattered.

Homer got lots of PFP during the game, and it did not all go so well. The first batter of the game, he committed two errors on the same play when he misfielded a bunt and threw it into the camera well behind first base. That runner scored.

Homer redeemed himself by getting that run back and tacking on another when he whipped a 2 run single.

Homer has a weird pigeon-toed batting stance. Front foot is angled in, and it looks like he has both heels almost off the ground.

Homer was dealing it. Fastball was clocked on the scoreboard at 96 in the 1st, 95 in the fifth, but he was working mostly in the 91-93 range. His breaking pitches were coming in at 76-78.

Speaking of the breaking pitches, he clearly needs some more work on them, but not as much as you might think. He started off a hitter with one for a strike, and threw more than a few others in there to keep them off stride. He did bounce a few, though.

* Joey Votto = professional hitter. They didn't want any part of him. Went 2 for 4 on the day with 2 R scored.

Earl Snyder = not a professional hitter. He looked baaaad on a couple of ABs there, but he did hit a 2 run jack before I left.

The 6-7-8 hitters for the Bats were not striking fear into anyone's hears. Their BAs were like .178, .144, .125.

Bellhorn can't hit for average in the monors, either. .244 was the gametime tale of the tape.

Maj came in and got the last hitter for Homer. I left during the 7th inning stretch, having seen all I came to see.

All in all, a great game. Glad I took the time to go see them!

I am waffling with a major dilemma.

Homer is apparently being reinstated from the DL to pitch tomorrow here in Central City against our beloved Junior Mints/Nationals.

I have a chance to see Votto, EdE, and Homah.

The dilemma? The game is at 11:35 am, so I'd have to miss a half day or maybe more, depending on how nice the day is.

So should I go?

I know there was some mention of this in the game thread that I shamefully did not participate in, but what the heck was up with all of the "creative" (aka "unwatchable") camera angles they were taking in last night's game?

Bad enough that we have to listen to Mr. Sunshine rail for nine innings about how awful the Reds are playing right now, which is not very joyful except for the fact that my girlfriend and I make wicked fun of him at almost every turn.

But then we have to look at things like how the last play turned out. tHommy calling it, and a play at the plate that you couldn't see until like the third replay. (Way to almost screw it up, LLM...just saying)

And this was not the only instance...a BP strikeout was shown with a closeup of his face and nothing in the area code of the strike zone being shown. I also seem to remember a Lieber bunt that was being shown with a camera that was about halfway down the 3rd base line at EdE's back.

What the hell is FSO smoking now?

And do I have to look fondly on the days of George and the Creeper? I don't want to be so down on tHommy, but he really needs to back off on the criticize-o-meter a little bit, because he is beating us over the head with it every freaking at bat.

/rant

This may be the funniest headline I've seen all year.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070325/SPT0401/703250454/1072/COL09

It links to a wire story that talks about the injury to Wang and never mentions Pavano outside of the headline.

<Insert Wang injury joke here>

Personally, I think Ron Guidry has a better chance of starting Opening Day than Pavano, but maybe that's just me. Is Whitey Ford still alive?

While I am on my diary writing binge, let me throw this out there...

While we are all nervously awaiting the resurrection of the RR Yahoo league, I have just found myself in a bind.

My longtime fantasy league has just suffered an abrupt departure of an owner. We do not often get open spots in our league, which has been in continuous operation since 1986, but we find ourselves about 3 weeks from our draft with an open franchise. I will spare you the piffle about how great our league is, but it is a lot of fun for us...as much for the social aspects as the baseball.

If this sounds remotely interesting to you, a couple of things that we are looking for in an owner...

1. You would be roughly located in the Columbus metro area (we have an owner in Urbana and another in Dayton, so this is very loosely defined)
   
2. You can make the draft in Columbus on March 25th
   
3. You plan on being an active owner (it is a daily transaction league)
   
4. You like playing in a league that more socially oriented than monetarily oriented (we do charge small fees and have a small payout at the end of the year, but it is not about the money for us)

If this sounds like you, then I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment here on the board or drop me a line at my listed email address and we can chat about the details.

Help! :)

Thought I would post this as a courtesy to those fools among us who ordered Power Pack tickets and might not be able to attend all of the games. (Pretty sure Daedalus was on this list as well)

I have two tickets for the proposed RR game on the 4th (and the businessman's special on the 5th) that I will not be able to use and I would be glad to give them a good home for face value. These seats are in section 521.

Who else got stuck?

And are there any among us who might consider buying these?

I am apparently so hard up for baseball that I found myself watching an Indians game from 1995 on STO. My God, what a lineup they had. Feh.

And I was surprised to see how many of the players on that Indians club are still playing, as  a small aside.

So who can we bribe at FSN to get them to start raiding the vaults over at the Reds for a few gems?

