Yep just taking it easy.

yep...yep..

easy...

it's snowing...

yeah...

All those thoughts of trades happening..nah they're not happening.  Kinda happy about that...

It's going to snow tomorrow....

What did you say?...Nothing because you're on the other side of a computer screen reading this and not actually here with me....

Yeah...it's quiet...

Walt drove the 2 hours to come to Indy to save money.

He used is Hyatt points to pay for his hotel room.

He took his winter meeting crew to subway instead of St. Elmo's Steak house to keep it in perspective.

And we're suprised it's day 3 of the meetings and he hasn't done anything?  I'm not. 

As someone else wrote earlier today "Walt's waiting for the phone to ring, because he's not paying for outbound calls"

He's told us that it's going to be a budget watching year.

He told us that we're not going to do a lot this off season.

We even had worries (that he put to rest) that we would be cutting key players during the off season to save money.

So here we are toward the end of the Winter Meetings and all I can read from Reds bloggers and some reporters is complaints over the Reds not doing anything other than drinking the coffee.  Why?  Go enjoy Indy, have a steak, drink a beer, enjoy a show, visit the Speedway and then go home.

I'm watching the MLB.com coverage of the winter meetings and they are even complaining that EVERYONE is quiet so the Reds should be in perspective dead.

We did have a little news about Gomes, a completely nuts rumor about Tejada, maybe something about the Brewers Counsell which looks like a good fit, and Mariner's Izturis who I'm on the fence with. 

So Reds fans relax, this doesn't mean anything, if we go the whole offseason with no real news then we've got issues.  No news at the winter meetings doesnt' mean a whole lot.

 

 

December 5 7:30AM:

It was hard not to wake up like it was Christmas morning this Saturday.  I was trying to keep my enthusiasm down and just focus on getting dressed and out the door.  Today was going to be my first Redsfest.  An event that I wasn't really sure was going to make my winter or prove to me that we needed an even bigger fan facelift than I expected.  So I pulled out this years jersey and hat one more time and get the car ready as though it was time to make the road trip to see a game.  My finance Wendy mentioned later that "She missed Reds days" and needless to say I did too.

We managed to get forty or so miles down the road before our stomachs got the best of us.  So we went through the drive through of a McDonald's to get some breakfast.  This must has been the only food place open for breakfast in the area as the parking lot and the drive thru was packed.  The good news however was they were used to this and had an excellent AM team working to make sure we got our order fast.  So we continued on our way.  While eating we made small talk about what we needed to do and of course if we were still on schedule to make it in time for the opening.  That led me to my big mistake of the day. I went on the record saying "We're making great time and we shouldn't have any trouble at all getting there on time."

As we all know when you tempted fate, fate won't take the slap in the face and let you get away with it.  A sacrafice needs to be made to even the score...

 That's right the car.  The one thing we need for this to go right.  The one thing I trusted to do it's job, because...well it's a good fairly new car.  We were driving down the road a guy pulls up beside us doing 70 mph and yells "Your tire is flat!"  and after we pulled over in pretty much the middle of nowhere Ohio he was right one of the rear tires was going flat quick.  We managed to limp it to a local shop to get some air in it, and then to a tire place a couple miles down the road to only find out that we in fact needed two tires!  It seems that we had managed to pick up a few nails and random metal shavings that was taking out our other back tire slowly but surely.  There went $300 and an hour and half of unexpected time.  Fate had gotten even in spades, but we were not willing to give up the trip yet.  So admitting that we weren't going to get there when it opened we continued on our trek.

 

December 5 12:00pm

We've made it!  We've never been to the Duke Energy Convention Center before, but after a little detour we managed to find a parking spot and make our way up and inside.  So what would it look like?  How many fans are we really talking about?  I've seen the layout map, but will it be as good as I hope or as low end as some comic book conventions I'd been to?  I didn't have to wait long to find out.

There I was in a hallway looking down on two or more convention halls opened up with nothing but a sea of red.  I saw the Reds logo big and proud over everything, the MLB logo toward the center of the room and nothing but thousands of Reds fans scrambling from one place to another and it was all baseball.  Here in Indy I've gone to some Pacer's rally's and some Colts Rally's they are nice, but these guys really took the prize in putting together a meeting of Reds fans!  After the months of being by myself in a town where in popularity baseball barely beats out horseshoes I was finally in a place where that wasn't true, but in fact reversed.  Yes I was in complete awe.

