Friday, July 29, 2011

Time of My Life

This has been an exciting week for me. I am a Cincinnati Reds fan and have been since the early '70s. That's when I was in elementary school and just starting to love baseball. No longer in grade school but still loving baseball.

The genesis of my love for baseball coincides with the glory days of the Big Red Machine. Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion, Pete Rose, George Foster, Cesar Geronimo, and Ken Griffey are names I'll never forget. Back then we only had one game a week on television. NBC aired the MLB Game of the Week and I hardly ever missed one. Since the Reds were doing pretty good, they would be on a lot. That's why they are my favorite team. Just like kids in the '80s and '90s took to the Cubs and Braves - they were on cable TV so they saw them a lot.

Even though Arkansas is traditionally a St. Louis Cardinals territory and our local AA minor league team was affiliated with them at the time, the Reds became "My Team" and have been for almost forty years. Oddly enough, the only Reds game I've ever seen in person was in St. Louis.

So the excitement comes from being in Cincinnati this week for two games. Yesterday, we saw the Mets and Reds play a wild game that saw the Reds on the short end of a 10-9 score. Both teams had innings in which they scored four runs. Both teams scored in the 9th inning. For a baseball fan that was a great game. Not so much if you are a Reds fan. I'm both so I walked away feeling pretty good.

Tonight's game is against the 2010 World Series Champions - the San Francisco Giants. We will be at Great American Ball Park by 11:30 for a stadium tour. Then we'll spend a few hours in the Reds Hall of Fame Museum. After that we get to go back into the stadium for batting practice and hopefully get a few autographs. Then the game starts at 7:10 with fireworks after the game. Maybe we'll get back to our hotel by midnight!

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