by 
[Clay Marshall grew up a Reds fan in Nashville, convinced Eric Davis was Superman. While he’s lived in Los Angeles the past twenty years, he’s as Reds-obsessed as ever. Clay likes to say that his son — Bronson — is living proof. Clay and Bronson spent the past weekend in Cincinnati attending two Reds games and a special Reds event. He graciously wrote up this account of their experience for us.]
There are two things I have a hard time saying no to – my son, and a good deal. Combine the two, and resistance is futile.
That’s the only way I can explain how, just six weeks removed from visiting Cincinnati to witness the tail end of the Reds’ season-long flirtation with decency, I found myself back in the Queen City once again. I wasn’t there for myself this time, though. Well, not only myself.
Earlier this month, the Reds sent an email to parents of their Reds Heads youth fan club members saying that if the membership was renewed by a certain date, their children would be able to attend a special Q&A session with Joey Votto. When a sale on Frontier Airlines made the offer too tempting to pass up, we pulled the trigger and re-upped for 2020.
As the parent of a multi-year Reds Heads member, I can personally attest that the Reds promotions team does a lot of things tremendously well. You get a lot of bang for your thirty bucks – a bobblehead, a backpack, a jersey, a pair of game tickets and access to events like autograph signings. Unfortunately, Saturday’s Votto Q&A – while surely well-intentioned – was anything but well-executed. There was a single line for more than 200 Reds Heads members and their families, each of whom had to go through a metal detector to enter Great American Ballpark. The backlog was so severe that the Q&A started with at least a third of the attendees still in line.
From there, kids had to line up in the concourse if they wanted to ask Votto a question, meaning that they couldn’t see him or hear anything he said until they inched closer to the front of the line – which only a small percentage of the attendees were able to do in the approximately 30-minute time frame. Two tips in case the Reds consider offering a similar perk in the future – open earlier so that everyone can make it inside before the event starts; and ask kids to submit questions in advance via email, which would keep them from having to line up out of eye- and earshot and miss experiencing anything. (It might also yield some more interesting questions, although it was fun to hear Votto admit that he still hasn’t tried Skyline and that his favorite moment as a Red was Jay Bruce’s walk-off home run that clinched the 2010 division crown.)
Even though the Q&A fell somewhere on the scale between “letdown” and “bust,” we decided to make the best of the rest of our trip, as we still had two games to see. The first was a nail-biter that saw Anthony DeSclafani continue his late-season surge and give up just one earned run on three hits over six strong innings. The game was tied 2-2, though, going into the bottom of the eighth, when the Reds uncharacteristically strung together three hits to plate the go-ahead run. When Raisel Iglesias took the mound in the ninth, however, I was convinced the Mets would come back, as Iglesias’ ERA in games I’ve attended in person in recent years is probably higher than the 26 he sports on his jersey. Miracles do happen, though, and he proceeded not only to strike out the side to preserve the victory, but also earn us free pizza. (Thanks, Iggy!)
[Credit: https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1175548929338945536]
The following day’s game felt like a metaphor for the Reds’ season as a whole. Trevor Bauer continued his Jekyll-and-Hyde tenure with the team with a schizophrenic performance that saw him dominate for the better part of seven innings – but when he did give up hits, the balls traveled far. During a 4-run first inning, Bauer gave up two doubles and a three-run home run before settling down and retiring 14 of the next 15 batters, the lone blemish during that time a hit-by-pitch. Then in the sixth, a solo home run ended his hot streak, and he gave up another pair of hits before exiting the game after the seventh.
Offensively, meanwhile, the Reds had all the chances in the world to put runs on the board, but the team squandered six walks, left nine men on base (including seven in the fifth, sixth and seventh alone) and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. They did manage two homers, but unfortunately, they were solo shots that ultimately proved harmless, and the Reds fell 6-3 to bring my modest personal winning streak to an end at three.
[Credit: https://twitter.com/Reds/status/1175818725112602626]
A few days from now, though, I won’t remember the final score, just like I didn’t remember prior to just looking it up how may games I saw the team win in Goodyear this year. Perhaps I’m numbed by years of rooting for a lousy team that loses more than it wins – during my 33 full seasons as a fan, the Reds have dropped 116 more games than they’ve won going into Tuesday’s game – but I think there’s more to it than that. It’s similar to what an Oriole fan told a writer for The Athletic earlier this month when asked why she cared enough to attend a game between two teams that were a combined 84 games under .500. “It’s my happy place,” she explained, and as I took a lap around the field on Saturday during a Reds Heads pre-game parade (during which I spotted, and subsequently introduced my son to, Bob Castellini) and then a victory lap around the bases with my son after that day’s win, I knew exactly what she meant. Take it from someone who isn’t able to click his heels anywhere near as often as he’d like: There’s no place like home.
