Crash bang, boom bip...

Monday April 27th, 2009 - Houston Astros at Cincinnati...

If you like to start your day off by crashing into a brick wall, raise your hand…

Every Reds game I park about 12 blocks uptown and ride my bike down to the stadium. It saves time, frustration, and the cost of parking. Its great exercise, and just feels awesome to be breezing about the streets of the city of Cincinnati.

A while back I read an article in our local city paper about how the city was unfriendly to people on bicycles. Accounts of people being cussed at, run down, having things thrown at them and so on were just a few of the items mentioned. The lack of bike lanes and bike friendly traffic.. all the while thinking to myself that I have never had an issue while riding downtown. As of late I have even gotten more bold and begun riding NYC bike messenger style between cars (always thinking that someone might open their door on me, and finding out that my “friend” Aaron had thought about it)… and just generally having a high level of confidence in my zip zoom style of riding the downtown streets.

That was until yesterday.

So now you say “oh no, what happened yesterday?”

And much to your surprise, no I didn’t get hit by a car.. but I got derailed by someone just simply walking. They say most accidents happen within 5 miles of the home, and on game days I consider the stadium home. It should be no surprise then that I crashed into a brick wall with the light stacks of great American locked in my sites.

I was almost home when some lady walking and texting on her phone AND TOTALLY NOT PAYING ATTENTION, veered right into my path forcing me to take evasive action and the only place I had to go was straight into a wall. The killer of it all was that she just simply looked at me and kept walking… as I layed there mangled and now burning from the road rash, I thought about the compassion of human life and how little of it some people have.
The blood streaming down my shin and elbow, combined with the wind blazing across my now open wounds reminded me of the frailty of the body and its limits.. nevertheless I had to press on and get to the park for another great day of baseball, and after getting patched up at the command center I was good to go for the night.

It amazes me how well Johnny Cueto can pitch and then we still end up losing. He comes out and deliver a rock solid seven innings, and then things still fall apart. Part of me wonders when Bill Bray will ever make it back to help out the bullpen. Part of me wonders where the magic that el matador once had has gone… part of me wonders how and why things turn out the way they do sometimes in the game.

There were no tense moments tonight. No bats flying at my head, there was one foul ball which missed me and beaned the photographer who wasn’t paying attention,… of course at 3rd base the cop still makes sure that any foul balls that come at me go to the kids. It was a Monday so the crowd was kind of light, but it was still a good crowd for a Monday.

I always wonder how players feel when they come back to great American after being traded off or let go. The past two teams have featured former Reds who were still on the team only about 7 or 8 months ago. Seeing Keppinger in an Astros uniform was weird.. and something about it just made me unsettled. Gonzalez is slowly picking his pace back up at short stop, but I cant say I don’t miss seeing Keppinger standing there.

I don’t miss David Ross behind the plate though, and think Hernandez has been a great addition,… though I wish we hadn’t had to trade Freel to get him.

Heres to hoping that we get to see more of great new talent like Laynce Nix & Paul Janish,.. as well as seeing the team get their overall batting average up. If they can refine the bats a little bit and take control on the late game bullpen, I am calling for wildcard in the NL Central.