old guy rock

I'm watching Chicago on the Today Show. Thought No. 1: Them? No. 2: Why? The world's biggest rock and roll cliche is "Color My World''... the 2nd-biggest is slow-dancing to "Color My World''... evidently, these guys are putting out new music. Great. What's the set list? "Friday in the Park?'' "Color my Viagra"? "If You Leave Me Now (I Won't Have Anyone to Play Bridge With)'' ?

The great groups of youth do what all self-respecting rock groups are supposed to do: Get rich, get stoned, go to rehab, live shameless, hedonistic lives, break things and drop dead. Not Chicago. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Not these geezers. They still think it's 1972.

Live big and get me the J. Geils Band.

typically positive Doc post

The Big Donkey Adam Dunn is hitting .340 in his last 28 games, with 24 rbi... he's 10 for his last 20 with RISP... he still plays baseball with a football player's instincts (nice baserunning last night), but he also seems to be trying to take the ball the other way and shorten his stroke when the count's against him... that's promising... faithful readers of this thing and my enquirer stuff know i'm not a big Dunn guy... but lately, he shows signs of being the player his skills suggest he can be. At least at the plate. Which is one fearsome hitter. You go, Donkey Man...

enough about homer

Time to quit asking for Homer Bailey... unless Krivsky is lying, Bailey isn't coming here this year. In researching the column I just finished for tomorrow, I looked at a bunch of hot, young arms and how they did when promoted before their 21st birthdays. Answer: Not good, except Doc Gooden... a nice comparison to Bailey is Minnesota's all-star starter, Francisco Liriano. He'll be 23 in October... two years ago, at Bailey's age, Liriano split time between A and Double AA... last year, between AA and AAA... the twins called him up last September...he made 4 starts... he spent much minors time developing a slider and a changeup... krivsky and everyone else says that's what bailey needs to do... major league hitters can time a jumbo jet if they know it's coming... so calm down and let the kid prepare for a long, potentially great career...

Whoever told me I should watch that Bourdain guy on the Travel Channel. . . Dude sat on the kitchen floor of an Alaskan family's home and helped them eat a seal. I mean, they're all cross-legged on the vinyl floor and this seal is cut open like roadkill. Everyone is just reaching into the carcass and yanking out whatever. Rampant seal blood. I'm amazed in front of my TV. The Bourdain guy ate the seal's eyeball. I swear. Cool. I recommend it.

baseball town?

Spew from the weekend:

The Reds drew 22,000 on a perfect Sunday afternoon, having won 7 of 9 on the current homestand. Tell me again how this is a baseball town...

Jerry Narron says he still trusts Gary Majewski, but he has to be looking at the newest Red and seeing the rest of his beleaguered bullpen. Majewski is trying too hard to justify the trade. He needs to pitch and forget about it.

I love golf and the Open Championship, but the # of commercials on ABC destroys any flow you might get from the event. Nevertheless, how amazing was it to watch guys whose golf balls were a foot from the face of those bunkers somehow get them out?

Lemme see if I have this straight: Matthias Askew gets tased for a parking ticket? Tell me there's more to this than that. Can the Bengals go a few days w/o someone getting in trouble? Interesting take on them on espn.com, from KC star columnist Jason Whitlock, who claims Marvin's ego has exploded to the point where he believes he can handle any player. Maybe, but Whitlock sabotages his point by using Chad Johnson as an example. 85 is not a bad person or a problem in the locker room. Far from it. Regardless, the antics are getting old, as are Lewis' and Mike Brown's lame answers for them.

Stupid movie rental of the week: Failure to Launch. Better bet: The Great Raid. In case you were wondering.

SI hates the Reds

Negative Sports Illustrated Reds note of the week: In analyzing which teams have the best chances of making a late summer run, SI decides, again, that the Reds miss the cut. The magazine rips The Trade and says Cincinnati has too many old players to stay close in the heat. SI thinks the Rockies will be the NL wildcard team. Uh-huh.