I turned my head to look at the other side only to see more.  A huge stage, vendors and collectors selling things that I thought were long since gone or purchased and being saved in peoples basements.  It was a wonderful site to see.  A total of 17,500 fans made it out over two days and I was never happier to see it.  Reds fans were out in force, and it was time for me to go and join the fun.  We hurried down the escalator and got our tickets to be met by tons of people asking for our names and email addresses for contests, normally I would ignore them or be annoyed that they were asking, but I really was too happy to care.  We filled out a few, got our bag of goodies at the door and made our way into what would be an awesome experience for the next several hours. Not knowing where to start our first thought was to roam around, but I felt conflicted because I knew the longer we waited the less chance I was going to get for autographs.  I had a hat I wore all this year, and I was working on a tradition of getting it autographed by the team whenever possible.  I'm not one of those guys who is standing with the kids at the baseline asking for autographs so really this happens now here at Redsfest and the Winter Caravan.  This is my chance to get them while not looking like I'm stealing a chance for a kid to meet his favorite player or look like some guy who's planning on selling his autograph.  As I plan on getting a new jersey and hat to wear and get signed untill I find the lucky one that we go to a World Series!  So off to the lines we go.

First stop Adam Rosales...

We got in a line that I would admit looks like it would take forever to get through until you realize that all he's really going to do is say "Hello and your welcome" while signing his autograph and move on to the next person. So a line of a hundred was done in pretty close to thirty to fifty minutes.  While you were waiting you had plenty of time to talk to fellow Reds fans.  It was a lot like going to a comic convention or for the less geeky and slightly higher class fair.  There were people you avoided making eye contact with because they were scary.  There were uber geeks that wouldn't shut up about their experiences at fantasy camp or that time they spent $6,000 dollars to have dinner with Johnny Bench.  Then there were the normal people, people like me (okay I might be a little bit on the geek side of normal, but I'd like to think not too far gone okay...thanks)  This is what I'm happy I have Wendy for.  She can make small talk with anyone, I on the other hand tend to keep to myself, but she did what she does best making friends with people in line talking about the Reds, cameras, babies, you name it. 

She even made friends with...

 

Mr. Redlegs!

With some time to spare after our signing with Adam we did make our way around to see some of the exhibits and special events they had setup.

They had batting cages                                         An indoor baseball field        

 

 

 Some real and fake photo oppertunities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And who can leave out Bronson Arroyo Singing..

So after a little tour and some great Cincy pizza we made our way back to the lines for autographs.  This time for Cueto,

While we were waiting in line I was on my phone reading twitter updates from Reds fans and noticed the Mark Sheldon was somewhere in the building covering the event.  Mark is the MLB.com reporter for the Reds, he's a good guy and in many cases I trust his words more than I trust what our broadcasting team says.  Don't get me wrong Cowboy and Marty are great, but I can rely on Mark to put a little less spin on what's happening which for me is a good thing.  So I tweeted (I never thought I would ever use that word...) him half joking that he needed to find me because I wanted his autograph.  Cool guy that he is, he made time to come down and say hello and I shocked him a little bit by asking for his autograph.  In my mind you get an autograph from the team and he's apart of it, and you also get autographs of people that you are fans of, and I am of his work.  If I could wake up tomrrow and go to school, then know I would get a job with the MLB covering Reds I would do it!  Wouldn't you? I really wish I wasn't in line as I would have liked to spend a little more time talking to him and to see what his day was going to be like.  I'll do better next time.  So we made it through the line and headed on to our next autograph line.  Now I'm sure they did this on purpose, but this would be one of my few complaints about this event.  Seating, after standing in line for forty minutes there really wasn't any place just to sit down that wasn't in front of the main stage.  The other would be the rules for autographs.  If you stand in line and you wait forty minutes to get an autograph and time is up so the next player is going to take over it should be your choice to either stay in line for the new person or leave.  The volunteers booted you and started the process all over again.  So now you've upset a fan by not getting him the autograph they wanted and now you're irrating them again by making them start all over.  Not good.  I'm sure some logic was used in making this decision I'm just not a fan of it, and I can tell you neither were many of the fans around me.  Thankfully this never happened to me.

So our last autograph of the day was Aaron Harang. 

 I like Aaron, and I think he's good for the Reds.  I managed to take advantage of one line ending and another being created (see previous paragraph) to get a good lead on this line so our wait wasn't too long here.  Aaron was nice and was having fun with the crowd a bit while signing.  By this point the crowd was listening to the Bearcats game and talking college football while standing in line.  It was interesting to hear as I'm from Indy and don't know a single player's name I think if I was quizzed shortly after that line I could have answered a lot of general questions!

