This week on the Red Hot Broadcast, the Crack Technical Staff and I discuss why, when the Reds suck just the same as they always have, we’re not the happy-go-lucky smart alecs we usually are. We can’t count on the team to provide good baseball for our enjoyment, so we’ll endeavor to enjoy bad baseball.It’s all about your attitude, people.

We also talk about:

• Brandon Phillips‘ 22-game hitting streak
• The surprising influence of the bereavement list
• The surprising lack of influence of Josh Hamilton lately
• The importance of beating the Nationals
• Can you believe it? They finally filed that grievance!

Episode 58: Finding the Fun (20.2MB, 29:18)

If you read Deadspin and/or have a Crack Hard Facts Staff who sends you tips, you may have heard of Pee Your Pants for the Brewers!, a site where they ask Brewers fans to urinate on themselves at the moment the Brewers clinch a playoff appearance, if they should manage to do so. They have over 4400 people pledging to do such a thing so far.

Try as I might, I cannot fathom why you would want thousands of people to wet themselves concurrently. I can appreciate that fans humiliating themselves shows a certain dedication, but this particular manner of doing it just seems like it's going to make the city smell like the lady who was in charge of props at my community theater when I was a kid.

So I'd like to come up with a better demonstration of our fandom; something that demonstrates the depth of our dedication without actually grossing me out.

The Brewers pee-challenge is sort of appropriate because it's a beer town, and they may have drunk so much beer by that point that they have no choice anyway. To make it city-specific, perhaps we could have a Vomit Cincinnati chili for the Reds or (even better smelling) Pour Proctor and Gamble Products on your Dog for the Reds.

Perhaps more relevant than the city is the liklihood of it happening. The Brewers are hot out of the gate, so the stakes are relatively low. However, the Reds chances of making the playoffs are looking about a good as their chances of winning the Miss America pageant, so we need to up the ante a bit. How about Donate a Kidney for the Reds or Tell Your Mom About that Thing You Did in College for the Reds?

Clearly the opportunities are endless. I think that we need a contest. We're looking for your ideas for a pledge that Reds fans can make to do something embarrassing, wacky, and not-too-smelly if the Reds should go to the playoffs this year.

Put your ideas in the comments of this entry before 11:45 p.m. EDT Friday, May 25, 2007 to be entered in a drawing for some Reds stuff that I can't be too specific about because I've already packed it. I know I have a pom pom from the Reds Rally Pack, a baseball from the Sarasota Reds, and, of course, a copy of Red Hot Mama's Super Fun Activity Book for Kids.

Had to teach a class in the late afternoon, just got home. Batter late than never. Lineups:

REDS

Freel, cf
Hopper, rf
Griffey, dh
Phillips, 2b
Conine, 1b
Dunn, lf
Gonzalez, ss
Keppinger, 3b
Ross, c

INDIANS

Sizemore, cf
Blake, 3b
Hafner, dh
Martinez, c
Nixon, rf
Peralta, ss
Dellucci, lf
Garko, 1b
Barfield, 2b

Josh Hamilton was rushed to the hospital with gastroenteritis early this morning, was released later and returned to the team hotel. He's apparently not at the ballpark.

We pick things up with the Indians leading, 1-0, on Travis Hafner's first-inning solo shot off Belisle.

It's been a long time since we had an RHM game thread…

Line ups courtesy of ME (alright, yahoo)

Cincinnati

R. Freel cf
B. Phillips 2b
K. Griffey Jr. rf
J. Conine 1b
A. Gonzalez ss
A. Dunn dh
N. Hopper lf
J. Castro 3b
C. Moeller c

Injuns

G. Sizemore cf
C. Blake 3b
T. Hafner dh
V. Martinez c
T. Nixon rf
J. Peralta ss
D. Dellucci lf
R. Garko 1b
J. Barfield 2b

Good morning, everyone. I'm happily back in Indiana after spending the first part of the week in San Bruno, California, where it was cold and rainy. At least it's just cold here. I'm chillin' at home right now, shaking off the jet lag and waiting for my luggage to be delivered. It took the long way home via Detroit, and I'd hate for it to become a plaything for hoodlums or dogs after all the effort it's taken to get it to my front porch. It would probably be of some interest to hoodlums and dogs: it probably smells kind of funny.

Wow, so the Reds have been sucking, huh? I haven't seen a bit of the games this week except for the 2-second clips that they show on ESPN. In other words, pretty much all I've seen is Aaron Harang tripping off the mound and Bronson Arroyo delivering the walk-off walk. Harang has gone on the bereavement list to attend to his ailing grandfather (get well soon, Harang's grandpa!), but General Manager Wayne Krivsky isn't mourning anything about the season so far:

“There's no panic,” Krivsky insisted. “And there's no pointing fingers. Right now, we're underperforming as a team, and I emphasize team. There will be a lot of good days ahead for us.”

In the same story, Krivsky reinforces that manager Jerry Narron's job is safe, and with anecdotes like this one, who can blame him:

No debate: Reds catcher David Ross entered the night batting .200 and 0-for-9 lifetime against Padres starter Jake Peavy. Backup Javier Valentin was 4-for-8 against Peavy. But Narron did not hesitate in writing Ross' name on the lineup card.

“Ross will catch [Bronson] Arroyo, plain and simple,” Narron said.

