This week on the Red Hot Broadcast:

• Reds trade Brendan Harris in an effort to hide the evidence.
• Marlins give Alex Sanchez a chance to clean up his reputation.
• Mariners sign Chris Reitsma, despite hope in Redsland that we'd see his pretty face 'round these parts.
• Spring training invitees have been announced.
• Reds Caravan coming to Indiana!
• Ken Griffey's healing hand.
• Jason Standridge's weird statistic.
• Other teams' players getting arrested. For your inner voyeur.

Episode 40: Some Actual News for a Change (13.4 MB, 19:30)

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Happy New Year, everyone! This year, the Crack Technical Staff and I are pleased to bring you a show, newly named the Red Hot Broadcast, for your listening enjoyment. Today on the Broadcast we discuss:

• How different it's going to be from last year when pitchers and catchers report this year. Well, the catchers will be different. The pitchers are pretty much the same.
• The Reds extending their contract with the Bats through 2010. Yippee!
• Trading for Conine. It's nice to see a roster move I can at least grok the purpose of.
• Griffey breaking his hand and the mystery that shrouds the event. Our current estimates have him out till June.
• RHM reaches 100,000 hits. You like me! You really, sort-of like me!
• Titans' T-Rac subject of suit
• Meet The Ms. Dice-K

Episode 39: The Red Hot Broadcast (16.3 MB, 23:49)

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Thankfully short podcast this week, as there’s just nothing going on to talk about. The Crack Technical Staff does have a couple of his entertaining stories of wackiness in the world of sports, Marty Brennaman has a new album out, and I think you get to hear me doing the “Large Marge” speech from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

• Marty’s CD
• Orioles Worker Caught Stealing Team Memorabilia
• HUMMIN’ SLOWED BY STRUMMIN’: Guitar video game hurt Zumaya’s arm

Episode 38: Wow, There’s Really Nothing Going On (7.44 MB, 10:49)

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I have a really good excuse why the podcast is three days late this week, and once you sit through that, the Crack Technical Staff and I actually talk about baseball!

Topics this week:

• The winter meetings
• Redsfest (yes, again)
• The Red Hot Mama Activity Book (yes, again)
• The Cubs and their wacky off-season antics
• The cutting of the pickle, and other strangness from Kriv-dawg
• Albert Pujols criteria for what makes an MVP and his subsequent sort-of apology
• David Eckstein wrestled with A.J. Pierzynski for some reason. I hope A.J. disinfected thoroughly afterward

Episode 37: My Health and the Team's Health (18.8 MB, 27:24)

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The Crack Technical Staff and I had just settled in to record the Reds press conference at the main stage at Redsfest 2006. We had our seats, our $7 soda, and plans to stay off our feet for a half hour while I decided whether I was brave enough to raise my hand for one of the microphones to ask Wayne Krivksky, “I can't make any sense of the moves you've made so far; could you please explain your vision for the team?” when the phone rang.

It was Joel. He and OBC were going to be contestants in the trivia contest in the Reds Hall of Fame exhibit, and we needed to get down there right away.

So we missed Kriv-dawg telling the world that he'd be filing a grievance about his vicious hornswaggling at the hands of Jim Bowden, and instead recorded the trivia contest. I also ended up taking several photos with Joel's camera, in case you're wondering why Joel's usually excellent photos pretty much suck for this particular occasion.

Anyway, here it is. I titled this post “Joel Cheats at Reds Trivia,” because Joel didn't make any secret of the fact that he'd heard the majority of the questions the previous time they played the game. That's the privilege of the person who hangs out in the Reds HOF exhibit, I guess. At the end of the event, though, he hooked me up with George Grande to get the excellent “Hi, Hello, and Welcome to the Red Hot Broadcast” sound byte for me to use on the podcast, so really, we're all winners.

Episode 36: Joel Cheats at Reds Trivia (19.3 MB, 28:07)

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