At long last, I find myself again entangled in that romantic ardor of fandom that I haven’t known lo these five years of blogging. The kind of baseball love affair that makes you want to write sentences like that first one.

In honor of the five Reds in the top spots in All-Star voting, I’m going to share with you my poetic musings on these paladins of the plate in a new Human League segment called “What I Love About.”

What I love about Jonny Gomes is the eagerness he brings to the game and to life. The intensity in his gaze hints at a man uncontent to drift through life like common mortals, intent instead to live every moment to its fullest. It also hints at a man who might be capable of the kind of frenzy displayed by Danny Bateman in The Replacements. “Get me the base, Jonny!” “I GOT THE BASE.”

What I love about Jonny Gomes is his hair. Mr. T meets Kid N Play with just a touch of the true Hoosiers I used to live next door to in rural Indiana. Just a touch, mind you. He could have gone with the rat tail, but he didn’t. He knows when enough is enough.

What I love about Jonny Gomes is his twitchy helmet adjustments as he goes to the plate. One wonders if maybe the haircut has caused the helmet not to fit quite right.

What I love about Jonny Gomes is doing a Google image search on his name. Try it. It’s awesome.

But what I love most of all about Jonny Gomes are his team-leading 49 RBI. That’s about 15% of the team’s total runs for the season so far.

If you find yourself moved, tell the world with your vote.