Jon and I made a trip to Cincinnati this weekend to take in a little live music and a nice ball game. The Reds had their season-high streak of five games in a row to keep going, and we would have loved to have seen them stretch it to six.

Before the game, the Screaming Mimes played to a crowd of about 50 concert goers plus a zillion people in line for the $1 concession stand. Even an hour before game time, the line was already impressive, and showed no sign of slackening as the game went on.

After the show, we enjoyed the feature presentation…up until the sixth inning. We don’t like to think about that part, though. Instead, we’ll share the photo of a Drew “Stubby” Stubbs and Joey “Baby Kangaroo” Votto high five after the Paul “Soft J” Janish home run.

Alas, we didn’t have a lot that was good to talk about when we recorded in the eighth inning. Thankfully, the inning was short and so was the podcast.

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The CTS and I are Cincinnati-bound tomorrow to catch the game and the pre-game show. I encourage all the Red Hot Audience to check out the show. It’s not even supposed to be too hot tomorrow.

After a night in the Queen City, we’ll venture to Vivay, Indiana for the Swiss Wine Festival. I have no idea whether it’ll be lame or awesome, but I’m confident it’ll be full of super-sweet Indiana wine. So if you happen to see a couple of Reds fans wandering up the river Sunday afternoon, sticky and loopy on blackberry wine, help a sister out and hook me up with cheese and crackers.

Around the Red Hot household, as in Redsland at large, sentiment about the Reds’ manager is somewhat negative. Assuming, of course, that you consider things like “Dusty Baker has screwed this team” and “whomever he wants on the roster I violently oppose deep in my soul” to be negative, per se.

But this negativity makes for uninteresting content on a blog. The occasional rant is all well and good, but compelling blogging presents a new perspective, something you haven’t already thought yourself, and/or amusing nicknames for players.

So to up the ante a little, I’m challenging myself and you to come up with *nice* things to say about Dusty Baker. He’s a nice guy, after all. There must be a few positive words to say in his favor. For example:

• Since the same field positions always bat in the same order, he must write one of the fastest line-up cards in the league.
• All of the whiffs he encourages his hitters to commit provide a nice breeze for fans at the game.
• He gives Cincinnati fans something to agree on.

More in the comments as I think of them. Feel free to chime in.

Aaron Harang had an emergency appendectomy last night. He is expected to recover OK, but it is season-ending surgery.

I guess the Reds won’t be trading Harang this season after all. Hopefully he’s healthy again soon and back to form for 2010.

In other news, Scott Rolen returns to the line-up today after a few days with the AAA Louisville Bats. Brandon Phillips returned to the lineup yesterday upon recovering from being hit in the wrist.

Willy Taveras remains on the DL.

How does one become a baseball wife?

I imagine some women must stumble into it, entirely by chance, meeting their future hubby at a bar or night club or some other gathering place where they could have met anyone, in any profession. Others, I imagine, are AAA groupies, purposely positioning themselves for the life. Either way, I doubt the young bride is entirely prepared for the obstacles that she will face in her married life.

Including being required to name your son “Brady,” if the life stories of Rachel Dunn and Abby Kearns are any indication. Yesterday, the Washington Post printed a story that went into some depth on their experiences, as well as those of some of the other Nationals players’ wives.

Check it out. The story’s a bit wordy, but how can you encapsulate the personal lives of so many people in less? Besides, this is all the words these ladies are likely to get all season. Hopefully it distracts them from the Nats’ performance for a minute.