By the time we were done there we were running out of time so we made our way back to the vendors and picked up some awesome things to put up in my office.  I found a recently signed baseball bat by Pete Rose, a 3 stage action photo of Pete's slide into catcher Ray Fosse, and my son's kid's club membership for the Reds 2010 season.  All and all not a bad way to spend a Saturday.  Next year I will definately plan to have more time and more money to spend at Redsfest as it definately was an experience worth the time and money.

December 5 4:30pm

On the road home back to Indiana.  I really enjoyed my trip to Redsfest.

The Good

Players and Mark

Shopping

Fans

Atmosphere

Well managed

Affordable

Overall great ROI

The Bad 

Only once a year

Needs more seating areas

Increase autographs even if it's more people sitting at one area I could only really avg 1 autograph an hour.  Which wasn't great.

More player oppertunities, they made it sound like they were all there, but if they were where were they.  I definately didn't catch 40 players or even half for that matter.

Needs a better special savings on seasons tickets.  This is the time to convert regulars to lifetime fans.  If there was something better than the norm it wasn't advertised well.

Overall

Four stars, what I put in bad was just being picky.  I really, really enjoyed Redsfest and can't wait for it to come around again!   

 

So in three days Redsfest begins.

A sort of snack chip to keep the cravings away.....

 This will be my first time going to Redsfest.  I was going to make it for both Friday and Saturday, but do to some scheduling issues it looks like Saturday is going to be my day. 

So for those of you that have went to your respective "fests" what should I be looking for and making sure I don't miss? 

At the moment it seems like I'm going for the swag, the shopping, and some autographs.  Is there something more?  Do you have any stories of memorable baseball moments happening at the fest?

This year one of my personal goals is to get a feel for the layout so that I can work on organizing fans together for next year starting with the bloggers.  I've been talking about it alot over various medias about how the Reds need a fan facelift.  I'm not entirely sure if I'm the guy to get it done, but maybe I can start the search for that person.  Also while I'm there I will be working on getting my hat signed.  Each year I buy a new hat and jersey in hopes to find the lucky set that gets the Reds a winning season. (when I say winning, I mean +.500 season) that I'll wear till either they have a losing season or a world series.  I started this tradition three years ago, and I usually got my autographs at the winter caravan.

At Redsfest I do see one thing of importance that may not rise to the occasion.  This is a scheduled time where we will be in the same room with Walt before the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis.  I'm sure he's got his plan worked out on how he'd like the meetings to go, but something tells me that with enough will from the fans focusing their want in one direction we could get a point across to him that he would take seriously.  What should that point be?  Like all baseball teams the PR departments have done a great job of keeping us focused on certain things to keep our minds off of others. 

 

I'm interested in your opinions and ideas, and rest assured their will be tons of pictures and I'm sure an entry about my experience once I get back.  I'll admit I'm tempering my expectations at the moment so that I don't get let down, as I want this to be an amazing event that I talk about and love going to every year.

So I read Mark Sheldon's article (when it comes to Reds news he's the man..)  and it looks like I have a few new names to get to know.  The Reds may not be big players in the market this winter, but making sure that they've got talent in the minors to pull up certainly isn't going to be an issue or so it would seem.

I'm happy to say that the Reds farm system is definately one of the strongest in the league, and I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it really pays us back for the time and money that goes into it.  (I've got faith, what can I say) I just hope we don't lose them to other teams before we get some benefit out of them.

 

 Chris Heisey, infielder Chris Valaika and pitchers Enerio Del Rosario, Logan Ondrusek, Jordan Smith, Phillippe Valiquette and Travis Wood are the new guys on the block.  With Heisey being the biggest ticket of them all.  (rumors are going around that the Reds PR depart plans to promote on him like they did Bailey before.  Not sure if it's a good idea, but let's see what happens)

I think it's a bit early for me to really feel anything for these guys.  Twitter, the boards, and the news really hasn't caught up to them.  All I can say is that these are the times I wish my Indianapolis Indians were the AAA team of the Reds and not the Pirates.  It would be nice to see these guys play, but I know that's asking for too much. 

It's been a week since we got the news that Nix is a free agent.  My opinion is that I really hope that people just ignore him and he comes back to our AAA team for us to bring back up to the bigs.  I don't know what it is about him, but I like him.

 

 

I'll start off saying I don't really care about weed.

I don't smoke weed, never have and in my 30's I probably never will.

But if my job happen to come across that I was smoking weed, and then I was drug tested to prove it.  THEN I admited I was a pot head.  Guess what would happen to me?  I would be fired.  I believe that's what would happen to most of us.  I haven't worked at too many jobs where the handbook wasn't pretty clear on this.  Now in most cases you'd never get caught and your job would never find out so that's why millions of potheads still have jobs I imagine.

