You just know it's going to be a great weekend when on your way home from work you encounter the Wienermobile making its way south on I-69. Go Reds!

CINCINNATI, OH -- Joe Randa and the Cincinnati Reds released a statement this morning announcing that Randa has legally changed his name to Human Highlights Reel.

“All I know is I'm gonna change my name this year,” said Reel.

Reel's accomplishments in the young 2005 season are already too many to list, but notably include the walk-off home run to win the season opener against the New York Mets as well as a phenomenal jump to snag the final two outs of the win against St. Louis on Wednesday.

When asked whether the name change was a publicity stunt, Reds CEO Carl Lindner explained that the Reds had not encouraged or endorsed this particular name change.

“We were pushing for 'UDF Presents Super Joe,'” said Lindner.

Today the Reds went to a place they hadn't yet been during their road trip: the bottom of the ninth inning. From what I've been able to piece together from Web pages, newspaper columns, and my husband's second-hand account of having heard the game on the radio, it was a scrape-together of a win, but I'm sure I'm not the only Reds fan out there whose glad to have it.

I had to piece together game news because in this information age at my high-tech company, I cannot receive AM radio, I do not have access to a television, and streaming radio or video is forbidden just because it takes up the company's bandwidth. So unless I want to get my booty fired by taking a 3-hour lunch to sit in my car in the parking lot to listen to the game, I'm left with just the gamecast on mlb.com.

Actually, the gamecast is a wonderful invention. It gives solace to those of us stuck in Corporate America on beautiful spring afternoons. And I'm sure that if I found my enjoyment of the game in the statistics, it would be more than adequate, but for me, baseball is a human experience. I follow the sport to accompany the players vicariously through their streaks and slumps, homeruns and double plays, clutch hits and swinging strikeouts with the bases loaded, groin scratches and pats on the butt.

Though the gamecast leaves some some of the softer points of the game to the imagination, it also provides it's own sense of drama, like when something amazing happens. For example, I took this screenshot of today's game to record this unusual incidence. You'd think that if they were going to make a guy play two positions, at least they'd give him adjacent fields.

The gamecast also gives provides in-game excitement when it goes silent for long periods of time, leaving your brain to come up with all sorts of wild scenarios about what could be the holdup. I remember one day in June 2003 when the ESPN gamecast program just went silent. I reloaded the application, but nothing. I asked a coworker who was watching, but apparently the gamecast was just down. Suddenly, it popped back to life with the simple statement that Paul Wilson had been ejected from the game and no further explanation.

Later I would see Wilson charging the mound over and over again on highlights reels, but for the rest of the afternoon I had nothing better to do than ponder what had come to pass in those minutes of silence. And now, whenever there's a delay in the gamecast information, my mind runs wild with possibilities. Would I be going home to see a bench-clearing brawl? A streaker? A giant bird crapping on Jim Edmonds' head (I hope, I hope, I hope).

Yeah, the gamecast isn't the same as watching the game in person. Or on t.v. Or catching it on the radio. But I'll take the gamecast and my mental images of how Danny Graves is doing his damnedest to give away the game over actual work any day of the week.

Note to self: look into renting a giant bird that can crap on command for the next time St. Louis comes to town.

Welcome to the new look and feel of Red Hot Mama, a weblog to contain the smart-assed comments of me, a Cincinnati Reds groupie.

Those of you who managed to sniff out Red Hot Mama before her makeover this afternoon probably got here from http://www.redreporter.com/. Shoutout to JD for posting my link and for the props. “Seems pretty good from what I've read so far” is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my blog.

ST. LOUIS, MO -- Cincinnati Reds utility-man Ryan Freel addressed the press and the public Monday night to apologize for stepping on a man's toes on a busy street in St. Louis late Monday afternoon.

“I just can't tell you how sorry I am,” Freel told reporters, “the street was busy and the crowd jostled me around, but that's no excuse. As a role model, I should be more fleet-footed.”

The man in the crowd could not be reached for comment, apparently having not noticed the alleged toe-stepping. This incident marks the third time in the young 2005 season that Freel has struck a penitent posture. Freel released a press release on Tuesday apologizing, without admitting wrong-doing, for his DUI arrest. He also expressed regret over a mistaken baserunning decision at Sunday's game against the Astros.

“It was one of those things where I made a mistake,” said Freel.

Freel went on to apologize for a slew of other things, including hitting into a double play, being left on base, not being six inches taller, wearing his pants too loose, talking back to his mother when he was little, jay-walking, leaving the toilet seat up, and cutting his hair too short.

“It really did look better longer,” he admitted.

At the end of the press conference, Paul Wilson made an appearance to take credit for both the Reds' loss in his no-decision against the Astros on Saturday as well as Milton's loss against the Astros on Sunday.

“I should have given up one run that inning, then gone out for the seventh, and we should have ended up winning, 3-1. Then [the Astros] wouldn't have felt so good about themselves coming in on Sunday and we would have ended up winning that one too, 15-1,” Wilson said.

One or more of the Reds is scheduled to apologize Tuesday night after the game against St. Louis.