So, yesterday I was looking to expand my horizons a little bit. Smack talking with bellyscratcher about those unfortunate St. Louis Cardinals has provided me great fun, a great reason to learn up on the Cards, and a great friend. I thought it couldn't do any harm to head over to Cubs-land and see how they responded to a little innocent jabbing.

No kidding, all I said on Goat Riders of the Apocolypse was:

What a coincidence: the Reds' backup catcher is a Latino Lover, too. More specifically, a Latin Love Machine.

I'm concerned about Prior. If he doesn't start the second game, whom will the Reds beat up on?

And that apparently garnered FOUR paragraphs dedicated to me in today's post:

Yesterday in the comments section, someone by the name of Red Hot Mama decided it was an appropriate time to lay down the smack, dissing the Cubs in favor of her beloved Reds team. RHM, let me just say this: The Cubs have gone 24-22 against the Reds in the last three years. I have to admit, that's pretty distressing since the Cubs have been way better than the Reds. It's actually kind of heart breaking to see that Chicago only has a two game advantage on Cincinnati in the last few years. True, the Reds sunk the Cubs in 2004, and dealt a few crushing blows in 2005. Actually, that's not fair. The Cubs sunk the Cubs. They just used the Reds-by-proxy.

It may be true that the statistically greatest Cub is a cheat, but the greatest Red isn't even allowed in the ballpark on most days and lived his own personal Brokeback Mountain every day for more than a year in the 90's for tax fraud. Don't get me wrong. The Reds are a good young team, but I wouldn't trust the Reds organization with managing a lemonaid stand, and certainly I wouldn't trust them to manage a baseball team.

Sure, the Reds won a World Series once in my life-time. And they were a tremendous team in the 1970's. They were also owned by a bat-shit crazy elderly woman whose long list of bizarre offenses I won't even mention on this blog. The Cubs also had an incompetent owner for a number of years, but I don't think he was crazy, just stupid about baseball.

In other words RHM, don't give none, won't get none. When the Reds actually compete again, feel free to lay down the smack. Until then, just thank your good graces that Adam Dunn is still a Red, since he is immensely talented.

I think I made a new friend. 🙂

Don't forget: today's guest for the reds.com online chat will be Adam Dunn. Our new first baseman will begin taking questions at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

Register here to get in on the fun.

The Reds fell to the Devil Rays today to the tune of 7 to 5 in Sarasota.

Phil Dumatrait started for the Reds and gave up just a home run over two innings of work. Jimmy Journell was sound in his scoreless inning. Bubba Nelson, unfortunately, gave up four runs on five hits in less than an inning. The Reds also ran out Ben Kozlowski, Chris Michalak, Chris Hammond, Jason Standridge, and Todd Coffey.

Meanwhile, manager Jerry Narron was quoted expressing his displeasure with the pitching performance so far this spring training:

“Everyone thinks our club is set, but we’re begging for somebody to come out there and step on the mound and dominate the game,” he said. “Right now, I’m looking for guys to get in the game and throw strikes, command the baseball, not pitch from behind, not miss by three feet – miss by three inches.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Narron starts talking about how the pitchers need to step up, and then we see a parade of pitchers. According to Marty and Joe on the radio today, the first cuts are coming Thursday, and they're going to be big. Narron's giving them all one last chance to come in and dominate.

Tomorrow the Reds host the Phillies at home at 1:05 p.m.

Early last season, I began a category here on Red Hot Mama called Human League. Here's what I had to say about it at the time:

There are lots of valid ways to enjoy a baseball game. It seems like the current trend is toward the statistical approach to the game, where every person, park, play, and match-up is an equation to be solved; an element to be added to the set. While I agree that a good rigorous workout of a mathematical matrix can be a fascinating exercise, for me, nothing compares to the human experience of the settings, characters, and real-life drama that unfolds over the course of nine innings.

I wouldn't say that it's a womanly approach to baseball; it's a human approach to baseball, so called because it puts humans first. Still, I suspect that most women would approach it that way, if they were approaching the game at all. Unfortunately, the priority of Major League Baseball doesn't seem to be attracting the woman viewer, though I think there's a lot for women to enjoy, and it really would be a healthy shift for the game. The human approach doesn't encourage strikes, steriod use, or an enormous economic divide between large and small markets.

But while the statistics fanatics can turn to newspaper, Web sites, entire communities to contribute more data to the number-crunching they find so engaging, where can I go to learn more about the personalities that engage me in the game? Bits and pieces from the odd human-interest baseball newspaper article, the goofy television pre-game time fillers, and mostly my own careful observation of the way a player moves, the expression on a coach's face, the words between the words of the prevalent sound bites.

And so, Red Hot Mama was born. Providing a fun and irreverant view of the characters of the Cincinnati Reds is the primary reason for her creation. Well, maybe secondary to giving me a place to stretch my ego by being a smart alec in a public forum. And, to be honest, all purposes are subsidiary to the distant possibility that the blog could be noticed and fully financially backed by some billionairre benefactor. But since I don't see that one happening any time soon, we'll bump the promotion-of-the-human-approach back up to second. Second ain't bad.

To that end, I'm introducing a new category called Human League, where I will go on to some length about the parts of the game that I think are important. Possibly, no one else in all of Reds' cyberdom will agree that it's at all interesting, and I'll be shunned and laughed at. Or maybe I'll get picked up and backed by the Lifetime network.

If nothing else, it ought to be a fascinating exercise.

Noble as those goals were, I just couldn't seem to get the format to work for me, so after a few profiles, I gave up.

But now, thanks to my crack technical staff, the Human League has enjoyed a promising change of format. I'll be posting links to the new content as it's ready, the first two being descriptions of the two player nicknames that I take credit for:

• Javier “Latin Love Machine” Valentín
• Chris “Heartthrob” Denorfia

Suggestions for Human League (and all) content are always welcome. Feel free to drop me a line at rhm@red-hot-mama.com