By Garth Shanklin
Sports Editor
I had the pleasure of returning to my alma mater this past weekend to attend graduation. It’s been a year since I walked across the stage at Bradley, so once the opportunity arose for me to go back and support my friends who remained it was a no-brainer.
Sitting in the stands, watching all of those names be called up front to receive a very snazzy empty red binder, I realized that time passes so quickly and sometimes it’s important to slow down and take stock of things.
Since the ceremony was boring me to no end, I found myself thinking about the past year and how things have changed for me. I went from a college student to an actual person in three months, and that’s the kind of shift that makes you think a bit.
It hasn’t been easy, though I don’t think anyone told me it would be, but it has been extremely fun. College was fun too, and being back there this weekend brought back a lot of memories. Driving past the house I lived in last year reminded me of the good times that were shared there and the several times the basement I lived in flooded. Fun.
Seeing the building that housed my major brought back memories of my first day on campus, when the dean of the college asked if I had any questions and I replied, “Nope.” He called me a know-it-all, jokingly, but it didn’t take too much time on campus as a student for me to find out that I actually didn’t know much of anything. The future was an abstract concept to me, I had no idea what it held or how to get there, but I knew that friends and family would help me through whatever happened next.
Other memories came back too, like just how terrible those houses smelled. I’m not sure how to describe it, but let’s just say if you lit a match I’m pretty sure the house would explode.
The trip also brought back memories of the very last thing I did on campus last year before I left. As we were driving past the office of the then-president, we had to narrowly avoid being hit by said president as she drove out of the parking lot. Good times.
There were other benefits to the trip as well, but few were more important than the fact that I spent so much time catching up with friends that I didn’t have the chance to watch the Reds in Philadelphia this past weekend. Turns out, I didn’t miss much.
The Reds lost two of three games to the Fightin’ Phils, both of which were by one run. Usually, the bullpen would be the culprit in losses like this, but it appears these games were just your average, run-of-the-mill one-run defeats. Sure, one of them ended on a play at the plate, but other than that there were no spectacular reasons for the loss.
Two other losses this past week could be called “spectacular.” The team managed to blow a lead against Pittsburgh last week by allowing single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Against Cleveland on Monday, the starter surrendered seven runs in his stint, which prompted the bullpen to top him by allowing eight.
At any rate, the constant losing has prompted fans to wonder why the team isn’t doing anything to actually win games. I’ve seen suggestions ranging from signing Tim Lincecum to calling up some of the Reds’ more promising prospects. While the former is impossible, even if Lincecum changes his mind and doesn’t sign with the Angels, the latter is a perfectly reasonable question.
The team traded away Aroldis Chapman and Todd Frazier to bolster a farm system that already had a few decent prospects in it, yet we haven’t seen any of them. There’s a rationale behind this, and naturally it all comes down to money. Sure, the Reds could call up a Jesse Winkler or another high-rated hitter to help the offense, but that would start them on the path to becoming a Super-2 player, which triggers salary arbitration early. The Reds don’t want that, so in the minors they stay.
Meanwhile, fans get the pleasure of watching gentlemen named Tim Melville and Tim Adlemen starting baseball games with drastically different results. The bullpen is blasted every other night it seems, and management looks perfectly content to watch it happen, because they are. They may not be thrilled about the results, because nobody wants to lose, but the future is what the team is preparing for. There’s no point in starting an arbitration clock or signing a big-name free agent when at most that’ll win you five more games, if you’re lucky. Those five games could be the difference between a top-five pick and a top-10 pick, depending on how terrible the rest of the league is.
The future is more important than the present, and while the present may be painful, hopefully there’s a better tomorrow coming for everyone to look forward to. And hopefully in that tomorrow Joey Votto isn’t hitting below .220, because I’m not ashamed to admit he’s the main reason I tune into the Redlegs these days.