Opening Day, 2014

With half the Reds' pitching staff either on the Disabled List, banged up, sore and/or nursing assorted boo-boos, as well as a few critical position players having been hobbled (Devin "the Groundhog" Mesoraco, "Jungle Jack" Hanahan to name two), and a rookie manager (Dat Manger BP) and a mostly new coaching staff (thanks be to Saint Harry Wright for protecting first base coach Billy Hatcher from the pogrom!), the 2014 season is projecting to be a roller coaster ride the likes of which may have never been seen before!  

My hope is that the Mighty Redlegs don't fall 50 games out by June.

My expectation is for a furious late-summer, early-autumn rally from the depths of the NL Central standings to capture on the last day of the regular season - Game 162 - a 2nd place finish in the Division and the final NL Wild Card spot.  

George "Sparky" Anderson had his Big Red Machine of the 1970s.  "Trader Jack" McKeon had his Little Red Wagon of rookies and youngsters in 1999.  Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker had his Big Road Machine in 2012 when the Reds went 47-34 away from the Great American Tilt Yard.  If my last-to-playoff prophecy for 2014 comes true, Bryan "Dat Manager BP" Price may turn out to be the conductor of a Big Red Caboose... just a caboose that thinks it can, it thinks it can.... all the way to playoff bonus money for our beloved Reds of River City!  All aboard!

The Reds are in the midst of an historic epoch.  Only twice in the long and glorious history of the Rhinelanders ballclub have they made the postseason in - at least - three of four seasons.  The BRM of the made the playoffs five of seven seasons from 1970-1976 (and if you extend the latter parameter to 1979, six of ten seasons) and the current iteration has played October baseball in three of the past four seasons (2010, 2012-13).  While we faithful in Reds Country are still stinging over the missed recent opportunities - especially 2012, when the championship was ripe for the Redlegs taking - consider this;  From 1970 through the 1974 season The Big Red Machine made the postseason three of five times and failed to win the World Series in any of those years.  If the Big Red Machine may be forgiven for coming up short in their first three cracks at a World Championship, then so can also Messrs Votto, Bruce, Phillips, Cueto, Bailey, Latos, Leake et al.  After coming up short of glory in their initial run of three of four postseasons, the BRM failed to even make the playoffs in the fifth year of their historic run (1974).  This is the equivalent of where we find our current Redlegs, today.  The 2014 Reds could misfire.  Yet the 1975-76 Reds roared back to capture consecutive World Championships.  While I would not now assert the same fate for the 2015-16 Reds, it does portend great things that may be just over the horizon for the Mighty Reds.  This precedent has been set in Cincinnati.

There are an assortment of new features and special promotional dates that loyal subscribers to Heavy Artillery will want to be made aware of.  First, the addition of a mile-long bar and two different Moerlein Lager House concession stands that will serve up, it total, something like 8 million varieties of brew.  You can read all about it here.  I put down my frothy mug years ago, but Moerlein Zeppelin Pale Ale?  My arm could be twisted into trying one of those [Yes, I know it isn't named for the Jimmy Page-led band.  Get it?  Jimmy Page-LED?!  Led Zeppelin?!  I kill myself!].  Let's just hope the good folks at Christian Moerlein don't next come out with a Hudepohl Keith Moon Hotel Wrecker lager.  One sip and you're grooving to surf music.  Two sips and you're closing down Hollywood bars with Ringo Starr and Larry Hagman.  Three sips and you're driving a luxury car into a hotel swimming pool.  Second, for the Star Wars fans out there (Big Randy), a Star Wars t-shirt giveaway - not on May the 4th, which sounds an awful lot like "May the Force...", but rather - on Saturday May the 3rd.  The t-shirt looks fantastic.  Sadly, I will not be able to snag my own as Saturday May the 3rd is, as you might have guessed, the First Saturday in May.  The B Team will be otherwise occupied on that day.  Thirdly, southwest Ohio's Riverdancing version of the Von Trapp Family, the Pattons, would like you to know that Friday, September 5th is Irish Heritage Night.  As an added bonus, being that it's a Friday night game, it will also be a fireworks night.  If you haven't been to GABP for a fireworks show, you really are missing out.

On behalf of Robert (he let's me call him "Bob") Castellini and the Reds season ticket sales battalion, allow me to make an impassioned pitch.  Cincinnati will host the 2015 All-Star Game.  Season ticket holders will have All-Star Game weekend ticket-buying opportunities that will not be available to the general public.  I recommend getting your season tix this year, when you will have a better selection of seats, before everybody in Reds Country jumps on the bandwagon next season and you're stuck sitting under the scoreboard throughout the 2015 season.  Boss, let Bob know that I will accept my commission for ticket sales in the form of Big Red Smokeys.

For so long as our luck runs, today marks the beginning of a baseball-themed series of "Roll the credits!" that I have been looking forward to for a long time.  I'm loathe to spoil today's surprise, but I feel a brief (?) explanation is in order.  For years I have been disappointed to find that there were practically zero episodes of This Week In Baseball on YouTube.  A few clips of segments, but that has been about the sum of it.  Until recently, that is.  My life-long affinity for TWIB has been well-documented over these internet years.  In an era before cable television, the world wide web, etc one's access to information was limited.  And as a 6-, 7-, 8-year old in the 1970s there were newspapers, radio reports and the local evening news... but c'mon.  When you're 6?  Who has time for that?  I had Legos.  At all stages of my development I benefited from the wise and reasoned influence of my big brother Lou.  He watched TWIB, ergo I watched TWIB.  Lou played baseball in the backyard with Dad, ergo I played baseball in the backyard with Dad.  That is just how little brothers are, since time immemorial.  I've reminisced here before about watching TWIB on a summer day, windows open, doors open (The Ranch wasn't air conditioned in those halcyon days of yesteryear), sunlight streaming in, birds chirping..... and Mel Allen telling me all about the spectacular events from the wondrous world of Major League Baseball.  Then, the closing theme song (different from the opening theme) would play - O! That glorious music! - and that signaled the time had come to go outside and play baseball with Lou, Dad, Andy, whomever was in the neighborhood.  Even to this day, when I hear the opening stains of that song I can feel the warm sunlight, smell the fresh air and feel deep within my being a stirring to get outside of the house.

TWIB first aired in April of 1977, following closely upon - and in an effort to capitalize upon - the revival of Major League Baseball that began as a result of the unrivaled 1975 World Series.  

I will endeavor to end each successive posting with chronologically-ordered episodes of TWIB, beginning with the earliest episode currently uploaded to YouTube - that from June 14, 1977.  This episode, linked in "Roll the credits!," below, has it all!  The extended version into, Mel Allen's (of course) unparalleled delivery, a truckload of Big Red Machine highlights during the opening montage, hilarious 1970s-era background music throughout the program, and - naturally - the greatest closing in all of televisiondom.  Added bonus (at least for this week), no commercial interruptions!  This is 21:45 of pure heaven.

Over the upcoming weeks I shall force myself to keep my ancillary YouTube links to a minimum so that whatever precious minutes you may have to spare, you may spend every cherished moment with TWIB.

No peaking, now, and if you do don't spoil it for the rest of us, but next week's TWIB is one of landmark proportions - both in Cincinnati and elsewhere.  You won't believe all the memorable things that happened next week in This Week In Baseball!

Roll the credits!