CINCINNATI, OH -- A local animal rights' group has called for a boycott of Cincinnati's newest church because they say part of the worship service is cruel to insects.

The Church of Dunn began in 2001 when a handful of avid Reds fans began congregating to worship Adam Dunn most nights of the week. The congregation testifies about the batting order, sings the praises of the Holy Threesome of True Outcomes, and cuts the head off a horsefly with a ceremonial saber before each game.

The ritualistic killing of the horsefly is the part that has the animals rights' organization up in arms.

“Insects are living creatures and are entitled to protection from this kind of behavior,” said Jim I. Nee, leader of the animal rights' organization. “Why can't this group plant a tree instead?”

The congregation's leader, who would only identify himself as Brother OPS, explained that changing the ritual was impossible.

“Our tenets are very strict,” said Brother OPS. “We must keep a sacred chair in our homes only for Dunn. We must ponder the zen of his bobblehead three times per day. And, most importantly, we absolutely must sacrifice flies.”

Without legal recourse, the animal rights group says they will maintain their boycott.

“He strikes out too much anyway,” said Nee.

Tonight was the last time the Bats will be in Indianapolis until September. I'm going to miss them.

I'll spare you the entire game wrap since I've got fake news coming up momentarily, but I would like to hit a few high points:

• Go Kearns! When he came up again after the first two homers, I told Jon “Anything less than a homerun here is a letdown.” But Kearnsy did not disappoint. Winter and I were over behind left field ready to catch number four. I guess we'll just have to do that in Cincy.
• We sat two rows behind the Bats' bullpen. In the middle of the fifth inning, Jon and Winter had gone for a walk and Chris Booker turned around and asked me what I was writing. I responded, “Just some notes.” I didn't tell him that what I then wrote was “Chris Booker just asked me what I was writing!!”
• In fact, I highly recommend sitting behind the bullpen if you visit Victory Field. They provided us much entertainment. Allan Simpson is a card. He entertained the kids in the row in front of us the whole game through. For example, when one of the kids announced loudly in the sixth that he had to pee, Simpson handed him a plastic cup from the water cooler. The poor, misguided kids were from Illinois and one was a Cardinals fan and the other liked the Cubs. Maybe the balls that every guy in the bullpen covertly signed for them in the ninth inning will help convert them.
• Speaking of balls, Booker passed one back to Winter before we left. What a nicenik (and quite a strapping fellow as well). We tried very hard to get Winter to hold it in his left hand, but it wasn't happening.

OK, enough with the Bats. Fake news coming up next.

It's the fourth of July. We're at a baseball game. We're each waving the miniature flag they gave us at the gate. Can you get a bit more patriotic than that?

The long-awaited visit by Bats to Victory Field was finally here and we were ready to partake of some baseball. After we sunblocked ourselves all up and got a couple drinks to rehydrate from sitting in the hot sun, I settled in with my little book to take some serious notes. My note-taking was quite the conversation starter tonight. An usher asked if I was keeping score, and I told him that I was just jotting down my observations.

He responded, “Oh, are you a scout or something?”
“No, nothing that official,” I laughed.

Which begs the question: do they have 20-something women scouts who take their husband and 4-year old to games? If so, sign me up.

My notebook also prompted the guy next to us to start up a conversation. I told him about Red Hot Mama and gave him the URL, so if you're reading this guy-who-sat-next-to-us, well, “hi!” and “thanks for visiting!”

Let's do a quick recap of the game:
Each team put up a fairly boring first two innings, unless you count a couple errors by Bergolla at second and Machado at short in the first as exciting. Each would also be caught stealing later in the game. Tough night for the middle infield.

The Indians struck first in the bottom of the third when Craig Wilson, in Indy on rehab assignment, hit to right field with two out and a man on first. Kearns threw home, but the throw was wide, Sardinha threw to second to eventually get Wilson in the rundown, but McLouth had already scored from first.

The Bats came right back in the top of the fourth when Kearns tripled off the center field wall and Rick Bell flied out to left center field to sacrifice him in.

In the middle of the sixth, the Indians announced that they would be giving away Aaron Boone bobbleheads on Sunday to the first 4,000 attendees of their game against the Durham Bulls. A Tampa Bay affiliate. Am I the only one who thinks that's a little strange?

