John Axford

Ugly is as ugly does. We can start with normality and hope and all that is the beginning of a season. Just ask Lou Boudreau... "it's all future and no past on the first game of the season - unless your first game is a massive bed crapping that leads to the Reds winning not only that game, but the next 4 games. Eventually, their win streak was stopped at 5, but not before the guy who got it all going with a 3-run jack grounded out to end the game.
What a difference a week makes.
However, for Boston, the first week was all the same... crap, crap, and more crap from their big guns doing nothing to drive in runs and from their pitchers doing nothing to prevent runs from being driven in. As a result, the unthinkable was said, so if you felt a rift in the space time continuum, it was because I stated that I hoped that the Red Sox go 0-20... whatever it takes to get Terry Francona fired. And as they are playing the Yankees in New England this weekend, getting swept by the Yankees at home would go a long way to landing Terry Francona in a soup kitchen line. If he could take Epstein with him, we'd be willing to see the Red Sox turn into the Cleveland Spiders all over again (or worse).
Ugly is as ugly becomes.
Our continuing hatred towards Bleacher Report is about to get serious. Today, they continued the Ace Ventura talking out of their ass by suggesting that the Cardinals trade Albert Pujols. While it sounds like a good idea to get players, there's a little thing called "no trade clause," and for that and for being a reputable baseball website... we can only ask how BLEEPING stupid that they really are. Stick to wives and girlfriends slide shows, guys. Your baseball coverage sucks.
Perhaps, instead of talking about ugliness that results from a decision to try to replace Rollie Fingers as the man with the most unique facial hair ever, we should focus solely on positive stats and accomplishments like Nelson Cruz's 4 dingers in his first 4 games to show up as a latter day Mark McGwire / Willie Mays, but while there are crimes against common sense, there must be a different discussion. And to this, we note that there has been a return to ironic facial hair by some of the games "hipper" players (and their pathetically worthless unhip cousins), there is a reality that this isn't the 1970s, and this isn't Oakland and the Brewers aren't owned by Charles Finley, so... let's get with the world that is 2011.
And for that John Axford... damn, you are not a pretty man. Your pitching isn't much prettier, but despite a crappy opening day, you've racked up 2 saves and dropped your season ERA to 10.80, which is the result of one bad game, but still... you're not the man I would want closing my games.
With that being said, it's only a matter of time until the Red Sox pick him up to stem the flood of runs that are coming in to devastate Boston's season and to have them end up in last place.
Good thing that misery loves company, and it loves it all the more with a Red Sox reject leading the charge against futility.

Ramon Hernandez

So what's the story of the first day of the MLB season? Is it the fact that Mark Reynolds hasn't whiffed yet? Maybe that's only because he hasn't come to the plate yet. When he does, the bird on his shirt won't change the luck he had with the snake in the desert. He'll have his 215 whiffs and Camden yards will be crying over giving any money to him because no amount of home runs can justify just how bad that low batting average and high amount of strikeouts truly is. So with that being said, is it Jason Heyward connecting on a long fly ball souvenier for his first at bat the second year running? Is it Mariano Rivera converting a save to preserve a Texeria and Granderson home run in a victory over the Tigers? Is it Albert Pujols going 0-5 with 3 GIDdynotuPs that pretty much caused St. Louis to not win (take away all talk of that $300million contract immediately!)? And no, it's not April Fools Day - even if it is April 1, 2011. Or is it a pair of home runs in the first 2 at bats of the season by Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez that were effectively released by a Brewers bullpen melt down in the 9th that saw Ramon Hernandez, a 12 year vet with a lot of part time seasons that never really excelled, but that sure was awesome when it needed to be... 9th inning... 2 on, 2 down, and a hot bat that can swat a long fly ball to keep steroids rehab poster boy Edinson Volquez from getting stapled to a loss in his first game in over a year. And isn't that how a year should start out... so much hope. In the words of Lou Boudrea... "all future and no past." The sky is the limit on everything as a guy who never hit .300 is now batting .800. And with that magnificent moment for a journeyman player, the Cincinnati Reds are winning one to come back from the hell of 2010's end that saw their promise vanish in a Roy Halladay no hitter to start the playoffs in dramatic fashion. Doctober never recommenced from there, but it was a Don Larsen moment for my generation. Halladay is supposed to take the mound today, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The ground was covered in snow this morning. It wasn't much, but it wasn't pretty. It made me feel like Ozzie Guillen ranting about going to Cleveland to start the season with those lake breezes and nasty Lake Erie weather, something that I am starting to learn about as we often go to visit my wife's family in Port Clinton, Ohio. And baseball is back and life is good. And I got home to a couple of stacks of early 90s, late 80s baseball card commons. There were a few better players... Curt Schilling comes to mind as do some Jimmy Dean cards with guys like Griffey and Biggio on them. They were a present from my wife, and a nice touch on a day that saw me working on my resume and attending a teaching fair that really didn't have a lot of schools close enough to where I live to bother trying for too many of them. Even with the few that I went to, it was all about budget, not knowing the amount of positions open, and trying to shy away from people with Masters Degrees (me). So alas, there are other job fairs more promising... such as the one the day before regarding the VA hospital patient processing center that is opening near us. Unfortunately, I'm not a situational left handed reliever like I hope my future son will be (if I ever have a future son). I'm just me, for better or for worse. I'm not a free swinging 3rd baseman making way too much money or even a pitcher who arrived in the nick of time to show my stuff. I'm not a contract year mirage. And no matte who any of us are... there is still a possibility that it's going to be a good year for all of us.

