Did you know that tonight is Hispanic Heritage Night at Great American Ball Part?

The first 10,000 fans attending Friday's 7:10 p.m. game against the Chicago Cubs will receive a magnetic baseball card presented by Chiquita. The cards feature Reds players Juan Castro, Edwin Encarnacion and Javier Valentin and their home countries' flags.

Oh man! I'm going to miss it! You think if they're rained out tonight they'll save the magnets for tomorrow?

Speaking of tomorrow…did you know that it's Crosley Day? And the first 20,000 of you who join the bloggers will be treated to a 12-page excerpt from the new book Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed the Nation. Sounds like fun reading for the whole family!

Plus, there's going to be Crosley automobiles by the front gate, heirs throwing out ceremonial first pitches, and Crosley Field-related activities ion the Reds Hall of Fame.

One of these days, Blogger Day is going to be an official Reds-sponsored event. When that happens, you'll be treated to me singing the anthem, JD throwing out the first pitch, and Daedalus handing out Voodoo Alberts to the first 40,000 fans in attendance.

I guess everyone's ready to look ahead to next year. The tentative 2007 Reds schedule came out today.

It's déjà vu all over again as our boys open the season on April 2 versus the Cubs. They upgraded from one weekend series against the Cards to two, one at home June 29-July 1 and one in The Lou August 31-September 2. So maybe Bellyscratcher can come out for a visit next season.

According to the press release:

Tickets for regular-season games will go on sale at a date to be announced. In mid-October, holiday gift certificates will be available at The Reds Team Shop by Majestic, located adjacent to Crosley Terrace at Great American Ball Park, online at reds.com or by calling (513) 765-7400.

I'm not 100% sure what this page of new graphics is about. The Crack Technical staff sent me a link about it from RedsZone, but I can't log in from work. Hopefully you can log in from wherever you are and check it out.

It looks like the the Reds are redesigning their uniform graphics. It's all old-timey in keeping with their “power of tradition” theme. I like it: maybe next they'll make Dunn pull up his socks.

Reds.com says that Ryan Freel is out for the rest of the season with a broken thumb. That hairline fracture, suffered while diving for Luke Scott's triple on Tuesday, will keep him from participating in the final ten games, but shouldn't stop him from partying with us on Blogger Night. Woo!

And heck, Eric Milton can come, too. We already knew he was done for the year, but now he's going to have arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow on Friday, according to the same article. I'm sure a few beers with Reds bloggers would be good for the stitches.

One person you can be assured won't show up is Ken Griffey, Jr. He is too busy using his sore toe as an excuse to practice his pimp walk.

I say one quasi nice thing about Bronson Arroyo and the guy falls apart. Was he being motivated by spite?

I mean, the Reds dropped a disappointing but not-particularly-important game to the Astros this afternoon by a score of 2-7.

Arroyo already wasn't doing that hot when he gave up a big, fat three-run homer in the sixth inning to Craig Biggio. I guess he should have plunked him. Arroyo left the game after five and one-third innings, having given up seven runs (earned) on seven hits and four walks.

The game wrap on Reds.com, titled Arroyo's award chances takes a hit, besides having a minor subject-verb agreement issue in the headline, leaves the impression that Arroyo's hopes for NL Cy Young aren't entirely gone. But certainly that can't be the case. Tonight's performance included Arroyo's 30th and 31st allowed home runs, second in the national league after Jason Marquis. He's got a 14-10 record. He's arguably not even the best pitcher on this team, let alone the entire NL.

However, he is from Boston, so clearly that's in his favor.

No, I'm afraid that the Cy Young is going to Chris Carpenter again this year if only for dearth of competition. Bah.

Moving on: Bill Bray, Brian Shackelford, Jason Standridge, and Todd Coffey all pitched in relief. I bet you'd about forgotten that those guys were still on the team. And get this: none allowed a run. Someone explain to me again why we haven't seen these guys in so long?

But just as much as our starting pitching put the game out of reach early, the offense equally failed to pull the team up. Of course, they were working with a pretty atypical line-up. Rich Aurilia and Edwin Encarnación got the day off, and Ken Griffey Jr.'s still out with the toe thing.

Aurilia made it into the game as a pinch hitter, but Javier Valentín was available when Brandon Harris, Norris Hopper, and Ray Olmedo made the final three outs in the top of the ninth. All-around, it was an afternoon of baffling management decisions. But if we sat around second-guessing everything Jerry Narron did, people might start to think this was a baseball blog or something.

Ugh. Enough. The loss brings the Reds' record to 74-78. They can't lose tomorrow because they take the day off. They pick back up with the Cubs in Great American on Friday. I guess they've settled on Chris Michalak to face up against Rich Hill.

Well, we are just days away from the final homestand of the season and the culmination of an event that has been months in planning.  For those that don't know, loyal readers of the Reds online community who happen to be in the area are invited to come together and meet each other once and for all.  We will partake in food, baseball, beer, and debauchery - not necessarily in that order - and a good time should be had by all.  If you are interested in joining in on any of the fun, here are the details:

1pm - Meet at Dewey's Pizza at Newport on the Levee for some lunch and stuff.

Approx 2:30pm - Head over to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame Museum to get a lesson on how those old guys used to do it.  If we get 15 or more to go to the Museum, we can pre-order tix for $3, otherwise tix are $5 with a ticket for that day's game.  We will meet outside of the Museum around 3pm to go, so if you miss lunch, you can join up with us here.

