Here comes baseball!
The Reds will start throwing and hitting baseballs for real money in just a bit over 48 hours as of this publication and I for one am prepared to see them go. First pitch against the Washington Nationals is set for 4:10 on Thursday with The Mayor himself scheduled to consummate the ceremony.
So what are we lookin at here? How’s them Redboys? I gotta say, it smells an awful lot like 2009. I remember it being pretty repulsive back then, but I was a lot stupider.
The parallels are pretty fun though. Check it: my favorite player is a dude who wears no. 29, plays premium defense, gets on base, and does all the little things well. The 2B is a dude who kinda polarizes the fanbase. He had a flashy season a few years ago but has settled in as something less of a star but more than a plain ol’ guy. They brought in a 3B for veteran presence and some folks are grumbly that they overpaid for him. The Next Big Thing is a 22-year-old toolshed with a “Best Prospect in the World” chyron scrolling every time you see him. The dude who is actually gonna win the MVP hits ahead of him in the lineup.
We got an established closer, but generally speaking the bullpen has some legit arms but no real faces. The rotation features a big righty with a 100 mph fastball who was on billboards before he even got to town, trying to live up to some real-ass expectations. In a weird mirroring of the lineup sitch, the other top prospect here might just end up having the more successful career.
I’m tellin ya, history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes like a juggalo.
In other baseball news, the Shohei Ohtani stuff is pretty grim. He made a statement yesterday claiming his interpreter done him dirty and at this point I think I believe him. The interpreter seems like maybe he’s a shady character and Shohei has pretty well proven himself to be little more than an apple-faced baseball goober who could very easily be taken advantage of by the wrong kind of shady character, so this all kinda tracks. The story ain’t at all done developing and more shit could absolutely come to light though.
NEWS FROM HELL: the welfare queen who owns the Browns and the Crew is begging for more public handouts to pay for either renovations at the Browns stadium on the lakefront or a brand new domed stadium in the suburb of Brook Park. I’m so tired of billionaires like this suckling at the tit for so long that they get all fat and slick and squeaky and they never know when enough is enough. It’s embarrassing.
In news that doesn’t irritate my existential gall bladder, TJ Friedl is recovering about as well as can be expected from his recently snapped wrist bone. He could be back by the beginning of May, which is an aggressive timeline for this kind of injury. Considering how cool and great he is, this is a positive development.