The Day A Cubber Stole My Seat

Last weekend was a trip to Cincinnati to watch the Reds take on the newest evil in the constellation of teams keeping them from their rightful place at the top of the baseball pyramid, the Cubs. As usual with any Cubs game, the WGN Brigade showed up in force. They probably wish they didn't once the Reds ran the bandwagon cam on them on Friday night, but I missed that one. I was there for the Saturday ice-cold homerunfest and Sunday when the weather turned nice.

On Saturday as soon as I got there I noted that the locals were not happy that with the fact that Reed was pitching. When he was left in too long - in the second inning - and gave up a grand slam to put the game out of reach (as the Reds fan next to me was yelling "Go out and get it over all ready!")  they were proven right. Most of the Reds fans left shortly thereafter because it was too dang cold to sit around. The Cubbers sat around for the rest of the game and even did the rather obnoxious thing of yelling "CUBS!" during take me out to the ballgame. In the end, it was 12-8 in favor of the Cubs.

On Sunday it was a different story. The Reds got a good hold on the game early and had pretty good pitching, although the Cubs did try to put together a run in the 9th. The Cubbers in the stands were fairly substantial, but they were substantially outnumbered and whenever they started to yell something pro-Cubs they got shouted down pretty ruthlessly. 

As for me, on Sunday a group of Cubbers were sitting in and around my seat. It wasn't worth fighting for a seat in section 510 and there were plenty others available so I just moved up a couple rows and had a great view of the field. BTW, the view from the lower 500's is still a great view; everyone was still close enough to second guess the homeplate ump. While I know there are some bad seats in Great American Ball Park they are few and far between.

Other observations: Every Cincinnati fan called whoever was at bat "kid." At first I thought this was just one guy, but as the two days went on I kept hearing it around the park. "C'mon kid!" or "You can do better than that kid!" seemed to be the favorites. The exception to this rule was when Votto came to bat. Every single Cincy fan was comfortable using "Joey" whenever he was at the plate. The funny part was that there wasn't a whole lot of love being expressed. It was more like he was the annoying kid from down the street whom your team captain has to pick because he's just that good. When he hit the fans acted like that was there due. When he didn't hit they acted annoyed. That's an interesting dynamic. Of course, maybe they're acting that way because every time a player shows heart and the Cincy fans start to show some fan-luv the Reds see that as a sign the person should be traded. With that to consider the fans may be acting rationally in their mere tolerance of Votto.

Next stops: Bowling Green Kentucky and Nashville Tennessee.

Leaving Ohio (Bridge next to the stadium)