Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think back to this time two years ago. The third X-Men movie was in theaters, Taylor Hicks was tearing up the charts with “Do I make you proud?” and the Cincinnati Reds had a shiny new general manager. Wayne “Kriv-dawg” Krivsky was trying to prove himself and had impressed on a few fronts: he’d landed Bronson Arroyo for a song and had found superstar-apparent David Ross to be his battery mate.

Ross was hitting like a madman, so much so that people didn’t even mind that he was displacing local hottie Jason LaRue and robbing Javier “Latin Love Machine” Valentín of valuable plate appearances. A bitchy blogger or two prattled on about trading him before he fell back to earth, but Reds fans were flying high right along with Ross and thought they’d never land.

OK, open your eyes. And read the previous two paragraphs. All caught up after your nap? Good.

Consider the numbers of Jerry Hairston Jr. this year compared to his career:

Guys, I know how much you’re enjoying the Reds season. Your exuberance over Hairston’s success is apparent in the overzealous comments on every post. But perhaps we can learn from being saddled with a mediocre catcher for a inappropriately long amount of time after his fluke of a good year. The time for action is now! Trade Hairston!

The red-hot family made it out to Cincinnati this weekend to take in a Reds Heads event and a game at the ballpark. Jay Bruce was signing autographs for the kids in the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum. Bruce was nice, but our son didn’t have much to say. He must have been nervous; he usually never shuts up (he got that from me).
And since they required the CTS and I to each buy a year-long pass to go through the doors with our 7-year old, we now can have our run of the place. And it’s only a scant 150 miles away!

The Reds were playing the Nationals that evening.

So, of course, the Magic Man was hanging with his homeys. It must be nice to chill with teammates who didn’t file a grievance over receiving you.

The first 30,000 adults through the doors got a free mesh Griffey jersey in the camo colors. How the outfielders could see each other is beyond me. In Griffey’s case, at least you didn’t have to worry about him straying too far from right field.

Bruce survived the autograph session to suit up for the game. Like most of the offense, Bruce wasn’t doing much. He was 0-for-5 on the night in one of the most boring games in history. It was tough to get to the end of the sixth inning when they played our Love Your Reds video. Of course, it got more interesting after that, but we had to bail anyway to get home at a reasonable hour. Even so, we didn’t roll in until 1:30 a.m.

Gapper was in attendance to liven up the scene, in full camo as well. If you’re familiar with the antics of the Gapper, you know that occasionally he’ll show up with no shirt on but instead wearing tighty whiteys. I guess it’s supposed to be scandalously funny for the kids, but since most of the time he doesn’t wear any variety of clothing at all from the waist down, it actually more decent to don the jockeys.

The CTS was taking the photos. Can you tell?

A day after the Brewers traded for ace C.C. Sabathia, the Cubs made their own move. And for once, it doesn’t look like GM Jim Hendry screwed things up.

A’s starter Rich Harden, he of the 5-1 record with a 2.34 ERA, is now a Cub. And all Chicago had to give up was mostly players they didn’t want anyway.

Going to the A’s are Matt Murton, Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, and Josh Donaldson. Murton had bobbed up and down the last couple of years, and despite his great head of red hair, he really hadn’t done anything to prove he belonged in the big leagues. Getting rid of Gallagher removes the logjam of Seans that the club’s had a problem with. Patterson is Corey’s brother, so you know he can’t have much more than suck in his DNA. And Donaldson is a minor leaguer.

Coming to the Cubs along with Harden is reliever Chad Gaudin, who’s been average throughout his career.

While he’s no Wayne Krivsky, Hendry’s made his fair share of bad trades. Steve Trachsel and Juan Pierre immediately come to mind. However, he’s balanced that with his trades for Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee, although anyone could have fleeced David Littlefield out of Ramirez. Still, this one seems to fall closer into that latter category.

It took Hendry until the midway point of the season, but he finally fixed the rotation. We’ll have to see if he did it in enough time.