Edinson Volquez

In 2008, Senor Volquez came across to the Queen City from the Texas Rangers to the Reds with the hope that he could make a difference. For the first half of the season, he did just that. Until July 20th, he was a man on fire (God, I love Baseball-Reference.Com). Save a 5-run shelling that he took on June 26th, he was sub 2.00 for his cumulative ERA. For a team that finished with 74 wins, he had 17 of them.
Prior to going to visit James the wonder surgeon, he was a man on fire, and then he was a man getting rebuilt with Tommy John Surgery. If it worked, he would come back unstoppable, but if it didn’t come back, he would be done from the sport. The risk and the rewards were there, but as a young talent with so much hype and hope, the opportunity had to be taken.
Apparently, Edinson decided that to get healthy again, he would take steroids and come back bigger and stronger than ever. Is this really a surprise in baseball? Unlike Mike Morse who admitted to using Deca Durabolin once and saying that his second bust was from the residual steroids, we tend to not be sympathetic for our athletes when they get busted. Take Manny Ramirez’s sexual performance enhancing excuse or Jose Theodore using a hair growth formula. Nobody believes Manny because HCG restarts the production of testosterone and hair growth formulas are masking agents.
Nevertheless, the issue with Edinson is simply a 1/3 pay cut in a season he was sitting out anyway. It’s not really a big issue because he has signed another contract with his old team that still wants to take their chances on his arm - $1.625 for an arm capable of winning that much for a lame Reds team is worth up to 10 times it with a Reds team that can - if it works. Smart GMs know that wins can come at a discount if they turn a blind eye to the veterans that they blackball for doing the same thing at a greater cost and expectation. Didn't we learn that with Guillermo Mota? And while there's a feeling of Volquez being blacklisted, his suspension didn’t affect any actual games that Volquez could have played - he was injured and out for the count anyway, so they were served during his time on the disabled list. Jackpot!
So today, the Reds and the player win. Life is good.
The Reds get to keep rebuilding for 2011 with the improvements of Ardolis Chapman, Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto, Scott Rolen, and Jay Bruce - it's all good and the young team keeps ascending. Not that I want St. Louis to face serious in-division challenges, but it would be nice to see more great young players make it to the majors – without steroids.
We want to believe in the natural progression.
And if they can't, smart GMs will play the game of Ollie's Bargain Outlet distracting the fans with cheaper ticket prices and a better than average chance for a trip to the playoffs. In the end, a strikeout is still a strikeout and a home run is still a home run. Gotta love baseball 2011.