A local guy I know, Ray Edwards, is being interviewed by HBO's Real Sports. Edwards claims to have one of those rare Honus Wagner baseball cards. I did a story on it a few years back. At the time, Edwards couldn't get anyone of influence in the card industry to authenticate it. Now, Edwards claims he's gotten it authenticated, and will have it up for auction next month. Starting bid: $800,000. BTW, if you've never seen Real Sports, you should. It's the best, most clear-eyed look at sports currently on TV.

Shameless plug: Writing something for Saturday's paper on the 1952 Lockland Wayne HS basketball team, the first Hamilton County school to win a state title and, according to several team members, the first all-black team in the country to win an integrated state title. It's a great tale about the impact a school can have on generations of kids, on the basketball court and in the classroom. Makes you wonder how much better Cincinnati would be if we had more Lockland Waynes for our kids to attend.

To golf fans, there's nothing better than waking up and turning on the British Open. I'll be in the bunker all weekend. Live big.

marvin and mike

Those who don't believe Mike Brown still has sway with personnel -- and might indeed have influenced Marvin Lewis' decision to haul in the latest crop of bad apples -- forget some of the guys MB brought in (and retained after multiple misdeeds) before Marvin arrived... the list starts with Stanley Wilson and proceeds through Reggie Rembert, Fred Childress, Tremain Mack, Carl Pickens, Corey Dillon etc. Brown has never minded bottom-feeding, if it meant getting a great talent at a reduced rate. That didnt suddenly begin when he hired Lewis... that said, the coach can put a stop to it, and should. It's his integrity on the line, not Mike's. Lewis is too good a man to have his rep dragged around like this. If he wants to do something about it, he can.

I was at the Reds game Saturday night. In 25 years of covering MLB, I have never seen a team win a game the way the Reds did. They scored twice when only one guy was able to put his bat on the ball in fair territory... walk, 2 HBs, 2Ks and Denorfia's chop to short that should have been scored an error. You have to have some luck to make the postseason. It's wins like that that make you think the Reds have karma on their side, if you believe in that sort of thing...

BTW, I went as a ticket-buying fan. Sat for $12 in Section 533, upper deck RF line... absolutely great seats for not much money

Most underrated athletic assets in town: Paul Flory and his son Bruce, who year after year run the classiest event in local sports and somehow have made Cincinnati a must stop on the men's tennis tour... now they've landed Serena Williams, who will play a 1st-round match in the women's event on Tuesday... even if you care none about tennis -- I'm not exactly a tennis nut -- you have to prop the Florys for what they do year after year. Amazing.

Without Kearns and Lopez, the weight is even heavier on Dunn to produce. We'll see. Live big, and thanks for continuing to post even as your comments have to be moderated.

reds trade and more

Liked the trade, loved the attitude it represents. Majewski seems a scott sullivan-type, clayton can still make every routine play, apparently bill bray was much sought after... regardless, I won't be second-guessing it, because it displayed the go-for-it attitude this team has lacked for years. These are smart, aggressive people making the big decisions for the Reds now. You have reason to believe.

It's getting very hard to explain Marvin Lewis now. It wasn't a great day for Coach Lew's Character Army on Thursday. I guess the question is, how much of your integrity are you willing to deal, to get a championship? All coaches cut devil-deals in pursuit of wins. Lewis is no different, even if you thought he was. But if the Bengals are playing in February, everyone will be saying Chris/Odell/Frostee/A.J. Who?

Found a cool summer show, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, on TNT... it's Twilight Zone as imagined by Stephen King... the opener even paid homage to a classic T-Zone episode, the one where Agnes Morehead is in her attic, fending off tiny invaders. She doesnt say a word for the entire half hour... King's premier stretched the no words (and the miniature attackers) premise to an hour. And pulled it off. Give it a try.

blame the coward

I'm going to have to start moderating the posts to the blog. Someone with a laptop, too much time and not much brain fouled it, so now everything will go through me before it gets posted. A pain for all, I know. Gutless people tend to ruin things. Paul

bill walker

I dislike writing about walkermayo (or is it mayowalker) so much that I almost never do it. Maybe it's because I have to hose down myself and my laptop every time I do. It's not about walkermayo; it's all the junk that surrounds them, and every other big-time kid basketball player. The latest is that walker is done at NCH because, apparently, he didnt know what grade he was in, and nobody with his interests at heart (allegedly) bothered to fill him in. Now we cry big tears for the "exploited'' manchild. Oh, no, what will he do next season? And gee, how will NCH manage without him?

