1. I am nervous about the Cardinals coming to town following a horrible stretch through Pittsburgh. Despite scoring 13 runs yesterday, the offense for the Cardinals was terrible and the intensity you normally see from the Red Birds appeared to be lacking. Why does this frighten me? It certainly seems like in true St. Louis fashion they will right the ship and come into Cincinnati with a new found anger and sense of urgency that will be tough to beat. Speaking of a sense of urgency, is it not about time that the Reds show a little sense of urgency? My prediction for this weekend, Cardinals win tonight and Sunday while the Reds take Saturday. Hopefully, I am wrong and the banks of the Ohio River will be filled with brooms come Sunday sending the crybabies back to Missouri.
2. Does showing a lot of excitement mean you are invested and care about the team for which you are playing? For some reason, fans create a connection between playing hard, caring, wanting to win and showing emotion. These two things do not necessarily go hand in hand, yes if someone celebrates it makes it more noticeable but I do not think that just because Joey Votto does not hop up and down after driving in a go ahead run that he cares any less or does not want to win. I think that it means that he is a quiet guy who goes about playing baseball like you and I do about our jobs. We are supposed to be productive, so when we are, we act like we have been there before. I am not saying that I have a problem with individuals showing emotion and getting excited, in fact I think nothing is cooler than seeing a Major League Baseball player jump around in a dugout and be excited when his teammate hits a home run, but I do not think this is necessary to show your teammates that you care.
3. I am sick of hearing about Johnny Manziel and the fact that he gets drunk and does dumb things. Manziel is a 20 year old sophomore in college, do you remember how you acted when you were a 20 year old sophomore in college? Probably very similar. Just because he is a great college, never professional, football player does not mean that he has to be a role model. This notion that an athlete has to be a role model because he is an athlete makes zero sense. Michael Jordan was a gambling, smoking jerk who not a role model, but he was the best basketball player in the game. Ty Cobb, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds were all not role models but they were the best at what they did. Why do we suddenly think that superstar athletes have to be role models? They don't. If parents are mad because their kids can't look up to a professional athlete, maybe they should explain to their children that a real role model is the person taking care of them daily and that's who they should look up to. Or direct them towards Tim Tebow.
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