And has anyone actually bought those games from MLB.com that they are offering at 20 a pop? They are featuring the entire 1990 playoffs, but I am wondering who the quality is like and if it is really worth the investment.

maybe I need to start rationing the 1975 DVDs out to myself or something. Sheesh.

So here's the question:

According to this little chestnut:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AteGtquDYWD6JaaCedc2VcQRvLYF?slug=rotowire-annyamireziantserio u&prov=rotowire&type=fantasy

The Giants are reportedly interested in Manny, as are a few other teams.

Looking at what RotoWire says the Red Sox are looking for in return (i.e. relief help, a shortstop, and prospect(s) ) and assuming that they are DUMB enough to do it, what would it take for the Reds to come out with the best hitter in the AL? And what would it do to our lineup and defense to put Manny in, say, RF?

I say that we could put a couple of the new relievers together...say Stanton and Bray...maybe throw in a dash of BP and offer to take on his entire remaining salary.

Yeah, I know...but its winter, and this sort of stuff amuses me.

The day started promisingly enough when I got lost trying to find Dewey's at Easton on the River.

Fortunately, Slyde had my back and I got there in time to see Kitty brutally ignored by the waitress when she tried to pay (she was apparently in the back practicing her TV Theme songs).

JD was not in attendance (this will become a common theme).

RHM tossed matchbooks over the balcony to the adoring masses below.

Red Menace and I bonded over cheese pizza...that was a nice jersey, and only $500 in 1990 dollars...what a bargain.

Sukr helped out OhioBobcat with a jersey so he would not have been the only person in the group not wearing Reds gear.

Slyde, Sukr, OhioBobcat, Red Menace, and I all began the loooong march across the Ohio, first locating the cars in the garage that we didn't drive and finding where the buses would have been had they been running and then ambling across that long bridge. I was walking on unsteady legs. So, on the way over, Sukr comandeered a stretch Hummer bus/limo with a squad of Girl Scout ninjas in the back. We all got off at the first stop.

JD was still not in attendance.

We made it into the Hall of Justice, where we all marvelled at the Scott Scudder autographed baseball card and watched in amazement as Lee May signed the back of an envelope. There were too damn many stairs for someone who felt as crappy as I did.

After being separated from the group, we came upon the pitching mound. I umpired Sukr and Red Menace. Surprisingly, they threw nothing in the strike zone. At least, that is the way the umpire called it. Many laughs were had....then it was my turn to pitch. 4 pitches, 4 balls, and one near passing-out spell later, we were off to stand in the rain. I got better when I stood on the first base side of the rubber.

Then it was the Machine Room, and I appreciate everyone sitting down to prevent me from passing out. We happily watched the OSU game and did not pass out (except for RHM, who did pass out more matchbooks...lobbing them over the wall at passers-by).

JD was still not in attendance.

Sukr whipped out the laptop, which was immediately commandeered by RM and locked up trying to hustle fantasy stats. Apparently, he had a ballpark tip and wanted to get Aurilia out of his lineup. Too bad, so sad.

Then it was out to the park and the mopping of the seats began. I did not want to seem anti-social, but after I got my seat dry, I sat there and recovered for a couple of innings/days. Eventually, I got up and stumbled off in search of caffeine. I spent the best $5.50 I have ever spent and got an MDX. Finished it at my seat and about a half inning later, the spikes were taken out of my temples and I could actually enjoy the game. I was giddy at every error, because I was no longer in pain! Halleleujah MDX!

It was about that time that RM heard the group of Girl Scouts we encountered earlier chanting Lets Go Reds above us. He thought they said Lets Go Cubs and waded into the pack of them with a machete. The violence was palpable. After realizing his mistake, many boxes of cookies were sold in pennance.

But pity poor Matt Murton in the stands. How he survived after RM leapt off the second deck on top of his foam finger, I will never know. The finger was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where it was pronounced wet on arrival.

Then JD quietly arrived in the stands, with his retinue of bodyguards. Who knew that we were all to be cavity searched before his arrival?

Ash and I did get to the bottom of one major mystery. Jason LaRue is playing like crap this year because he had his soul removed. If you look at the picture they ran last night for the $250,000,000 giveaway, you will see a black spot where his soul was surgically removed.

Rally caps were on to help ensure more errors on the part of the Reds. The unofficial scorers in the stands had somewhere between 9 and 15 errors on the Reds, but sadly enough for Michael, none on Adam Dunn. Pity that Michael was not with us last night. He would have been in prime heckling range.

A good time was had by all...er, most. Caleb's hat didn't look too happy.

There's room for more RR Nation come Redsfest. Other than the cavity searches, which we need to minimize.

Poll

Who looked the absolute hottest?

