Last night was the second practice of the Stars, the unified Special Olympics team for which I volunteer. I wanted to show off some photos of our practice field because it would certainly make you laugh. But it's always available and it's free, so it is therefore good. Unfortunately, the camera batteries were dead, so instead I'll take this opportunity to talk about our line-up.

As I mentioned last time, on a unified Special Olympics team, half of the team comprises people with disabilities (“athletes”) and the other half people without (“partners”). You split the infield and outfield positions evenly between athletes and partners and bat every other.

#33 Matt 2B
My brother Matt--who qualifies as an athelete by virtue of his autism--leads off. Matt's short throws to first or second (we pretty much never throw to third) had been problematic because he would lay them up like a basketball. Like on one foot and everything. This, of course, would result in the softball flying straight up into the air and finally reaching the base well after the runner did. (Using basketball maneuvers at inappropriate times is just one of the hazards of growing up in Indiana.) Matt, however, has made great strides in this area this year, and now almost all of his throws look like they were intended for softball.

#21 Abe 1B
Next is our first-baseman, my brother Abe. Abe is a good choice at first base because at about 5'10″, he is the tallest person on our team. Abe hits decently, usually straight to center, and is very proud of the time last summer when he hit the ball out of the tee-ball diamond where we were goofing around practicing. He needs to work on not throwing the bat at the end of his swing, which is a horrible no-no in Special O softball where the catcher is probably the person with the slowest reaction time on the field.

#20 Joe or #22 Robert 3B
Who we have hitting third depends on two factors: 1) who has shown up to the game, and 2) who is not smoking when that place in the order comes up. It could be Joe, one of our platooning third-basemen. Joe shocked us last night by throwing all the way from third to first while we were warming up. He played third all season last year, but we'd never actually see him do that, so it was a big deal. I think every single person in the infield congratulated him on the throw, which made him grin. A grin is about the extent of jubilation you can expect out of Joe, so it was clearly a big moment for him.

If Joe's not in, you'll probably see Robert, our other third-baseman, hitting in this spot. We were really not very fond of Robert for a while there because though he has raw skill far surpassing most of the rest of the athletes on the team, he had the nastiest attitude. It seemed like Robert didn't want to be seen failing, so he thought he looked cooler just not to try. Plus he'd yell at other athletes when they messed up. This season, however, he has gotten a kidney transplant in the off-season so he no longer needs dialysis, and he's a totally different person. (There's an off-season surgery you won't see much in the majors.) When Robert plays at third, we might actually consider throwing there.

#50 Jon SS
Hitting clean-up is our shortstop and my hubby, Jon. Jon boasts the most real power on our team, and that power might get him all the way to the back half of the outfield. Jon's been lifting in the off-season, though, and we're fully expecting to see one or more of his hits if not actually hit the fence, at least roll to it.

#? Matt P LF
After Jon you're probably going to see left-fielder Matt P, who is not my brother, in the 5-spot. Matt P is new to our team this year so I don't really have a beat on him as a player yet, but I do know that if a fly ball is coming his way that he won't actually move out of the way of it, so that's already an improvement over last year's outfielders.

#15 Little Robert RCF
Hitting 6th is probably going to be “Little Robert,” so called because he started playing on our team a few years ago when he was 13 or 14. Now that he's 16 or 17, the moniker does not exactly fit anymore, but we still use it. Little Robert is a good kid, puts in his time in right-center field and usually gets us a pretty good hit.

#? Mark RF
In the 7-hole is Mark. Mark is related to Matt P somehow, brothers maybe, and he's new to our team, too. Mark is a little slower than Matt, so he'll probably play over in right field where relatively few softballs end up. Mark can hit some, though, and it's pretty exciting for us to still be hitting pretty good so deep in the line-up.

#12 Me RHP/LCF
At long last, at 8 is where you'll finally see me. I am not a horrible hitter, but I'm lucky to get the ball out of the infield. I pretty much drive it to the short stop every time (once I did it twice in the same inning; imagine my joy). Last night I was pitching again (I didn't hit anyone and I got a couple strike outs), and when I'm not doing that, I'm in left-center field. Since we're likely to have one too many partners this year, I might just “coach” because, and this might surprise you, I like to tell people what to do.