Edgar Renteria

The snow now laying on my sidewalk, I procrastinate going outside as I choose to acknowledge the snow for what it is - something beautiful rather than work I have to do. My window affords me a view of the world, and while it's just an alley way, it's a place that is all my own and my wife's. This is our world and in the time it's taken to get this house into shape, we've made it quite homely and unique. Actually, she has done much of the work. This is her vision, and it's amazing.
In that, visions are good things. Goals and affirmations that lead to mantras of what is and what will be. This blog will be. My writing will return, and that too will be. As a 39 year old man, I see my life in terms of what is ahead instead of a retirement ceremony. As I look for better and supplemental employment to go with the classes that I teach and the Masters Degree in Education that I have just received, I know that while my future is limited due to my having a liberal arts degree (and while I can ask "Do you want fries with that," I know that McDonald's would probably see me as over-qualified while many colleges and universities see my not having a degree in 13th century British Poetry as meaning that I am under-qualified - despite the fact that I've taught writing for the past 6.5 years on the community college level.
But alas, the future is here and now, and as I think about my future, I know that Edgar Renteria sees his life in terms of the future and the past as well.
"That offer from the Giants was a lack of respect. A total disrespect, to play for a million dollars, I'd rather stay with my private business and share more time with my family," he said. "Thank God I'm well off financially and my money is well invested."
But since this is baseball money and this is the guy who won the World Series for the Marlins and this is the guy who hit the home run that put the Giants up for good in the final game of the 2010 World Series.
"I have received at least another offer since I was a free agent, but it wasn't what I'm looking for to continue playing," Renteria said. "If I got a good offer, I'm playing, and if not, it's better to stay at home."
This is also the guy who is 34 and hit into the final out of the 2004 World Series against Boston.
And while I would pretty much do anything but a handful of things for $1million a year and endorsements, this is baseball money he's looking to earn. The $3million that he could earn instead of the $1million that he was offered represents respect - respect for a man who batted 35 times in the World Series because he was considered second to Juan Uribe who completely phoned it in when he wasn't jacking his single home run. And while Renteria wants good baseball money for his World Series heroics, he wasn't that good in the League Championship.
But he is Edgar Renteria, and he is a mainstay on many teams, and now he will have a chance to be a $3million man for the Reds. Hopefully, this stay will end up better than Boston and the Tigers and more like his stay with the Braves.
And just like Edgar, I think about what my next stay will amount to. What contract will I get? What options will I have? Will they pay me incentives? Will fans wear my jersey? Will I get a shoe deal? Hell, I could use a pair of hiking boots that are good for hiking in the creek, a new pair of sneakers, they don't even have to be endorsed by an athlete, and a shiny black pair of dress shoes. You can't imagine what I'd do for a shoe deal right about now!
But teaching and writing arbitrary baseball blogs are not baseball money, which was just under $3million in 2009. The league minimum for the same year was $400,000 - chump change, I know, but when Alex Rodriguez is making over $30million, a man has to do what he has to do.
Thus, the question is am I good for $25... an hour?

Josh Hamilton

After being named the first pick of the first round in 1999, the sky was the limit for Hamilton as he looked to the future and how he would be developing into the star that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who had still not been exorcised, had needed to move forward to the future. Behind him in the 2nd round was Carl Crawford. On the free agent front were players like Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, and Jose Canseco. Wilson Alvarez offered hope that he could return to the form that he hoped he contained when they signed him the previous year and some guy named Rolando Arrojo was a runner up for the Rookie of the Year award.
With a lot of gambles and a lot of youth in the American League East, the Devil Rays hoped to build as they improved and drew fans to Tropicana Stadium. Much was made for the hope of their youth, especially Hamilton, and who knew? Perhaps this would be a quick turn around, like the other Florida team who went from non existent to world champions in their 5th season.
However, Hamilton found other things to make his life go... like the heart racing pleasures and pains of crack cocaine.
Not listening to Whitney Houston about how crack was whack, Hamilton took his life to "strange places" and "bad decisions."
After wandering in and out of crackhouses and through the middle of a highway in a drug dependent trance, Hamilton recovered in what he termed a "God thing." Proof that there is always hope at the bottom of the barrel, bottle, syringe, and spoon, Hamilton moved forward with life and gave it another go after the Devil Rays jettisoned him to the Cubs in the 2006 Rule 5 draft. Like a house made over by successful flippers, he was immediately sent packing to the Reds who made him a blossoming star in 2007. A .292 batting average and 19 home runs showed promise and sent the North Carolinian to Arlington as he had a break out season and a hell of a home run derby in front of the world who now praised him as a recovered drug addict with slight emphasis on the Christianity that made it all possible.
And for the purpose of religion and having something to do in front of fans who looked up to him and his story, Hamilton became something with the belief of his wife and child who saw him through eight different stints in rehab. He went on to hit a record 28 home runs in the first round of the 2008 home run derby at Yankee Stadium with the help of a grandmother who took his grunged-out drug-addled self in when he came to her door in 2005 as a barely unrecognizable body.
Proof that dreams come true, but that it's not always easy to move straight through as he relapsed into alcoholic partying time and injuries, but 2010 was back to form as he won the A.L. MVP Award despite MORE injuries that kept him from playing the full season. Still, he hit 32 home runs, 100 RBIs, and .356 over a season that consisted of 518 at bats. Even more so, his OPS was 1.044, which is hellacious - even in Texas.
This took him and his team to the World Series via the Yankees and his former team that he never quite made it to, the revamped Rays who had now been in the playoffs twice.
In thoughts of what could have been and of keeping Hamilton straight, there were many, but the Rangers kept their star in line with modified celebrations of ginger ale instead of champagne.
And here is another place where we hope and wish for the best as Hamilton needs to keep clean and stop partying the life of a dumb jock / ex addict. There is more glory in Cooperstown than up against the ass of a trashy waitress or doing shots off another woman's chest while his supportive wife sits at home. This is not to say that he's a bad person. We all slip and do stupid stuff; it's just that most of us can't hit a major league curve ball while carrying the hopes of this feel good second chance nation of ours to post season glory.