This isn’t the sort of thing we introverts tend to admit very often, but… we human beings need other human beings.
That fact was driven home for the first time to many during COVID. I viewed it all with detached amusement; the two weeks of the shutdown were basically the best of my entire life. I didn’t go anywhere and nobody expected me to. But even then, after a while, I missed seeing bored babies at the mall.
More Fun With Friends
It came to me again as I read a message from a fellow political science major who found himself alone amidst millions in Europe on Election Day. “It’s lonely,” he admitted. “There are soccer bars on every corner but not much in that sphere for Americans. We need a place with alcohol where we can high-five over every state our candidate won and boo the ones we lose. This should be a thing in the States, too, like a pop-up bar every four years for each side in every city. Massive potential profit loss here.”
It’s not a bad idea if only because blue states have red corners and red states have blue splotches. Loss isn’t so bad alone and winning is far more fun with friends, even if they’re instant ones you just made in the seat next to yours.
We speak of politics in terms of sports because one is as old as the other, and the same tactics apply.
We Don’t Want to Talk About It
I think Reds fans are experiencing it in a particularly odd way in this off-season. The Bengals are providing precious little entertainment in these blustery November days. We don’t want to talk about it. It’s a team full of young, talented players that can’t get over the one-point games. No, we really don’t want to talk about it.
We do, however, want to discuss the Reds, at least in the context of our new skipper. What’s he going to do? How is this team going to be different? Will it be different?
Guess when we do most of this talking? Redsfest.
Guess when Redsfest isn’t happening? This year.
I Would Want a Break
The ostensible reason is that the Cincinnati Convention Center (as is the case with Riverfront Stadium, Riverfront Coliseum, and Paul Brown Stadium, new corpro-boring names don’t exist within these happy words) is currently undergoing renovation and there’s not enough room for the party.
But if I were the Reds’ front office, I would find it awfully difficult to paste on a smile on in the December following the seasons we’ve most recently suffered. I would want a break. I would want just one winter without all the restless questions and the sullen season ticketholders.
I would not blame a single person in management who would greet the news of a shuttered Convention Center with exhausted applause. These things are a lot of work, after all. A Redsfest shuffles a lot of merchandise out the door, but it also demands insurance money, staffing, appearance fees, and rental costs.
The loss of the Convention Center was hardly a surprise. There was certainly the time and the opportunity to patch together a scaled-down, pruned-in Redsfest. This place is lousy with convention centers, open space, and one particularly sweeping Music Hall. They could have done it.
They just didn’t want to.
Maybe?
I realize, again, why, but I’m wondering if the Reds aren’t second-thinking that decision here on the outer perch of Thanksgiving. Are the Reds fans in your life just oh-so-slightly more interested in Opening Day 2025 than Opening Day 2024? Wouldn’t most wallets reflect that this Christmas? Just a little bit? Maybe?
We want to talk about what’s going well. Right now, simply by not playing, the Reds are doing well. They have not yet failed to meet expectations. There’s a tiny, precious window in which the Reds exist as a great team in the public imagination. There’s no time like RedsFest to enjoy this brief moment with one another.
And the Reds have missed it.
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