That was the last scoring we'd see until the seventh inning when the Indians put in Mallette to pitch. Mallette walked Perez, who was then bunted over by Sardinha. Holbert doubled to center field, scoring Perez. Pinch hitter Alex Fernandez then singled to right field, moving Holbert to third, and Machado walked to load the bases. Bergolla came up to single to center field and score two, bringing the score to 4-1.

In the bottom of the seventh, Simpson came in. While he'd been warming up, two or three of his warm-up pitches had ended up out in right field, which didn't portend good things. Simpson hit de Caster, gave up a single to Crespo, and walked Valendia to load the bases. He got the next two batters to fly out, but the man on third scored on the second fly ball, bringing the score to what it would end up as, 4-2.

Austin Kearns, whom we had gone specifically to see, had a good night, going 2-3 with a walk. (And since it washed out as a win, we'll just ignore the double play he grounded into to end the sixth.) He also had a conversation with a guy out in the grass behind right center, actually during play. I tried very hard to hear what that was about, but no dice.

Keisler ended up with the win, Booker got the save, and I had to leave before the fireworks because Winter's afraid of them. At least we missed the traffic.

A very patriotic time was had by all, and now I just have to talk Jon into going back tomorrow. Maybe we can bring our own apple pie.

After hours of preparation and driving to get our family of three out to Cincinnati for Saturday's double-header, we were finally in our seats with our Delta Airllnes scrolls in-hand. The scroll says “Go Reds” on one side, which is cool, and “K” on the other side, which seems a tad cruelly ironic. The scroll was very popular with Winter who would sit for minutes at a stretch opening and closing it or stretching it over his little belly and saying “dis is a nice shirt.” We usually sit on the first-base side because it's the shady side, but today we were out by left field. It gave us a whole new perspective on the game.

Game 1: 3-4 Astros
Seemed like hardly anyone was there for the first game. I assumed that the crowd would die off for the second game, and that would mean there would really be almost no one there. Of course, even though our section was nearly empty, the row behind us was populated with a family with two kids, so we felt obligated to keep our snarky comments to a minimum.

Aurilia hit a homerun in the bottom of the first, giving the Reds the early lead. It was nice to enjoy a lead for a while.

Jason Romano had a great diving catch in the second, which I enjoyed watching immensely. Later, he would chase down a ball that bounced off the wall and throw into third, prompting a guy a few rows back from us to yell at him for not throwing to second. I am confident that he didn't have a play at second, but I didn't yell anything.

In the third, foul ball came to our section which is always an adrenaline rush and you try to figure out how to get the camera, beer, or whatever out of your hands and protect your child's head.

Wily Mo Peña, who played Vanilla Ice as his plate music, hit a monster homerun in the fourth while I was taking Winter to get some nachos. Figures.

In the sixth, Taveras put down a good bunt that might or might not have been playable had Harang and LaRue not collided going for it. Better than no one going for it, I guess, but another what-if.

After six innings of decent pitching, Harang loaded the bases in the seventh. With one out Palmeiro flied to deep center field. Griffey made an awesome diving catch! The crowd went absolutely nuts! Apparently not noticing that the Astros scored on the sacrifice! And took the lead!

In the eighth the family behind us left, which was good because the kids had been getting progressively grumpier as the game went on. However, they were almost immediately replaced by squatters, so we still had to keep the snarkiness down. Soon the game was over, though, with yet another loss, and there was nothing to do but to get a sno-kone before the second game got started.

Game two: 11-6 Reds
I had totally not called it about people leaving for the second game. In fact, they started showing up in droves at the end of the first game, and the crowd at the stadium was downright respectable for game two. The Astros came out in completely different uniforms for the second game. Very fashionable.

Oh was the top of the first ugly! The very first batter hit a homerun; Ausmus bunted and Ortíz was totally there, but stumbled and missed the out; Burke hit one to the wall. Boos came down like rain. It was a relief when Ortíz struck out the pitcher to finally get that inning over with.

