Thank you, Milwaukee Brewers for also losing so as to offset the 2011 debut of Badroyo and keep the Reds in a one-game lead for first place in the division. I hope we can do it again sometime.

Of course, we the way we “do it again” is by both teams continuing to lose, we’ll have to start worrying about the Chicago Cubs. And, by extension, the end of the world.

The Cincinnati Reds started out this year with a bang and took an early lead in the division. With some really shoddy bullpen work from time to time, though, the Milwaukee Brewers are now just one game back. It wouldn’t matter if the Reds lost first place: the season is long and you don’t get bonus points for going wire-to-wire.

But it did have me thinking about the last time the Reds were in first place right out of the gate, and how long it lasted.

The most recent time the Reds even won their first game of the season (a requirement for this feat, unless every team in the division starts the season out of division and loses concurrently) was 2007, and the very next game they were knocked down to third in the NLC when they lost to the mighty power of Ted Lilly and the Chicago Cubs.

The next most recent time the Reds started off in first was 2005, that badass year when Joe Randa raked and Cincinnati totally owned the Mets through the whole first series. But it was all for naught, when they were out of first on the very next game, just four into the season.

The time before that was 2002, and we’re getting back into the very early days of my fandom here. I probably didn’t even know that there was a pitching rotation at that point (it seems natural to life-long fans, but the notion of a rotation is not obvious to the rest of the world). Again, the Reds had given up first by the fourth game.

And that’s it: the sum total of the times the Reds have even so much as won the first game of the series in the last ten years, and first place in the division was never held on to for longer than a week. No wonder people are so excited this year; this is uncharted territory, baby, and even if they lose it tomorrow (which, I guess they could only really tie for it) the baseball gods can’t jinx that away.

I have so many disjointed baseball thoughts this evening, that I am going to whip out a page layout mechanism I used to use all the time–bullets. They’re even shaped like little baseballs:

• Broadcast in Technicolor I *hate* watching baseball in standard definition. I want to blame DirectTV for the fact that tonight’s game looks like I’m watching it through wax paper, but FSOhio sent me an email last week talking about how HD wouldn’t be available, which I guess means it’s their fault. I had lunch with a bunch of tech geeks today, and they all seem to have gotten rid of their television service entirely in favor of streaming programming from the internet to their televisions. I wonder whether the internets has the game in HD. It would work over dial-up, right?
• It Wouldn’t Matter if He Crapped Autographed Gold Ingots The Cowboy felt the need to defend Paul Janish after he popped out with the bases loaded in this game. A completely badass defensive shortstop, batting eighth no less, needs defending when he’s batting .353 in his first 34 ABs? Only in Cincy.
• Wardrobe Malfunction The ump just stopped Jordan Smith to make him adjust his sleeves to show the same amount of red peeking out from both sides of the jersey. Fashion police anyone?
• Call Him Sunny D Joey Votto is a concentration machine. The fresh-squeezed orange juice he drinks in the morning comes out as frozen concentrate a half hour later. If you’re going to beat this guy, you have to be better than him because he’s not going to give away anything. I think that has to be influencing the rest of the team too; I mean, you can’t boot a ball and expect everyone to be all like, “hey, it happens to everyone” in this dugout. At best, it would be like, “hey, it happens to everyone except Joey.”
• Down Boy It makes me sad that no one on the TV broadcast has mentioned Chris Denorfia coming up with the Reds, let alone called him “Hearththrob.” For old time’s sake, I’ve barked like Dino whenever he’s come up to bat, but it just isn’t the same.

And a bonus bullet, not about baseball stuff, but just a real head-scratcher:

• I Wish for 1,000,000 State Farm Agents When your kitchen table and/or ornamental birdbath are pulverized by the magical appearance of the crap you wished for from your own personal State Farm genie, are the damages covered by State Farm?

Apparently, when I was watching the Cincinnati Reds destroying the competition early this season, Major League Baseball’s drug policy was destroying Manny Ramirez’ attempts at cheating.

“Major League Baseball recently notified Manny Ramirez of an issue under Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program,” MLB said in a statement.

“Rather than continue with the process under the program, Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player. If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the Drug Program will be completed. MLB will not have any further comment on this matter.”

The upshot is that Ramirez faces a 100-game suspension for his second positive drug test should he ever want to return to baseball.

But that’s not what my post is about. That’s just the back story. What this post is about is one of the greatest Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references I’ve ever seen in a sports story. That link takes you to a post by Craig Calceterra talking about some ridiculous comments made by another writer, who essentially blamed Ramirez’ cheating on getting manager Bob Melvin fired from first the Seattle Mariners and then the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Those are both teams that Ramirez never played for, so how does that argument work? Because Melvin’s team didn’t make the playoffs because Ramirez cheated to get his teams to the playoffs. And that, as Calceterra quips, makes Mevin “Agrajag to Manny’s Arthur Dent, continually reincarnated as the next Casey freakin’ Stengel, only to be subsequently killed by Manny, except unlike Arthur Dent, Ramirez did it with malice aforethought.”

Just beautiful. Now, does anyone have some spare time? I’d love to have some to devote to some re-reading of Douglas Adams between Reds games.

Now you, too, can add to the fun of baseball by introducing pencil and paper!

Learn how to score a baseball game on April 14 at the Reds HOF

Baseball Perspectives Series: Ron Roth, Reds Official Scorekeeper

CINCINNATI (April 11, 2011) — Have you ever wanted to learn how to score a baseball game?

Ron Roth, the official scorekeeper for the Cincinnati Reds, will teach fans the basics and finer points of scoring a game at the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum on Thursday, April 14 from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

One of the most experienced and respected scorekeepers in the game, Ron will show more than 20 different plays from the 2010 season that MLB reviewed and give you the opportunity to make the call.

This event is free with Museum admission. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for students/seniors and $6 for active military/veterans. The Reds Hall of Fame & Museum is open seven days a week now through October and is closed on Mondays November-March. To purchase admission tickets or for additional information, visit RedsMuseum.org or call (513) 765-7923.