#10 Jerry or #15 Wally C
Hitting 9th you'll find one of our catchers, Jerry or Wally. In both cases, getting the ball all the way back to the mound from behind the plate is an event that is noteworthy. Jerry is a very good basketball player, but not so much with softball, though he's gotten better every single year we've played. Wally is the single most enthusiastic person on the field and has something to say about every play. He also had new teeth last night that he was showing off to anyone who would look.

#43 Bobbi RHP
Finally, rounding up the line-up is Bobbi, our pitcher whom we have yet to lay eyes upon this season. Bobbi, however, doesn't really need the practice because she's been pitching longer than…let's just say she lends that important veteran presence to our dugout. She knows what she's doing. And she's so charming that she immediately wins the favor of the umpire for our team. That's an important skill they just don't teach in little league.

And that's us: the Stars. Next Wednesday is our first official game. We play the Cardinals, another unified Special Olympics team in our county. It's sure to be a spirited contest full of heroic efforts, heart-stopping near-misses, and plenty of amusing errors that will make you laugh even more than the pictures of the field. Definitely tune in for the wrap.

CINCINNATI, OH -- After a blow-out at the hands of the division's last-place Reds, several Cardinals tried to show their solidarity with a gesture that turned out to be as embarassing as the loss.

Larry Walker, Abraham Nuñez, Mark Grudzielanek, Einar Diaz, Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Scott Seabol all visited a local barber shop to get matching haircuts. Each player had his hair cut close, with the first letter of his first name shaved into the back. However, when the players arrived at the ballpark this morning to show off their new do's, the media was quick to point out that the letters spelled out “LAME ASS.”

“That describes their game pretty well,” said Reds catcher Javier Valentín.

I think it took longer than most people expected for the Miley era to end in Cincinnati. But I remember when Dave Miley first started. So many people were excited. The media talked about the fierce loyalty the players had for him. The community demanded his contract extension. How quickly times change.

Miley did just fine when this team had a captain, and I suspect that the lack of player leadership had a big part to play in his loss of effectiveness. I have no evidence of how the relationships that run a ballteam work, but I can imagine that a manager needs the legitimacy lent by a player liason who believes in him and, lacking that, is doomed to failure.

The good news is that Miley has already demonstrated that he can be effective in the right circumstances. Should those circumstances present themselves again, I'm confident that he'll be right back on his feet. The big question mark is whether Jerry Narron will be able to do what Miley could not. From the few sound bytes I've heard from him, he seems to be more confrontational, which affords him more opportunities to communicate one-on-one with players, which could reasonably fill in some of the gap left by the lack of a true player liason.

If nothing else, Narron is someone new with new ideas about how things should be done. His newness alone ought to make a difference in the short term, and we saw that difference last night. What struck me about last night's game was that I did not once think that the Reds were doing anything phenomenal or playing above their heads. If anything, we still saw some goofy mistakes. But even if this team is hitting only 90%, only 75% of their potential, we ought to see them winning all the time. They've got that kind of skill.

It's almost time for the game and I need to get my smack-talkin' fake story up. I'm looking forward to a great game this morning. Go Reds!

CINCINNATI, OH -- Three St. Louis ball players were spotted in a local department store this afternoon purchasing pencils, paper, and other supplies after hearing that they were going to be “taken to school” this evening.

Reggie Sanders showed off the label maker he'd gotten to identify all of his things. “I can make stickers with my name,” said the Card's left-fielder. “See? 'Reginald Laverne Sanders.' Isn't that cool?”

“I'm going to use it to count all my All-Star votes,” said first-baseman Albert Pujols of the calculator he'd bought. “Let's see, I voted for me once, so I push the 1. And you probably voted for me, so I'll push it again. That's 11 votes!”

Second baseman Mark Grudzielanek proudly sported the new Blue's Clues backpack that he picked out himself. “It's blue, just like my eyes,” he told reporters outside the store.

After the shopping expedition, the trio returned to their hotel. There, Tony La Russa explained that “taken to school” is just a figure to speech that described how bad the Reds were going to beat them after the major organizational shake-up that afternoon. The players were disappointed.

“I was all the way up to 111 votes!” said Pujols.

CINCINNATI, OH -- The St. Louis Cardinals forfeited tonight's contest just hours before game time when a bizarre series of events left their line-up in tatters.

