Since the last time I posted, the Reds were eliminated from post-season contention, first thanks to a win by the Brewers to eliminate them from the possibility of winning in the NLC, and then thanks to a win by the Braves to eliminate them from the possibility of winning the NL wildcard.

If you pay close attention to the “Events” that we show over on the right side of the blog layout, you noticed about a week ago I predicted that the elimination day would be yesterday, September 14. And, as it turned out, both eliminations happened on that day, thanks to the Brewers having a long game that went just past midnight EDT.

So, tonight’s Reds-Cubs game is definitely among those lame duck events where we get to see the flashes of awesomeness from the young guys and think, “why couldn’t he have done that in July?” Among the awesomeness I’ve seen tonight has been Chris Heisey’s facial hair. Not only would it surely have made all the difference in July, but it’s also nice for making young Heisey look legal.

This weekend’s games are not quite as exhibition-y as tonight’s game, seeing as the Reds are hosting the Brewers and could do their part to…I don’t know. Give the Cardinals a chance? Tire out the team? Take Prince Fielder out to Boi Na Braza?

Whatever the team does, there’s going to be the big unveiling of the Johnny Bench statue to take in, plus the Tweet-up on Saturday. I understand there may be prizes for participating tweeters.

Tonight, around the fourth inning, the Red Hot Family made the call to let the DVR change the channel from the Reds game to Eureka at 8:30 p.m. and instead go down to the basement to play You Don’t Know Jack! for the Wii. It’s a little blue for our 10-year old, but he’s got to learn these off-color references somewhere. There’s only so much we actually say during sporting events.

But I had some remorse tonight, thinking how, even though this game felt like a rerun, I’ll be missing even those in a month. Especially considering the sports craptacular that the Colts are promising to offer this season, I suddenly feel like I need to squeeze in as much baseball as possible. That’s why I’m sitting here listening to Thom and the Cowboy call the 12-7 routing the Reds are taking at the hands of, of all teams, the Cubs.

None of this really has anything to do with the title of this post, of course. Sometimes you think you’re going to go down one road and you just end up going down another, you know? Sort of like this whole season.

I won’t change the title, though, because I do want to make it known that a tweet-up is happening at the ball park on Saturday and that I’ll be there, desperately darting around the GABP trying to find the on magic spot in the whole place where I can get coverage with my AT&T phone.

As an added bonus, the team’s going to be dedicating the Johnny Bench statue, which is something that even the Cubs can’t mess up. Not even the Brewers, which is who the team will actually be playing by that point (assuming tonight’s game ever ends). Hope to tweet you there!

For twenty-six years before 9/11 was in the collective consciousness as a horrible tragedy, it was known to baseball buffs as the date when Pete Rose broke the hit record held till then by Ty Cobb.

There’s a 2-hour production about it on FSOhio on Tuesday called “4192 – The Crowning of the Hit King.”

On a warm September evening in 1985, before a sell-out crowd, Pete Rose stood on the edge of history. With one swing he would collect more hits than anyone in the history of the game he loved. 4192: The Crowning of the Hit King is a love letter to baseball that highlights the playing career of one of the games most honored and controversial stars.

But this story begins long before the legendary sprint to first on a walk in 1963. It begins in a neighborhood off the banks of the Ohio River, where a boy, with limited natural athletic ability, tosses a ball with his father, whose mantra is to win at all costs. The boy was Pete Rose and his awe-inspiring career spanned more than two decades and brought numerous individual awards as well as three World Series titles. But at it’s heart, beyond the awards and statistics, this is a baseball story about a man who loved to play the game and what drove him to chase a record that had been deemed unbreakable.

The program premiers Tuesday on FSOhio at 10:30 p.m. or right after the Reds risk elimination at the hands of the Astros.

Most pitchers would be pretty happy with 2 runs in nine innings of work. But Mike Leake’s stellar start ended in the ninth inning when he served up a towering 2-run pinch-hit homer to Bryan LaHair. That one insidious swing of the bat tied the game and broke up Leake’s would-have-been complete-game shutout.

And geez, you’ve got to feel for the kid. Seeing him sitting there in the dugout after the hit you could just feel the shock and trauma, not yet turned to self-flagellation and regret. But it’s coming. Oh, it’s coming.

Chris Welsh said that that pitch will haunt Leake, keeping him from getting to sleep and causing him to wake up in the middle of the night.

But we know it goes beyond that, don’t we? The human brain loves those little gems of regret and brings them out to fondle them, like perverse trophies, at the most inopportune times. Whether it’s a mistake pitch at just the wrong moment or that time in fifth grade you unwittingly asked the kid whose father had just died what he’d planned for Fathers’ Day, our brains choose the worst possible moments–during a boring meeting, in the shower, at the altar–to drag these trophies out and shame us to such a severe degree that we just want to jump off a cliff.

But don’t do that, Mike Leake. It was a great outing, even if your brain will conveniently ignore that part.

Tonight the Indianapolis Indians hosted their last game at Victory Field in downtown Indianapolis. At the start of the game, they were still in the wildcard race, but it was a long shot. Though they did finally defeat Travis Wood and the Louisville Bats, the win by the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs sealed the deal before we finished our first post-game drink at the bar across the street from the ball park.

We may still have a month of major league baseball left to go, plus another six months of post-season play, but bidding farewell to your local AAA team on a balmy late summer night is a special kind of sadness. Till next year, oh boys of summer!