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