But you knew that something was in the air when Lopez hit a homerun to start the bottom of the inning. And even though Griffey and Peña would go on to be stranded, I had a good feeling about the surmountability of the Astros 4-1 lead.

In the top of the second, Dunn made a nice grab over the dugout fence. But Valentín was over there too, so even if Dunn hadn't been there, I'm sure it would have been caught.

In the third, a chubby guy dancing to Cotton-Eye Joe provided the highlight of the evening to that point. In the bottom of the third, Dunn was played in with Night Ranger's Sister Christian and prompty hit a two-run shot to bring the score to 3-4.

In the bottom of the fourth, Valentín was played in with some bad-ass rap in Spanish and hit a foul ball not five seats away from me. The guy reached out for it but it bounced off his hands and back into the field. I turned to Jon and said, “If it had come here, I would have caught it.”
“No you wouldn't,” replied Jon shaking his head.
“Hell yes I would have,” I said, “Javy hit it. I would have fallen off the wall if I'd had to.”
Then Jon was convinced.

In the fifth, a handful of 10-year old boys decided to stand in the aisle right next to us and utterly block our view, but boy were they excited when Griffey drove in Olmedo to tie the score at fours. Then Wily Mo hit in Griffey, and then Cruz hit in Wily Mo, and then Javy hit in Cruz. It was a heck of an inning, ending with the Reds leading 7-4.

It looked like the Reds scoring might be done for the night when they failed to tack any more on through the sixth and seventh inning. We still got a highlight in the seventh, though when they played the happy birthday song for Casey, who looked downright embarassed featured up on the big screen. They followed that up with a brief clip of him singing from Oh Say Can You Sing?

Ryan Wagner came in to relieve Ortíz in the seventh after Ortíz allowed a run to bring the score to 7-5. Take out that first inning, and Ortíz had a heck of a night. Wagner then promptly served up a wild pitch and a hit to allow another run. Edwin Encarnación made a nice play at third to put a thankful end to the inning with the score 7-6. The question on everyone's minds: would one run be enough?

During the seventh inning stretch, Winter actually sang some of the words to Take Me Out To The Ballgame which just goes to show how many baseball games we've already taken him to in his four years. He then fell asleep in Jon's arms. His night was done.

Things really got scary in the eighth when Olmedo made a somewhat silly-looking miscue at second, followed immediately by an easy double-play ball that somehow didn't make it into Dunn's glove. However, Ausmus knocked the ball back to Belisle to end the inning with the one-run lead still intact.

The bottom of the eighth provided some of those insurance runs that I've heard so much about. Encarnación singled; Randa was hit; Lopez singled in Encarnación; Randa and Lopez advanced on a passed ball setting Randa up to score on Olmedo's sacrifice to right field. Then the ever-fabulous Ken Griffey Jr. homered to right to bring the score up to what would be the final, 11-6.

After the Game
As we walked over to try to find the Gameday Sports Cafe, we passed a guy lying on the sidewalk not looking at all healthy. A vendor nearby said that the police had already been called so we continued on our way, but I do hope he was OK. Should we find out that the poor fellow was in as poor of shape as he looked, the whole memory will have a very macabre tint.

At the Gameday Sports Cafe, we found that they were not doing Extra Innings there because of the double-header, which really sucked because Jon had hauled our sleeping child all the way there and now needed to double-back against the crowds to go find our car. But at least we know where the place is for next time.

About an hour and a half into our trip home, the road suddenly got very bumpy. A few seconds later, we realized that we'd had a blow-out. Jon pulled over and we got about the business of changing the tire and after the lengthy process, I was left wondering where the heck so many people were going on I-465 at 11p.m. in such a doggone hurry. Jon got the spare on and discovered that it was flat. At least we were able to drive on it long enough to get off the highway and use our little mini-compressor thing to get it up to spec. Then on to the fun of driving 50 the rest of the way home while traffic sped past us at 80 and finally arrive home more than an hour later than expected at 1 a.m. Made for a long day.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy my visit to Great American Ball Park, and I'm really looking forward to going back. Our next scheduled visit is at the beginning of August. We'll have our scroll ready.

I talked the hubby into packing up the family and making the drive out to Cincy for today's games. I hope to provide some good, first-hand game reporting when I return.