The St. Louis Cardinals traded for Matt Holliday this week and dramatically boosted their chances to remain atop the NL Central. Again.

Everyone knew Holliday was going to be traded from the A’s this year, but the rumors were flying. Heck, even the Reds blogs were talking about how he might help the team. Unfortunately for Reds fans, the team is once again in selling, building for the future mode. Renting Holliday for the rest of the year wouldn’t have been enough to win anything. Unlike for the Cardinals, who are in first place but need a little offensive help to stay there.

Must be nice to follow a team who ends up in a good position when the draft deadline comes.

The Reds have done a great job over the last few years of building up the farm system. In my mind, a team’s prospects have two uses.

1. Provide cheap, good talent for future wins.
2. Use as payment for renting expensive veterans in a year when the playoff gods choose you.

Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker must think there’s another use, though: taunting young athletes who are superior to their overpriced crappy veteran counterparts (see Ramon Martinez and Willy Taveras).

Come to think of it, maybe that’s why the Reds are in the cellar again. Nah, couldn’t be. The Chicago Cubs were great when Baker was there.

Staying up late tonight to catch, at least part of, the Reds game in Los Angeles. I was surprised to hear Chris and George talking about Bronson Arroyo being on a hot streak because apparently I’ve missed his last two starts. And also apparently, I’m the bad luck charm because he promptly gave up the Reds first-inning lead.

During an earlier game in this series, someone was talking about Baker coming back to California to show off his shiny new team, but with its performance turning up a little tarnished, how he’d be glad to be moving on to Chicago. I agree: at least he didn’t have a rep of being a winning pitcher in Chi-town to live up to.

The Reds are hosting a Ladies’ Night on Wednesday, July 29. In addition to half-price tickets, ladies are going to receive “product samples.” My first thought was, “Wednesday? Why the hell is Ladies’ Night on a Wednesday?” Then I remembered that the Dodgers’ Broadcast for Girls was also scheduled for Wednesdays. So, either some research has shown that women are available for baseball in the middle of the week, or baseball teams are so desperate to get viewers on hump day that they’ll even resort to appealing to women.

My company had an outing at Victory Field in Indianapolis on Monday night, and I was surprised to see Little Ray Ray Olmedo playing third base for the Durham Bulls. My iPhone doesn’t take the best sports action shots–what with its lack of zoom or focus and the fact that I had to have the back of the head of someone in the stands in the shot in order for the lighting to be right–but I was so glad to see Olmedo that I just wanted to share anyway.

I was watching the MLB channel while I was waiting for this atypically late game to start. Man, Sean Casey has slimmed down. I think he actually looks younger and trimmer now than he did when he was playing. He’s more articulate, too (which I realize he didn’t really have anywhere to go but up). I guess the color role suits him.

A cheap, $20 printed-on-style jersey with Casey’s name on it was my first Reds-player-specific shirt. Though it was a crappy rip-off, it was certainly a lot more comfortable than those polyester things that cost $210 a pop. Since then I’ve added on a Kearns t-shirt that was on super-sale for some reason at the park once (seriously super: $5 I think), and a Freel t-shirt whose autographing I chronicled early on in the life of Red Hot Mama. I haven’t added on for a long time since then, but with my newfound love of Votto, I think it’s time to add him to the collection.

I think that’s enough of my stream of consciousness for now. I need to turn my attention to my Twitter feed, where I can see my last couple posts were fairly embarrassing, even though they seemed hilarious when I wrote them, three beers in to the evening. That’s pretty much the way that always goes, I think.

Nope, not me. But if you want to buy me a ticket and a beer, I’d probably be willing to be a smart ass in the seat next to you. Though I think I’d be more entertaining in front of a t.v. For one thing, the beer is cheaper. For another, you’d get to hear me say, “Shut up, Thom,” a lot more.

But I digress.

Watch a Game with George Foster: Reds fans can bid on a special opportunity to watch the Reds battle the San Diego Padres in the new FOX Sports Ohio Champions Club Boxes on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 in the company of Reds Hall of Famer George Foster.

The winning bidder will receive seven tickets to the game, seven Reds HOF memberships and get to watch batting practice from the field.

Bid online at: http://reds.auction.mlb.com.

Auction ends 07/23/2009 17:00 EDT

Auction proceeds benefit the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum and the George Foster Safe Youth Network.

Saturday night the Crack Technical Staff and I, along with some other members of the Red Hot Family, headed out to a game at Great America Ball Park. We had every intention of drinking some beer, enjoying some baseball, and recording another episode of The Eighth Inning Show.

And then the rain came. Unprotected by roof, we were unwilling to sit in the rain or to stand in the concourse waiting through what turned out to be a 2-hour delay. Besides the pain in the neck it would be to entertain our 8-year old through that amount of time, there was also the fact that we were beat. It had been a long week.

The game took only 2 hours to resume, but our plans to record a podcast took all the way until today. Nevertheless, the CTS and I just recorded episode 111 in which we talk about our weekend trip to Cincinnati, my visit to Victory Field last night, the All-Star Game (plus my plan to get Votto voted in next year), whose on the DL, and Brandon Phillips nibbling on pretzels.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Yippee, getting on the road in pursuit of Cincinnati and a Reds game. My brother’s never been to the Reds HoF and Museum, so we’ll make a stop by there as well, and maybe even drop in for the Reds Heads event, if they can find room for one more.

If all goes well, there might even be a podcast out of this trip. If all goes *really* well, a podcast about a win. In any event, there should be some good photos.