Slyde, bless his heart, just recently started an article called Sabermetrics Saturday which is pretty much what it sounds like: stats, charts, graphs and other things that make casual fars go "RAWR!" and bat at it like Frankenstein's Monster at a torch and/or pitchfork. But he did preface it by saying "I know not everyone on this site is into the stathead stuff, but I would like to open things up to those who are interested in learning about what is going on in the sabermetric community but don't know where to look." (yeah, dawg, that's totally what he said!

So it got me thinking, there's so many different elements with Red Reporter - the stats and graphs, the game threads and posts with their weird humor and in jokes, even the Burger Tours and attending games together - that I imagine people keep coming back for different reasons.

So I've included this poll. Now, obviously some of you may have more than one answer (maybe all these answers fit you) so I guess the best way to put it is, if one of these elements were to vanish from RR, which one's disappearance would prompt you to not come back to the site any longer?

This team is driving me crazy.

If the talent on this team was sub-par, I'd be resigned to the fact that we were destined for another sub-.500 season. But it's not. This is a team that played like gangbusters earlier in the season, even without their best players. The Cincinnati Reds are a team that, once they get their collective heads of out their collective sphincters, they can take the Wild Card, if not the division. Now is the time. Tonight's loss in Toronto shows that.

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Today's news has just been a smörgåsbord (did I spell that right?) of material (at least in my mind), a lot of it I will be fashioning into jokes for my performance at Go Bananas in Montgomery, OH on April 22nd which you should totally go to and if you make reservations at gobananascomedy.com you can see for free ending shameless plug now, sorry.

But since I talk about Baseball a lot on the internet I thought I would mention this here. (Some of this may make the stage, but I doubt it)

First, take a look at this: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/30230537/

For those of you who are lazy, here's what happened. On August 26th of last year a fan at old Yankee stadium left his seat to use the restroom. Reasonable. There's beer served there, you drink some, at some point you have to take a leak. We've all seen The Matrix Reloaded, let's move on. This particular fan, though, made the mistake of getting up to pee while "God Bless America" was being sung. 

What followed was the enforcement of a rule that's right up there with those laws they have in cities where you're not allowed to eat wheat bread on a Sunday if your name is Gary or something like that. Apparently, according to Yankee Stadium rules, you have to remain in your seat while that song is being sung.

Now, if the guy had gotten out of his seat while God Bless America was being performed screaming "FUCK THIS SONG DEATH TO AMERICA PRAISE ALLAH BALALALALALALALALALALALALA" then yeah, kick the guy out. That's just annoying. Frankly, there should be a rule in every ball park where they kick you out if you're being annoying. But for the most part, it would appear that the dude had to pee. Again, reasonable.

It's not like he hadn't heard God Bless America before. It's a pretty common song heard at ballparks across America. I also don't think he didn't really want God to bless America. He may have been thinking "God, if you have some free time, please bless America. Sorry to ask this while I'm peeing. I realize this may be kind of awkward." 

Also, it's not like it was during the National Anthem either. I'm sure they sang that, too. I mean, I like America as much as the next guy, but really. How many "America Is Awesome" songs have to be sung during a ballgame? Between The Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America and Take Me Out To The Ballgame, there's entirely way too much singing at ballgames.

Really, if you want, let's just get a guy during the middle of the game to say over the P.A. "Fans, by a round of applause, can we all agree that America is pretty good?" During Reds games, we can maybe throw in "By the way, Joey, Canada isn't too bad either."

Now the guy is suing. Now, normally I think this is stupid. You got kicked out for a stupid rule, just deal with it and move on. However, he's suing the Yankees so I hope he gets a million dollars.

Because, honestly? Fuck the Yankees.

I hope this is OK. Lemme know if I'm outta bounds here.

Jess and I had a great time meeting you guys at Game 2 and I wanted to invite you guys to something.

You may or may not know that I do stand-up comedy when I'm not selling phones and watching the Reds play. Between the three, the selling phones part could probably go but it's the only one of the three that pays the rent so there you have it.

Anyway, on April 22nd I'll be performing at the Pro-Am Night at Go Bananas in Montgomery, OH (not too far from the Kenwood Town Center and the WLW Studios). If you guys would like to come out, you can get in for free by going to GoBananasComedy.com and making reservations with the words "Pro-Am Special" in the comments.

Show starts at 8, doors open at 7.

Thanks again guys.