And just look how well that's worked out.

Despite the team's rapid decent into the swirling abyss, I'm upbeat and happy to be home in time to take in the series with the Indians. Maybe coming home is just what we all needed.

With RHM out in La La Land and having sporadic connection to Reds games, I thought I'd put up a short post.

I tried to stay up and watch last night's game, I really did. It was different than the night before when they were down ∞ to 0 so early. But last night was different. The Reds had a lead! And Aaron Harang was cruising.

But I fell asleep sometime before the balk that allowed the tying run in the 8th. Is that inning cursed, or what?

Boy was I delighted to see this when I woke up.

Go Griffey! And go Reds!

I understand the Reds lost last night. Not much of a surprise, I suppose, but I still had to find out about it second hand because I'm on business in San Bruno, CA.

San Bruno is near San Fransisco, but I still expected to be able to catch the game because the Reds are playing the Padres. Despite it's large size, frequent earthquakes, and regular attention in the media over immigration issues, in my imagination, California is one big friendly beach where everyone is leggy and bleach-blond and does everything, I mean everything while wearing bikinis and roller blades.

I tried to find the game in my hotel room, but the best I was getting here was the Cubs on ESPN. I headed out with my boss (hi Tom!) to the local TGIFridays, but they didn't have it either. After watching a little of the pitching duel between the Royals and the A's, I came back to the room to try to get it online. However, not only could I not stream the audio, but I couldn't even see the GameDay because they both required Flash, which I'm not allowed to install on my company laptop. So big boo to my company for not installing Flash (hello, welcome to 2001) but even bigger boo to MLB for not having a lo-fi option for Internet users who'd like to bear some kind of witness to the game while having limited technology.

Lucky for me, Greg Maddux had a perfect game going into the sixth inning, so ESPN was breaking in with regular updates of how much the Reds were sucking. And even though it stopped the ESPN updates, I was pleased to see that it was Javy to break it up.

Here's hoping I have better luck tracking down the game action tonight, though I'm not counting on it. Oh, I'd better get going; the workday is about to begin here on the beach and I haven't even put on my rollerblades yet.

Good morning, reading public. I'd like to take the opportunity this morning to talk about the Reds. On a beautiful morning like this, it's easy to be optimistic and want to start the day off right. I started my day off with a whole-wheat English muffin sandwich with an egg and a piece of American cheese. Normally I would have put spinach on it, too, but we ran out of spinach the other night.

I don't normally have such a big breakfast; my weekday fare is a packet of instant oatmeal and low-fat cottage cheese with fruit. Of course, on most days I sit at a computer most of the day, so my caloric needs are not high.

But that's not what I want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about the Reds. Boy, they're having their share of troubles, so much so that's it's getting difficult to really want to pay attention. After all, we've got enough of our own problems without assuming those of our team as well.

Today, for instance, I need to take my kid to the library, to get a haircut, and to play miniature golf before he spends the night at his grandma's house. All of these activities sort of take the “relaxing” out of the weekend, but I sure do love my boy. He's just so sweet. This year for Mother's Day his class decorated flower pots, and his was the most beautiful one. He had covered the entire thing in words and pictures and had obviously put so much time and effort into it. In fact, he was upset that his teacher wouldn't let him take even more time on it so that he could finish decorating the inside. I told him about how we wouldn't be able to see those pictures anyway, once we put the flower inside, but he just wanted it to be perfect.

But again I digress. I'm sure I was talking about something before. Oh well, it'll come to me.

After we drop the kid off at Maw-maw's we'll go bowling with my sister-in-law for her birthday (Happy birthday, Amber!) We sent her something from The Popcorn Factory called a “Diva Bag” which looked like it would suit her nicely. I also sent my mother and my mother-in-law something from The Popcorn Factory, so I was surprised when something arrive for me at work yesterday from The Popcorn Factory. I thought I must have put the wrong shipping address in, but actually Jon had sent me something. What a sweetie pie.

Plus, we need to pack for our big move next weekend, especially since I'll be out of town most of the week on business, and there's ALWAYS house cleaning and yard work that need to be done. And it seems like there's something else, like something I want to watch on t.v. that starts really late and I might not be able to stay awake all the way through because it gets so boring at the end…

Oh yeah, it's Saturday Night Live. Molly Shannon is hosting tonight.

Enjoy your Saturday everyone!

This week on the podcast the CTS and I chat about the Reds recent horrible play. We discuss whether it will help the team more to have sent down Edwin Encarnaci´n or to have DL’d Eric Milton. We’ll talk about how the rest of the NLC is faring.Oh, and cat vomit makes an appearance in this episode.

Episode 57: Edwin, and Milton, and the Bullpen–oh my! (12.2MB, 17:52)

Oh happy day! The Reds have finally taken care of the bullpen!

From C. Trent:

Edwin Encarnacion has been optioned to Louisville and the Reds called up Jeff Keppinger.
….
Wayne said Eddie was initially shocked, but left knowing that it was a chance for him to get better. Wayne also said, “he's still a big part of our future.”

Freel will get much of the playing time at third, with Keppinger playing second and third as well.

Edwin wasn't in the clubhouse. Keppinger was. He said he was called last night and was ready to be here today. They'd been on a 10-day roadtrip, so his bags were already packed. He's wearing No. 27, which is better than the 74 he wore in spring training.