0%

Dibble before MDX

0 votes

0%

Sukr and his magically waterproof laptop

0 votes

57%

Ash pondering Jason Larue's coal black soul

4 votes

0%

Red Menace wading into the crowd of Girl Scounts with vengeance in his heart after mis-hearing them say Let's Go Cubs

0 votes

14%

Slyde with his hard fought DVDs, trying not to be the group leader

1 votes

14%

The almost eternally absent JD

1 votes

14%

The Evita Peron-esque RHM, lobbing matchbooks at the little people

1 votes

0%

Dibble after MDX

0 votes

7 votes | Poll has closed

The good- Sitting in Section 111 in the 5th row.

The bad - Hotter than hell and muggy to boot.

The ugly - everything else. To put it in perspective, I left this game early (after the 7th). I never (NEVER) leave a game early and I was forced to leave this one by my disgust. Fortunately, my girlfriend and I laughed on the way home as we heard that the Reds would not be staging the mother of all comebacks in the 9th.

I cannot say what I felt like at this game without uttering a string of expletives that would make JD rather perturbed at me. But a few questions leap out at me, many of which I'm betting came out in the game thread.

1. Why in God's name did Narron leave the Lizard in to get his head caved in like that?
2. What the hell happened to the Reds pitching staff? The newly acquired Franklin pitched well at times, and lousy at others. Coffey pitched just like Coffey always has...wildly inconsistent.
3. Why did we get Franklin and the freaking D-Backs get Livan? Are we not good enough to get Livan?
4. Why is it that the Reds ALWAYS seem to choke games like this? (Yeah, I went to the one game playoff in 99. Yeah, I'm still bitter.)

My girlfriend (who was a trooper sitting in the sweltering heat with me) said that it could be worse...I could be a Royals fan. I'm wondering whether it is better to have won and to get the brass ring in your grasp to have it cruelly snatched away at the last minute or whether it might have just been better for the Reds to have had the season we all expected them to have in the first place.

Time to up the meds.

So is anyone taking advantage of this deal?
I was thinking about going down anyways, and when I saw that they were running the half price deal, I decided to get tickets to tonight's game through the website, rather than through the usually reliable scalper system outside the park.

Section 111 for $15 per ain't too shabby.

And yeah, I'll prolly have a dollar dog or two. Good times.

I have been reading posts here for quite a while, and it seems like there is a lot of negativity toward a few teams, particularly the Cubs and maybe the Cardinals. I have to say I am onboard with that for the Cardinals, mostly due to my hatred for LaRussa...but I don't get too worked up about Chicago...because, after all...they are the Cubs.

But I would like to take a minute to discuss a pet peeve of mine. There is one team that really, REALLY gets my goat whenever we lose to them - the friggin Brewers. Maybe its a little bit of the old NL arrogance that makes me feel like this, but why aren't we dominating these guys? We SHOULD be dominating them. Before this year, especially, we should have owned them.

It feels like that they have really had the Reds number since they flipped leagues. I went back and ran the numbers. Since they joined the league in 1998, we have run up a 60-63 record against them going into this season.

Now, you might say that that isn't too shabby...it's pretty close to .500 ball against a division opponent. But you'd be wrong.

Of course, this all started when we lost 2 of 3 to them in 1999 to throw us into a one game playoff with the Mets to get into the playoffs. First we go up 3-0 only to have Graves and Sully blow it in the 10th inning. Then to have Guzman, Reyes, and Belinda get their heads kicked in to throw the second game. We had the Astros squarely in our sights and a chance to win the division, and instead, we have to play one game against the Mets, and we have our little glory snatched from our hands by Al Effing Leiter. And who was to blame? Milwaukee.

Milwaukee has plenty more things to not like. For instance, where does Commissioner Bud hail from? Milwaukee. Who snatched Brady Clark from us? Milwaukee. Which team employs Bill Effing Hall (to whom the Reds should never pitch again)? That's right, Milwaukee.

I could go on. But there is something about Milwaukee that everyone can find to dislike. Now that the Dodgers are out of our division, lets unite in an extreme, irrational dislike of Sausageville USA. Who's with me?

Just a random thought that I've not had the time to post on...

But after helping to kill one of my fantasy teams by gifting a homer to Keith Foulke's stats on a Gawdawful play in the outfield, it reminded me of another play.

I went to see the Reds play the Red Sox in Fenway last June 13th, and there was WMP in right field again. A similar type of play, though as I recall it, this time he was running to his left toward the wall beyond Pesky's Pole. He makes an attempt at a running catch like two steps from the wall, hits the wall, the ball goes out of (or off of) his glove and into the stands, and Manny Ramirez has another homer.

Twice in two years. Does anyone else remember this happening to another player more than once? (Course, if you're Jose Canseco, you only need the one time...but that's another story)