Yet if your a pro ball player that's not what happens, and I guess it is employers perrogative on what happens. 

Now in the normal world as you raise up the ladder, you get paid more, and you have a more public face you are expected to hold a higher moral code.(mostly because you want to make sure you protect all that money)

So now I'm confused.  I know the answer is simple, but I hate the situation it puts me in.  I tell my son that baseball is great, honest and good.  That baseball players and baseball helps many that are in need and you should use them as a goal to strive to.

But when he asks me how Lincecum is a pot head and if pot is ok, then I of course say "No!"  My son looks at me and says "But Dad Lincecum is a pot head" and I look at everyone else's response is "eh, it's only weed.  or he's a ball player what do you expect?"  how do I explain this?  Only some baseball players are good and you won't know who isn't till they screw up?

He apologized today during his Cy Young acceptance speech. 

Sorry doesn't cut it with me, you didn't back into my car.  You knowingly used something you shouldn't have and got caught.

Going back to my other notation...

If I'm paid more than I would ever get paid in the regular job market and one of my responsibilities is to be a role model for kids (because it's what the MLB throws out there all the time to promote itself) then guess what you should be fired.  If anything for being dumb.

We didn't do that today, as a matter of fact we went and gave him an award and a pat on the back, and that is wrong. (Cy Young must be proud)

It's not really a matter of being pro weed or not.  It's about the rules not being what they should be, and what they should be is what most of us have to live up to and then 5% better.  You're lucky enough to be selected out of hundreds of players (mind you forget the thousands that try in lower leagues) to make it to the bigs. Your job is to play a game, and get paid millions for it, you have associations (which is just a union) to protect and assure you get millions for it, and you don't have the common sense to follow the rules!?!  That's cool, then give the guy next in line a try, because you're not worth it.

I listened to an interview with Jay Bruce today and he can't even recognize a nationally recognized strip club and that's legal.  You can hear it in his voice he avoids going out drinking in public for chance something might not go right.  Booze is legal, but he's making sure he doesn't give the man any reason to come after him.  That's the right answer.

Will this change?  Odds are no, but this fan knows that someone has to say it so that people more important than him realize that the fan base thinks about it too, and maybe that's a start.  Because if it's not going to ever change then why bother with the other rules too.

 

 

The off season is getting ready for full swing, and after reading the articles and twitter the stove is hot asking questions about these three guys.

 

Jonny Gomes: What's not to like he's rough, he hits ok, he had a good HR year with 20 and  he's not a bad left fielder (okay he's not great, but he is good) ok so maybe there are a few things not to like.  But how much better do we really have?  Arbitraition?  Hmmm...don't know what do you think?

Willy Taveras: What's to like? The Reds will drop 4 million (one of the highest paid players on the team) and thus far we haven't gotten what we've paid for from last years investment.  I know it's not the MLB way, but we you have the season Willy did I really think the player should want to drop his salary down into the basement to assure his spot in the lineup so that he can fix his image and his stats.  Mark Sheldon says "He's rather one dimensional in that he only plays center field, has no power for any quick offensive boost, doesn't bunt well, doesn't play great defense and he doesn't excel at getting on base. Although Taveras is certainly a good person, I also can't see him being a happy clubhouse presence as a reserve player"  What I hope for is that he comes in and blows our socks off, but most are telling me not to hold my breath.

Laynce Nix: Everyone is pointing toward the fact that he's the closest to the door, not saying he's out it yet but almost.  He's one I really actually want us to keep.  I think 29 is a bit old for our rebuilding idea, but I just feel he is the power that we're missing.

 

It's a circle,

We don't have a huge payroll, because we don't bring in the money.

We don't bring in the money because we don't win.

We don't win because we don't have the talent, drive, and well money that other teams do.

Which brings us back around to we don't have a huge payroll.

 

So going off of my normal rant for a moment that the money is mismanaged (and it is, but let's be honest what multimillion dollar company doesn't mismanage it most of the time)

 

What can we do about it?  Well we can get the fans to the ball park.  Gee Cob, really is that all we have to do?  We've been doing this for a while and we already knew that, our question is how do we get people to the games and then more importantly get them to come back again.  How do we eventually turn regular 3 to 5 game fans to season ticket holders?

 

Glad you asked.

Great American Ball Park is an awesome place, it's not the stadiums fault.  It's beautiful, it's got pleanty of seats at all the price ranges to make it open for everyone.  The food is not bad, sure we could do a little more here, but really it's not bad.

So what are we missing?

