Doc's TML: Is Reds' Last Supper Season over already?
What do we do now?
It's May 26, and the summer is over already. At least the hardball-relevant portion of the summer. And around here, the hardball portion is substantial.
The All-Star Game is coming, but that's better for the city than for fans of The Club. It's essentially a three- or four-day romp, then back to reality. Which isn't great at the moment, and doesn't look to take a quantum leap to greatness anytime soon.
Yesterday, the Reds lost their 9th in a row, to a last-place team missing the middle of its lineup. Morneau, Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez, Corey Dickerson. All out. The Rockies already have an 11-game losing streak to their discredit. They aren't very good.
Two days ago, B. Price called his team "brutal.'' Yesterday, he suggested it shouldn't have to be "perfect'' to win. Give him credit for his candor. But the Reds simply have no answers. They're as upside down as their lineup, in which the erstwhile leadoff hitter now bats 9th.
They'll get better. The Big 162 generally gives teams the faces they deserve. This is a .500 team. By October, barring disasters, that's about where it will be. Meantime. . .
I wrote for Sunday's TM that knee-jerk solutions are fruitless. The fire-trade-blow-it-up crowd is just angry, not rational. You could fire Price today. How does that make this team better? You could do the same to W. Jocketty, and I'd ask the same question.
Those who rip Jocketty have brief memories , and are hypocrites. To say he has done a bad job here also requires saying you didn't like Rolen, Choo, Latos, Gomes, Orlando Cabrera, Chapman, Leake, Mesoraco etc.
You act as if acquiring important, short-term talent is painless . As if the Padres were going to give up a 24-year-old top-of-the-rotation starter for a 36-year-old utility infielder. For every argument you could make against acquiring any of the above players, I could make an equally effective counter.
Rolen for Encarnacion? Without Rolen, the Reds don't win the division in 2010. EE was the ultimate change-of-scenery player. His numbers here were going down, his gloominess in the clubhouse was a negative. If you have a chance to win something, win it. The Reds made the postseason. Toronto has not.
Latos? Went 28-11 in 2012-2013. Made 65 starts, threw 420 innings. Stabilized the starting rotation those two years. The Reds wouldn't have won the '12 division without him. Again: Would you trade the Central title to have retained Alonso and Grandal, who had no positions here, and Volquez, who was done here?
Boxberger h as become Tampa Bay's closer, and good for him. In two years with the Padres, he pitched a total of 50 innings. Should we now say how stupid San Diego was to deal him?
Neither Alonso nor Grandal is a star. Latos was.
Choo? The Reds gave up Drew Stubbs and Didi Gregorius. Stubbs is in the minors, same as he ever was. Gregorius starts at SS for the Yankees. Is he better than Cozart? No, he is not. He's batting .222 and doesn't field his position as well as Cozart does.
Choo had the best season of his career here.
And so on. If you'd like to harp on the big contracts, I'd tell you The Big Man approves those. You don't really believe it was Jocketty's unilateral decision to pay Votto, Bailey and Phillips, do you?
Obviously, the minor leagues are in bad shape. Part of that is because The Club made a decision to try to win now. Part of it is, Jocketty has never been seen as a great player development guy. The two GMs before him, Dan O'Brien and Wayne Krivsky, were better at it. There are no bats to speak of. The pitching isn't much better. It's fair to wonder if Walt is the GM you want to be leading a rebuild.
But you cannot deny the good work he did earlier in his tenure here, to help the Reds to the playoffs three times in four years.
Let's hope that Jocketty has his people scouring the Lower 48 for the best bus riders they can find , when the time comes to deal Cueto and whoever. Because right now, that's the biggest thing the Reds should be worrying about.
The Last Supper Season is over, even before we finished the shrimp cocktail.
Now, then. . .
TWAS A WONDERFUL WEEKEND . . . We spent some time at the Homeplace out east. On Saturday, we hiked to Buzzards Roost Rock, which is about 10 minutes from the cabin. Five miles round trip, through edge-of-Appalachia woods, to a view some call the best in the state.
Southeast Ohio is blessed with natural beauty the rest of the state lacks. About 60 miles east of here, the flatness gives way to the gentle heaves of Appalachia. It's beautiful. The trails in Adams and Scioto counties are spectacular. TML sez ckemout.
The Homeplace is a tonic, too. As soon as you get off 32 and onto 247, whatever burdens you might be hauling around disappear. So lucky to have such a respite.
