Drew Stubbs

In 272 at bats, Drew Stubbs of the Cincinnati Reds has managed to strike out 89 times. While not quite one every three at bats, there's an air of dismalness in the futility that is abounding in the Queen City. Sure, there are 9 home runs, but there are 41 players this year that have more home runs than that and 16 that have as many as him.
Letting Merle swing away doesn't seem to be the answer either. He's a career .260 hitter that is hitting .261 at this point in the game. Last  year, he struck out 168 times to finish with 22 home runs. Sure, it helped the Reds get to the playoffs, but it's not like he's Joey Votto piling on the weight.
And for this, we have to look at where the Reds are at this juncture in time: third place - 34 and 32. With the Cards and Brewers fighting for first, the Reds look to figure out what the hell is going on with their pitching staff.
Johnny Cueto's sub 2 ERA looks nice, but Edinson "the former ugliest player in baseball" Volquez is still atrocious over 5.00 (even with the dreads now shaved - a fact that has removed his "ugliest" title - if only temporarily). That said, it appears the minor league demotion helped him (that or the steroid relapse) start coming back to form a little bit. The other youth movement part of the rotation isn't much better. Mike Leake is over 4.00 and Travis Wood is over 5.00. That's not a good sign when the surprise part of your offense, Jay Bruce, is slowing down his home run pace and settling in just below .300.
And other than a few players like Brandon Phillips, the Reds are a platoon team of fragility (Scott Rolen, anyone?).
It happens, and it's never convenient, but at the end of the day, the opporuntities to win versus finish in the afterthought campaign of money spent to end up with a failed campaign are what causes tension, frustration, and a sense of someday for your fanbase (until you make it to the playoffs only to have Roy Halladay annihilate your offensive superiority and sense of self with the 2nd post season no hitter in playoff history).
And if the Reds want to morph into the Red Sox by spreading anti-St. Louis bias (like people loathe St. Louis in the same way that they do the Yankees) to the world, they're going to have to come up closer than they do. They're going to have to make people remember a year that mattered. For most fans, 1990 is a blur of nothingness. Who was even good on that team? Jose Rijo? Barry Larkin is the only name that stands out other than the more memorable moniker of the Nasty Boys (Rob Dibble's ESPN days being the only thing that keeps that memory burning), which lasted longer than their pitching.
The Big Red Machine was a beautiful thing (4 of the 9 Reds World Series appearances and 2 of their 5 wins), and even though it put the nail in the coffin of the 1975 Red Sox, those were teams filled with homegrown stars that went on to do great things.  Of course, there was 1939 and 1940, but perhaps the reason that the Reds - save the Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and Joe Morgan led Big Red Machine that dominated the first half of the seventies in supreme style save an appearance against each of the Orioles and the A's - is so lame in the memory of most baseball fans outside of that part of the Midwest is the fact that they were the beneficiary of the Black Sox throwing the 1919 World Series. Everyone at the time (except for them) knew they were second class, and yet, they are considered the winners of a World Series that was handed to them by a team that wanted to get rich more than they wanted to be champions of the baseball universe - even if (and especially because) it could never be off of Charles Commiskey. Had it not been for gamblers threatening to get medieval on them for trying to win it when it was clear that they weren't going to get rich off of the gambling money either, the White Sox would have come from several games behind and cleaned house on the much lesser Cincinnati team.
But is the 2011 Red team worth mention with any of these teams - to include the Nasty Boys? How long until the team gets dismantled and traded away as it can't compete against St. Louis's pitching and Milwaukee's hitting?
Can Drew Stubbs lead the charge by whiffing as big as he does?

