Unlike many baseball fans, I have not been following the sport my entire life. My fandom has not been passed down through the generations. I have no heart-warming memories of afternoons at the ballpark while my father drank beer and shouted profanities at the umpires.

Quite the opposite, in fact: I couldn’t have told you the difference between the AL and the NL until I was 22, my family was primarily peopled with hippies who couldn’t have conceived of the loss of identity that would have come with donning a uni, and my father rarely drank anything at all, unless you count wheat juice and linseed oil.

But when Griffey came to Cincinnati in 2000, my husband’s long-dormant baseball fanatic re-emerged and soon I found myself a regular attendee at baseball games. I had a lot to learn, such as the rules of the game, and I depended on my Crack Baseball-Rules Staff to get me through. Fortunately for me, Jonny was a relatively patient co-game-attendee and helped me get up to speed on the basics.

However, I took notice of other baseball newbies in the stands–mostly women–who also were counting on their significant others to help them learn the game, usually with much more condescension and annoyance. And at the office, I saw women unable to participate in the water-cooler sports talk because they didn’t have the requisite knowledge to come up with something witty.

Enter Red Hot Mama. After her primary goal of getting my sense of humor back (a horrible job had me to the brink of chronic wet-blanket-hood) was another goal of serving the community of would-be female fans. Don’t know Adam Dunn from Adam? Check out the Human League. Need a quick summary of last night’s game? Read the Game Wraps. Want something smart-alecky to say when the Angels fan in your office keeps complaining that all the other California teams get all the media attention? I recommend, “Maybe they should try changing their name.”

Which is why I’m pleased to be listed among the informational sports blogs by women in The Sports Diva Magazine. Go girls!

Boxscore

Jeff Keppinger and Joey Votto each had three hits and scored twice, and the Reds survived a four-run Giants rally in the bottom of the ninth to beat San Francisco, 10-9, on Saturday.

Paul Bako hit a solo homer for the Reds, his second HR of the season, and Brandon Phillips had 3 RBIs.

Matt Belisle (1-1) got the win on the mound for the Reds, and Francisco Cordero got his third save despite a shaky outing in which he allowed a two-run triple to the Giants’ Eugenio Velez.

The game was a see-saw affair in which the Reds ultimately needed every bit of their 15-hit attack. The Reds’ three-run uprising in the seventh, in which Ryan Freel contributed an RBI double, proved decisive.

Former Red Rich Aurilia had a solo homer for the Giants, his second of the season. Fred Lewis homered into McCovey’s Cove in the fifth, becoming the first Giant to reach the water since Mister Mitchell Report Barry Bonds did it last August 11.

Coupled with the Pirates’ 8-4 loss to the Phillies on Saturday, the win moved the Reds out of the NLC basement. They are 6-1/2 games behind the division-leading Cubs, who blanked Leatherpants Vampire’s Washington Nationals by a 7-0 margin.

Elsewhere in the division, the Cardinals beat the Astros, 4-3, on Skip Shumaker’s ninth-inning RBI single. Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, Prince Fielder’s mammoth 428-foot solo homer provided the deciding run in the eighth inning as the Brewers beat the Marlins, 4-3. It was the second time in four days that Fielder hit a game-winning dinger in the eighth inning – he also victimized the Phillies on Wednesday.

The Reds go for the series win today, with right-hander Edinson Volquez (3-0, 1.21) slated to face Giants southpaw Barry Zito (0-5, 5.61).