The first of the unusual occurrences happened late this morning when Cardinals' shortstop David Eckstein was abducted by an unidentified elderly woman while he was jogging. Witnesses report that the woman put the diminutive infielder in her purse and wandered off, mumbling about her collection of Hummel miniature figurines. Eckstein is presumed to be in no immediate danger unleess he draws the attention of the old lady's cats.

The rest of the visiting Cardinals fanned out throughout the city in search of their teammate. That's when an atypically large yellow canary flew overhead, catching the attention of Cardinals' young catcher, Yadier Molina. Molina mistook the canary for his favorite television character, Big Bird, and took after the canary in pursuit of an autograph. Molina was last seen sprinting down Mehring Way singing “Come and play, everything's A-OK!” at the top of his lungs.

“That's a risk you run with such young players,” explained Cardinals' manager, Tony La Russa. “You'd never see that happen with our outfielders.”

However, something did happen with an outfielder, unfortunately for the Cardinals. While running to stop Molina, center-fielder Jim Edmonds was the victim of a well-placed load dropped by the canary. Edmonds then hurried back to his hotel room and has refused to emerge ever since, except to demand a box of Just for Men to cover up the mess.

The forfeit brings the Reds' winning streak to two and is certain to compound the team's momentum.

“Looks like we finally got a break,” said Reds' second-baseman Ryan Freel. “Of course, we were going to beat them anyway. This is just better because now I don't have to risk my sore toe tonight while we were kicking their butts.”

I'm spending this weekend visiting my cousins Ben and Terry in Coldwater, Michigan. I had initially had hopes of trying to catch the Reds games while I was up here, but when we arrived we discovered that the only baseball that we were going to have immediate access to was on Fox Sports Michigan. Probably all for the better; watching the Reds isn't exactly conducive to weekend fun these days.

When we turned on Fox Sports Michigan, they were showing the weekly wrap for the Detroit Tigers (quick aside -- why doesn't Fox Sports Ohio do a weekly wrap of the Reds? I see the commercials for the Indians version all the time, but no Reds) which featured prominently Dmitri Young. They'd miked him so we got to hear his ritual teammate greetings, conversations on first, and absolutely bitchin' Macho Man Randy Savage impression.

I had always been inordinately fond of Dmitri and everything he brought to the game. That's when it occurred to me what the Reds have been missing these last few years: the goofy handshakes. If the Reds can find someone to bring on who can incorporate complicated moves into their pre-game salutations (“OK, first you put your right hand in, then you put your right hand out…) then I'm sure we'll see things turn around in short order.

You think it will take more than that? Well, you may have a point. But it couldn't hurt. Unlike some teams I could mention, the Tigers won last night.

I think that's an apt phrase if, by “titanic,” you're referring not to something extrememly large but to a sunken ship.

I appreciate the fact that the Reds are still far from being mathematically eliminated, but the winning percentage they'd have to pull together for the rest of the season in order to have any post-season hopes is quickly becoming titanic itself.

So much so, in fact, that I'm afraid that any changes at this point would just be throwing good money after bad:

• They could get rid of Miley, but why bother? You'd just have to pay someone else to accompany the team through the remainder of this sports craptacular, which would just give them all the longer to lose the respect of these already disillusioned players.
• They could fire O'Brien, but again, they'd just have to replace him, and really, could his replacement make any significant impact at this late hour?
• They could tar'n'feather Milton (which would at least be a better show than one of his starts), but that would be both an utter failure as a huge surprise shake-up for the pitching staff as well as an enormous waste of money, especially when he really is starting to show signs of salvagability for some point during the span of his contract.

Something is not right about this mix of personelle. Individually, there is so much to get excited about, but together, they are less than the sum of their parts. Maybe it'll be good for everyone when they're split six ways to Sunday in a month.

Did I really just type that? Someone, please, please tell me I'm wrong.

How about instead of thinking about 2006 (or even July 2005), we take a moment to think about next week. The Cardinals are coming to town! And with them comes the fun of harassing Bellyscratcher about her easy and utterly non-character-building ride through the fandom of 2005.

I've been thinking about this series for something like six weeks, gathering material. So far, my planned razzes include such gems as:

What's up with your guys only playing two games against Chicago before the All-Star break? Afraid to give it up to a cursed team? Again?