EVERY MEMORIAL DAY, I think of Dick Kerin. I met him at least 15 years ago, when he invited me to speak at the Greenhills VFW. Dick was a Greatest Generation guy, through and through.
He was, I think, 15, when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Dick grew up in a small town in central Ohio, where on Dec. 7, 1941, he and his buddies had just gone to a matinee. They stopped at the drug store for a Coke at the soda fountain, and the guy behind the counter said to them, "The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor.''
Dick and his buddies all had the same reaction.
"Where's Pearl Harbor?''
Nearly four years later, Dick Kerin was crawling through the black sand on the beach at Iwo Jima. He still has a newspaper photo of himself, watching a medic tend to a hole a Japanese bullet had torn in his shoulder. Dick witnessed the raising of the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi. Most of us forget that was only the beginning of the battle. More than a month and 6,821 Americans killed later, the island was under US control.
Dick Kerin told me his story matter-of-factly. He had a job, he did it so he could get home. He spent many years speaking at local elementary schools on Memorial and Veterans Day. Lest we forget.
SOUND AND FURY . . . I've never understood the allure of the Indy 500. You sit on metal bleachers. You see about 10 percent of the track. It's often hot, always stupidly noisy – vroooom!!! – and the car fuel stinks. The traffic is ungodly.
Am I whining?
Oh, yeah.
Riddle me this, Mobsters: If you went to a baseball game and all you saw was rightfield, would that be OK with you? Football game, you see 10 yards of the field. . . good with that?
Indy isn't tribal anymore, not since they sanitized the infield. But to me, the whole day is kinda pointless.
To simulate the Indy experience, sit in your driveway in a metal lawn chair. Drink heavily, preferably cheap beer. Slam some Metallica into a boombox or a Bluetooth. Play it full blast and put the speaker against your ear. Sniff some Sterno. There you have it.
WHY DO WE LOVE THIS LEAGUE? From ESPN.com:
Within hours of a report alleging that the Bears defensive lineman Ray McDonald had assaulted a woman with a child in her arms, Chicago announced it had released him.
After two arrests last year – one for domestic violence, the other for sexual assault – the 49ers released McDonald. He was never formally charged.
ESPN.com:
McDonald was on the market and funded his own trip to Chicago, where he got a two-hour interview with Bears owner George McCaskey, who later personally vouched for McDonald.
"I was impressed with how sincere he was and how motivated he is," McCaskey told the Chicago Tribune in February. "He understands, I think, that he could have well been facing the end of his football career. And he loves football. And he wants that career to continue. So I was impressed with his motivation."
What McCaskey -- again, remember that this guy is a member of the NFL's revamped code of conduct committee -- failed to do during the laughably one-sided due-diligence process, was to talk to anyone who was an attorney for one of the alleged victims in the domestic violence or sexual assault cases in the months before. Or, goodness forbid, one of the women herself, if she wanted to speak with the team.
"An alleged victim, I think -- much like anybody else who has a bias in this situation -- there's a certain amount of discounting in what they have to say," McCaskey explained.
Just stop, OK?
The league cares more about its image than about doing anything meaningful. It proves this, time and again.
ME! ME! ME! Many, many kind reviews for An Uncomplicated Life, my memoir of raising Jillian The Magnificent. Here are the ones from Amazon… 22 reviews, 21 of 'em 5-stars.
AND FINALLY, FROM THE ONION. . .
SEDONA, AZ—Having admitted to growing somewhat apart recently, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft departed for a three-day spa getaway Wednesday in an attempt to rekindle their strained relationship, sources close to the pair confirmed. "There's been a lot of tension between us lately, and we felt it was important to get away from our hectic lives and spend some time just focusing on us," said Goodell, adding that a few days of couples hot-stone massages, side-by-side aromatherapy pedicures, and herbal facials would help recapture the happiness and intimacy they initially felt after first meeting.
TUNE O' THE DAY. . . Sides of albums… what's your favorite?
This used to be an OG topic. Albums, man? You have an 8-track player, too?
No more. The kids are coming around. Vinyl lives. So…your favorite sides. The ones that work as one, one tune sliding seamlessly into the next. Mine:
1. Van Morrison's Into The Music, Side 2
2. Abbey Road, Side 2
3. Idlewild South, Allman Brothers, Side 1
4. The Wild The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, Springsteen, Side 2
This tune kicks off Idlewild. A D. Betts gem.