1. The baseball experience.

    A. I go to Chicago and there are obvious places around the stadium to hang out before the game and after to be around baseball fans.  Wrigleyville is a mecca of baseball.  Cincy doesn't have even a percentage of it.  I've been going for years and I drive in and out.  I go to Hooters across the river and it's not bad, but it's across the river.

I've been to inbetween and I'm not in awe.

We need those parking lots that are perfect tailgating spots to be a place of community!  We need them to rally!  We need to get street vendors not selling just water and peanuts but be able to setup tents and be able to get people to gather.  Sure we need family friendly areas too, but we also need areas that pull the 21+ crowd together.  

   B. Open the freaking ball park or do something in the plaza in front of the ball park to get the fans in gear.  I've sat in front of the ball park hours before the game hoping that you would start having batting practice outside.  Nope...  Hoping that you might send some guys out to sign autographs...Nope...Do some sort of pep rally..Nada.

Now don't get me wrong you do the basics, and really you might be the best in the tri state about the basics. (cheerleaders, Big Screen games, mascots, shopping, HOF)  but come on, let's be honest.  I have to travel to another ball park to talk baseball and get ribbed or high fived for wearing my jersey.  Why because our fans don't care, and most of the are just visiting.  Why?  Because that's what we've cultivated.  This is the place you visit and leave, we hope you spend money too while your here.  Which from what I can tell we do, but obviously not enough.

These are things that the Reds can fix with the right people doing the right things and some of that million dollar budget going to getting the fans involved.  Which goes to my next point.

2. Get us involved!

    A. We're in a new era of fandom, become a leader in it.  A high tech leader (We don't just show all those commercials about Cincy Bell because we think there great right?) Give me a place to bring my laptop/netbook (*cough* Dell sells netbooks with Cincinnati Reds logos all over them for less than $400)  or give me a place that has wifi, Free wifi  bloggers are long term fans, geeks are long term fans.  Think about it, a place that can go a few ways.  It supports geekdom, geeks like math, math is stats, stats is baseball.  It's a place for the teens.  Teens like twitter and facebook, like their phones and their photos and updates, this takes bandwidth.  Business men like getting out of the office, small business men love being able to work from places other than their house, the ball park is perfect.  The pace of the game is slow enough that they can write an email and watch the game at the same time all while getting some fresh air and a hot dog.  Local schools (both College and Grade schools) can have days at the park showing how sports and education go together.  I can go on and on.

   B. More chances to get balls from the field, BP more often outside.  Make it the standard when the 3rd out happens it gets thrown to a fan.  I've been going for years hoping to get a game ball, and the only one I've got is one I bought off ebay.

   C. Twenty minutes after the game is over have players spend time with the fans like they do before the game.

   D. Fan days, come to the ball park to watch road games on the big screens with fans during the warmer months.  Make it even more special by having seats cheaper than game days and some awesome seats (for a price) on the field.  Have special guests to watch the game with them (former Reds, insiders, etc)

   E. Use Redsfest as a huge comment card and idea generator.  I'm just one guy, can you guess what the fest could bring?

 

So in summary.

1. More baseball experience

2. Get us involved, start building long term fans like you build a long term team.

 

Thank you,

Cob

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

I'm Happy..

                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm Sad....

                                                                                                                                    I'm confused

                                                                                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really don't know what to think.  I fully believe we need a veteran catcher (hence the happy), but I'm not sure Hernandez is that guy even at 3 million dollars (hence the sad) and we were willing to do it even though we have some good talent who's proven themselves already. (hence the confusion)

So what I'm gathering from all of this is we are praying that Hernandez stays healthy for a full season and catches for all?  The majority?  Half?  the season?  (I don't know you tell me..)

What I'm happy to see for our money strapped team is that we trimmed the budget by 5+ million so that should help pad us some from trading some our our other key players. 

So what do you think?

So during this off season it's a great time to review and rethink decisions made.

 

Bud has done some thinking.

Steroid users in the Hall of Fame...eh if it happens oh well...."Not my call, not my problem"

Inflated stats and people who don't deserve titles...."well that will happen."

Protect MLB's money..."You bet!"

 

Bud, let the people be heard, and better yet use your own logic, it's not you who decides who gets into the hall, it's the Association.  Frankly I'm tired of having this beef with you, let me go pick on them for a few years if anything.

 

Let Pete Rose make his way onto the ballad for the Hall Of Fame....Not a chance

 

Well Bud, that's just great.You're first hard decision in the big seat obviously is the thing that will be your legacy.  Steroids will be long since forgiven before Rose.

 

And that's just wrong.