4pm-ish - Gates Open

4:30pm - I will be going into the Park.  If you haven't gotten your ticket from me by this point, I will leave it at Will Call.

4:45pm - We convince Brandon Phillips and Ryan Freel to come party with us after the game.

Between 5pm and 5:30pm - Sometime before the game the 4th Annual Mascot Wiffle Ball game will start.  This is when we start working on sukr to see if we can get him to go start a fight with the Hoxworth Blood bank mascot.

6:10pm - Game time.  Think of it as a game thread, but with real people and not in your parent's basement.

Post-game - This is still up in the air.  If you are interested in joining us, but can only make it to the post-game, say so in this thread.  We'll get your digits through email and make sure someone lets you know where we'll be.

As of right now, we have 18 total tickets (Section 402, rows B & C, seats 11-18), 14 of which have been spoken for. If you are interested in going but don't have a ticket yet, let us know.  Tickets are $9 for the game.  You can bet there will be tickets available on the day of the game, so if we have more than 3 or 4 more people who want to go, you can still meet up with us inside.

If you plan to attend any of the days events with the gang, please state your intentions below (even if you already have tix).  I especially need to know who will be at lunch so that I can get a table that is properly sized.  If you won't be at lunch but need to get your ticket from me, please let me know when you plan to meet up to get the ticket.

After we have a complete list, I will email my cell phone number to all those that are attending so that we can “hook up.”  Let me know if there are any questions.

No sooner do I post something about the line-up but Ryan Freel is taken out in favor of Norris Hopper and Chris Denorfia is replaced with Todd Hollandsworth.

I'm not sure what happened, but according to a comment on Redszone, Freel has strained his left wrist and Denorfia cut his ankle.

Awesome.

Just back from meeting friend for lunch (Hi, Ike!) and I'm surprised to see the line-up:

• Ryan Freel CF
• Ray Olmedo 2B
• Scott Hatteberg 1B
• Adam Dunn LF
• David Ross C
• Royce Clayton SS
• Juan Castro 3B
• Chris Denorfia RF
• Bronson Arroyo P

I've thought Olmedo ought to be getting more playing time anyway. Castro isn't bad a third. And, of course, I'm pleased to see The Hearthrob in right. The only position I have an actual problem with is Clayton at short, but if that were the only thing, it wouldn't be so awful, I guess.

It's seeing them all out there at the same time…that's a little scary. I guess that's what you get when you've ceded contention, though. At least the young guys are getting some practice for next year. Plus, Arroyo's getting a feel for what it's going to be like to be supported by the kind of offense that Krivsky seems hellbent on putting together.

Go Reds!

BuzzWhack, a site “Dedicated to de-mystifying buzzwords”, has an IMglish Dictionary. It's a list of “words” frequently used in IM conversations. For example:

• 143 - I love you
• A/S/L? - age, sex, location
• BRB - be right back

And for the 75-year old IMers out there:

• TANSTAAFL - there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

I, of course, think this is a great idea. Just think how great conversations about the Reds would be if you had access to these convenient abbreviations:

• 41WTF? - Narron's got DeWayne Wise leading off
• JrIWALU - I don't care that he's going to miss the rest of the season with an owie toe, Ken Griffey Jr. is still my favorite player and always will be.
• K4sure - Adam Dunn at the bat
• G2XOXO - George Grande is talking about Jim Edmonds again
• OMG/NO - Ryan Franklin's coming in
• WDTCPTW? - Who do the Colts play this week?

The Reds survived the bullpen performance to hang on to win over the Astros last night, 5-4. Thank you David Weathers! I was tending to my feverish son much of the evening, so I didn't get to see most of the game, which, if nothing else, gives me something in common with Brandon Phillips.

You see, I can laugh because the CT scan was normal.

Aaron Harang finally got win number 14. Narron pulled him after seven and two-thirds when he got himself into a jam. When it was all said and done, he allowed four runs (earned) on eight hits for the win.

I'd like to say that Harang should have been pulled after seven. He probably should have. But then you wonder, “who's going to do any better?” As it was, Scott Schoeneweis came in, promptly walked a guy, allowed an RBI double, and hit Aubrey Huff. That's right: he hit the guy who sang Letters from Home on Oh Say Can You Sing?

At least Narron didn't make the mistake of sending Ryan Franklin out there. It's a small victory, but that's what you play for these days, right?

Weathers is hardly the young guy you build your pitching staff around these days, but there are times that I worry about the day when he retires. He finished out the game for the save. He didn't allow any hits but walked one.

My boy Ryan Freel went 1-for-4 on the evening, but made that one count with a couple RBI in the fifth inning. Adam Dunn knocked one in (and it wasn't even himself) in the fifth as well. Is it a coincidence that Dunn starts to come out of his slump and the team wins? Yeah, probably, but it's still tempting to ask him to carry the offense.

But before that, the Reds' score was all Chris Denorfia. With his second career home run in the second inning, he allowed the Reds to take the lead that they would not relinquish for the rest of the night.

The win brings the Reds' record to 74-77. They're seven games behind the Cards and five games back on the wild card. They finish up the series this afternoon at 2 p.m. They actually have a chance to win a series for a change: Arroyo's going today.

Oh, don't act so surprised.