Football season starting up can only mean one thing: baseball is almost over. Though it’s getting harder and harder to tell when football season actually starts with the way the news media covers football year-round.

This just in…TO sneezed this morning. More on this developing story as the day progresses. Tune in at 11 for analysis on how this will affect your fantasy team.

The Reds have but a scant 11 games left to play, including two series against the Pirates. All it would take is an 11-game winning streak for them to end the season one game under .500, but even if they go on an 11-game losing streak, they’re still going to end only 12 games under, which is better than I would have predicted at the start of the year.

It’s another year ending strong, giving fans the hope that if the team can just pick up next year where it left off this year, if the management can just see how well going with the young guys has worked, if Dusty can just avoid digging up yet another .100 OBP crappy ex-Cub to put in the lead-off position, maybe next year will be different.

And maybe it will. Maybe when next June rolls around, Joey Votto will have missed a month with gallbladder surgery, Bronson Arroyo will have taken a leave of absence to tour with the BeeGees, and Dusty Baker’s contract will have been extended 5 years (to provide consistency), but right now we still have hope. There’s always next year.

There is one decent thing about football season: as a Reds fan in Indianapolis (as opposed to one in Cincy), I have some hope of seeing some winning that matters.