Greg Anderson

In another world, we'd be celebrating Josh Johnson's no hitter this morning, but he came up 5 outs short, and the reality is that if it didn't happen, so be it. And more importantly, we have the train wreck that is the Barry Bonds show trial.
And so if you're the feds today, you have to be wondering if it was really a victory to spend YEARS AND YEARS of your life chasing down Barry Bonds for steroids and other performance enhancing clear and cream drugs. And why wouldn't you? The trial that should have been slam dunk ended in a mistrial and we can spend tons of time trying to figure out why, but that's really not worth the time because Barry will walk into obscurity and hatred, and perhaps, some of it is unfair, and perhaps, some of it was brought on himself, but in the end, a sure-fire Hall of Famer isn't in there. To this, maybe there needs to be a wing across the street from Cooperstown that allows once great tarnished players to get their props from the fans who want to see them. And maybe there, the light will be just a little bit less glowing, but all the same, we can see Bonds, Clemens, Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose, and Mark McGwire for their part in the greatness of an era - even if it was all just smoke and mirrors to the latter day saints troop led by Bob Costas.
According to the good folks at ESPN:
The final votes were 8-4 to acquit Bonds of lying about steroids and 9-3 to acquit him on lying about HGH use. The panel voted 11-1 to convict him of getting an injection from someone other than his doctor, with one woman holding out.
And if you're the feds, you have to be wondering, why try Roger Clemens? Why waste the time and the money? Is he any less guilty than Bonds, and haven't we already seen the partisan shift with him one time (as the conservatives in Congress lined up behind him while the liberals attacked him viciously)? How far will his money and his fame and his ability to clearly act innocent (if not a little enraged) on camera go?
And so if Bonds isn't guilty, then we might have 2 men completely out of baseball and the Hall of Fame, but just like 8 other guys who are out of baseball and weren't guilty in court... the real sentence has already been handed down - and it wasn't at a show trial.
And really, why? Do we just believe that 1 person clearly wasn't in some way prejudiced against the evidence to decide that Bonds NEVER EVER got an injection from Greg Anderson who was released from jail after being thrown back in the hole AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN for not testifying and not complying with federal orders?
Which makes us wonder... if Barry Bonds isn't celebrating today (and I wouldn't know why he isn't - his goose was pretty much cooked before he hit the trial, and he got a sentence that will give him probation and no jail time, and even if that means no Hall of Fame, he wasn't getting in anyway... at least since what happened after 1998), what present will he be giving to Greg Anderson for being a "good ol' boy" all of these years?
I suspect it will be a really nice one.

Terence Mann

It's a recognized fact that Kevin Costner became a baseball star at some point in his movie career. There was the great Bull Durham. There was the ok For Love of the Game. And there was Field of Dreams. People tend to gravitate more to Bull Durham or Field of Dreams depending on who they are. For me, I'm more about the love story of Bull Durham than I am about the science fiction of Field of Dreams, but I still like it. It's just not the greatest movie of all time in the way that Bull Durham is, but that said, it does have its moments.
For instance, there is no annoying wife in Bull Durham. Sure, there's Millie, and she needs to be fed to the sharks, but she can catch Nuke and let the religious guy do whatever he wants to her, but other than her daddy donating the scoreboard, she's probably replaceable. But getting back to the annoying wife and her incredibly annoying take on no censorship, perhaps Amy Madigan is the one character that really keeps me from truly enjoying Field of Dreams. She wasn't good for John Candy's Uncle Buck, and frankly, she's no poetic muse adjunct English teacher at a junior college for Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella either. For in comparison to all of Madigan's annoyingness, Annie was still lovable (despite her sleeping with a different ball player every season)... even if she did end up hooking up with Tim Robbins' Nuke Laloosh for half of the season (and over 15 years of real seasons).
But it's more than just the leading woman, for there is also no James Earl Jones and his Darth Vadar voice in Bull Durham. There's no trip across country to follow the directions of the voice that is coming from afar to rescue him from a life of being angry at the world. There is no inner and outer journey for Costner's Ray Kinsella to go and ease their (the Black Sox) pain. There is no need to eventually create a field for Archibald Moonlight Graham to play out his only at bat (before he messes with Marcellus Wallace's suitcase and gets himself killed). There is no hokey injury to the daughter that can only be saved by Graham.
And moving back to James Earl Jones, in Bull Durham, there is no angry 60s radical that needs to find meaning in baseball again (in that, there is no speech: Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
And I get that the speech is the key to the movie. My one friend is very nostalgic to the memories of his father and wanting to have the game of catch again. I understand what that means... but to me, the real speech is at the end of Bull Durham: I got a lotta time to hear your theories and I wanta hear every damn one of 'em...but right now I'm tired and I don't wanta think about baseball and I don't wanta think about Quantum Physics... I don't wanta think about nothing... Right now, I just wanta be.
And Annie can do that, too, and that's the answer because there are all the things that we believe in and the greatness of the game and there are the beautiful moments in life. Perhaps catch is a beautiful moment... if that's your memory, but sitting on the porch after the rain and just smelling the summer air and looking forward to the good life that will come when you're with the one that you love...
That's a good thing.
And for the way it makes me feel... to think about being with my wife in the Siesta Zone and enjoying life as it comes... it's all good.