Yo outfield so old I told them to act their age and they died!

and You call that a lead? I've seen better leads on stories in the Cincinnati Enquirer!

It's going to be awesome. Hell, I figure if you've gotta go down with the ship, you might as well laugh as you do it.

Early this morning Reds and Blues gave Reds fans everywhere an unprecedented look into the bosom buddydom of two of Cincinnati's most eligible bachelors when they printed a letter from Adam Dunn, playing an away game in Boston, to Austin Kearns, cooling his heels in Louisville.

Here at RHM, we also got an inside scoop when Kearns' response letter found its way to our desk.

Hey Dawg,
Man, Boston sounds awful. I sure don't miss those pictures of his kids Casey's always making everyone look at. But it sounds like you're having a pretty good time without me. You and Griff got new chairs, that's what you wanted. And some time on the PlayStation with Rich, good. You both suck at it, so you deserve each other. And took the Roxbury suit out without me. That's really great. Really, really great.

Take care of yourself, pal.
Austin

We missed most of the Reds game tonight in favor of our first softball practice of the season. Didn't look like we missed much, just the third big loss in a row (that can't spell good things for Miley) and Wily Mo making us wonder whether Kearnsy is even going to put in a single at-bat at Louisville before he's back in Cincy.

Things on the softball field were much more optimistic. Our team is the Stars, the mid-level Special Olympics unified team. On a unified team, half of the players have disabilities (“athletes”) and half do not (“partners”), and they're divided evenly in the infield and the outfield. Usually teams have partners at pitcher, first, and short and the two middle outfields; at least that's how we have it set up.

Jon, my husband, anchors us over at shortstop. Abe, my youngest brother, plays first. Matt, who is my oldest brother and also autistic, plays second base. And I am the emergency back-up pitcher who has pitched a lot more than I ever intended to.

It's really quite humiliating to pitch slow-pitch in Special O. Pretty much everyone who does it stinks at it (though Bobbi, our regular pitcher, is actually quite good). The athletes will often not even swing at good pitches, so there's no getting them to chase bad stuff and end your misery. And even though it's slow-pitch, you're pretty likely to hit someone. Tonight, for example, I hit a batter in the leg, and though I'm confident it really didn't hurt him, he absolutely refused to come back within four feet of the plate.

Despite my bean-balling ways, our team is looking pretty good this season. Everyone's skills are improving, we've upgraded our third-baseman, and rumor has it that next week we may be getting a real-life baseball player from Ball State on our team.

This may finally be the year that we win a game. Go Stars!

BOSTON, MA -- A man in a furry green suit calling himself The Green Tickle Monster appeared in the Reds' locker room after tonight's game.

For a team that has seen family deaths, separated friends, and a season-long failure to meet lofty expectations, smiles are hard to come by. But tonight, hysterical laughter could be heard far outside the visitors' locker room.

Just moments after Ken Griffey Jr struck out to end the Reds' on-field misery, the locker room door slammed open with a bang that brought conversation to a sudden halt. Through the door rushed a six-and-a-half foot tall furry green creature announcing “I'm The Green Tickle Monster, and I'm going to get you!”

The man in the monster suit (still unidentified, though Adam Dunn was conspicuously missing) then took off after one player after another, pinning them down and tickling them until they cried uncle. The room stood in stunned silence as the monster pushed down Sean Casey and tickled his ribs, saying “Turn that frown upside-down, Señor Grumpy Face!”

Some were cheering and laughing along as he pulled off Rich Aurilia's shoes and tickled his feet, announcing, “You got your playing time; let's see you enjoy it!”

The Tickle Monster was beginning to chase after Ramón Ortiz, shouting “You're supposed to be Mr. Happy!” when the door slammed open again. The room again fell silent as Manager Dave Miley walked in to see what all the ruckus was.

The monster tackled Miley and tickled his collarbone, which at first elicited only rapid, nervous blinks that eventually yielded to titters and finally turned to guffaws.

For the third time in the evening, the door slammed open as Dunn stormed in and pulled the costumed man off of Miley. The unidentified man escaped before anyone had the presence of mind to stop him.

The Green Tickle Monster is still at large in the greater Boston metropolitan area. He is unarmed and presumed to be trying to make someone wet their pants. Please call 1-555-CRIMINAL if you have any information regarding the identity of this perpetrator.