It’s not just the off-season. It’s the interregnum.
The Church of Baseball conducts these periods in a fluster of confusion and rumors. In this, it is wise to take inspiration from us Catholics. We’ve worked out a structure for this very situation.
An interregnum is the period between one Pope and another. Drilled down to the Latin, it means “to reign,” and don’t ask me how to pronounce it. All I know is that Cincinnati is in it.
Everybody
During an interrignum, the Church may not issue governance-related direction or make new canon law. Everybody’s in charge but nobody’s in charge.
There’s a funeral. We don’t even think about the next guy until Day 10, when the crypt is closed and the cardinals have flown in from Atlanta and Australia and Algeria. Then we can start staring at the chimney.
We have exactly as much control over the new Pope as we do about the next manager of the Reds, and I am grateful for the interrignum. I don’t know what the etiquette is in this situation. I don’t think anybody does. It’s how we get two years of an actual, official NFL franchise called The Washington Football Team.
.500
I cannot justify setting out a new welcome mat for Freddy Benavides, not when we know he’s not staying long. Then again, his record as of this writing is 0-3. If he makes it to almost-.500 and then drops well below it, there’s a chance he’ll stay, as he clearly fits right in with the Reds’ current form of perpetual motion.
But in the main, the manager is dead; shortly live the silence from the Reds front office. Perhaps they’re waiting until after the playoffs. Could be they’re waiting a respectful period until Bell collects his bobbleheads from the windowsill and clears out. Maybe they don’t have the new guy nailed down yet.
I am most amused by the possibility that they don’t have a new guy at all.
Really Neat Fireworks
I am in serenity for every one of these scenarios, but not because I had strong feelings one way or the other about David Bell. And that is because I have largely stopped caring about what happens on the scoreboard and started focusing on in-game peanuts and Cracker Jacks instead, because if I do otherwise, I will be a very sad individual.
And that is as much the Reds’ fault as it is the MLB’s.
Should I return to Great American Ballpark in the near future, it likely won’t be because I want to see the Reds. It will be because I want to see Elly run or in person there’s a dangle of some really neat fireworks once this exasperating team leaves the field.
Nick Krall indicated that Bell had one philosophy for the team and the front office had another. I don’t know what he means by that. It’s entirely likely Krall didn’t either.
The H Word
The giant space left in that remark invites a great deal of dangerous hope. It’s a space big enough for the fans of a mid-size team to speculate that maybe… maybe… Well, that maybe.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you what the most exciting part of a papal election is. It’s when we know the voters are voting and the smoke could rise at any time. That smoke is most often black. But at some point, that smoke pours out white, and we are in a new era.
In the meantime, there’s a lot of wondering. Everything is possible; after all, the Pope can be any baptized Catholic who is male. So we wander around. We wishcast, lay odds, and wait and wait and wait.
Nobody’s in charge but everybody’s in charge.
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