C'mon.

Walker will do fine. He's a basketball player, a very good one. Some team or school or team masquerading as a school will find a spot, somehow, for the 2nd-best high school player in the country, according to those who decide such things. NCH will manage as well, though the next time I hear that the school has put some of its extra basketball revenue toward something meaningful -- tutors, books, academic staff -- will be the first.

Meantime, don't fear for walkermayo. Soon enough, each will do what each wants to do -- play ball for money -- and we'll move on to worrying about the next "exploited'' kid, who will be 10 years old.

mick cronin's good work

What would be good now would be for all the doomsayers -- and you know who you are -- who predicted the end of UC hoops once BH left, to emerge from the closet and say how wrong you were... wrong about the program's guaranteed demise... wrong about zimpher not allowing juco transfers... wrong about UC never being able to fill BH's shoes... wrong about how the ill-handled situation would be a death blow to near-term recruiting... wrong, wrong, wrong... the best thing Huggins did was create a program that could thrive after he left... cronin -- tireless, determined, in his dream job -- was the perfect pick to fill the void...

Dave Campbell, ESPN Head, actually said yesterday that Manny Ramirez was the best hitter he'd seen since DiMaggio... better, apparently, than Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Clemente, Schmidt, Bonds, Griffey etc. Another reason to dislike ESPN's East Coast blindness...

Happy 4th, especially to my buddies Dick Kerin, a WWII vet who witnessed the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, and Jeff Brown, a brand-new dad who served a hitch in Iraq, leading convoys across the desert between Kuwait and the most dangerous places on earth. We will forever be in your debt.

Thought for every day, but especially this one: The elderly Private Ryan, in the movie Saving Private Ryan, standing at John Miller's gravesite above Omaha Beach, some 40 years after D-Day, asking his wife, "Have I been a good man?'' Be a good man today. Especially today.

miss me?

Returning from 10 days in Florida, tooling up 75 in southern K-Y, first voice I here is Marty's, "commenting'' on David Weathers' performance in Sunday's game. I always knew we lived in a time warp here...Florida was great, except the gator eating my Titleist. I'd recommend St. Augustine to anyone seeking a piece of what used to be, before tackiness took over. If you're heading that direction, ask me about Cap's in Vilano Beach and the A1A Brewery in d-town St. Aug. A few observations on things I'll likely be writing in the paper the next several days:

The Reds are still getting jobbed nationally. Nice first half, Brandon Phillips. Here's your pat on the back and a three-day vacation. Same for you, David Ross and Aaron Harang. The only national pub the Reds get is of the "1st team to fold in the second half'' variety. And maybe, someday, ESPN will cease to be the home network for the Red Sox and Yankees. OK, maybe not.

And I still say they should deal Dunn, unless you think the club will exercise its 13.5 mil option on him in '08 or even pay him the 10-mil owed next year. Why not make a move now, for a pitcher and a prospect, when you're in the pennant race?

And those who don't think the Reds can hang the next few months don't realize how down the NL is.

Lawrence Taylor tells SI playing golf has saved his life. Let's get Chris Henry over to Second Swing in Tri-County, shall we?

Much feedback on the 6/23 column lamenting no baseball at Broadway Commons, almost all of it agreeing with me. Where were those people in '98, when Jim Tarbell was banging that drum solo, and I was the only member of the heathen media counting the beats? No ball at BC is Cincinnati in a nutshell: No vision, fear of the future, race-baiting etc. What could have been our own little Wrigleyville could instead be a slot machine parlor or a jail extension. And people visiting Great American Small Park get away as quickly as they can after the game ends.

At least they could have saved Sleep Out Louie's

And by the way, GASP continues to be a joke and an embarrassment. What's the over-under on homers hit there this year? 300?

Training camp begins in a couple weeks. This is the Bengals' time.