Reds Opening Day!

Reds hat I knitted.

Yesterday was Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds! Since I moved to the Cincinnati area last summer, I decided that this season I should at least try to watch baseball and learn the game. I am a newbie baseball fan so I thought it would be fun to have a slightly comedic take on the games. I'll keep writing about my journey to become a baseball fan through the Reds' season. The only baseball experience I've ever had was a Cubs game back in 2002, a Twins game in 2011, and a few Louisville Bats games. I had fun at them, but didn't understand the game.

New Vocabulary (I'll be sharing three new items I've learned each post.)
bullpen - the place where pitchers warm up
ERA - Earned Run Average: "mean of earned runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched."
K - Used for a strike-out; started by Henry Chadwick, a newspaper journalist for the word "struck" since "S" was already taken. A forward K is used when the batter swings to strike out. A backwards K is used when he lets the ball pass and it was in the strike zone.

Yesterday I sat down to watch the game around 3:45pm. All of the Los Angeles Angels were introduced (I saw "Angels in the Outfield" last year for the first time!). And then all of the Cincinnati Reds were introduced, from the manager to the coaches to the players to the eighth graders who hope someday to be in the Major League!

I was shocked when one of our players got hit with the ball! Choo is a new player with the Reds this year and he has a lot of potential (they said). But the pitcher for the Angels hit him in the ankle! He walked to first. I was just surprised that that was allowed--I'm used to watching basketball where fouls are called all the time.

I sat through and watched the first inning. It was scoreless and I was getting irritated because nothing was happening! I left the game on while I went to do some dishes. Because I went to the kitchen, I missed the first home run of the game! One to nothing for the bad guys. ;-)

I came back to watch after 5pm and Choo made it to home plate! One to one! But on the same play one of our good guys, Ludwick, slid into third base and dislocated his shoulder. It looked very painful. Someone came in to substitute for him...a "pinch runner" I think? He didn't really do too well.

I was taking notes through the game and this is a direct quote from my notes: "I don't know why the players chew so much gum, but it's disgusting. We do not want to see that." When my fiancé got home, he explained to me that chewing tobacco is a part of baseball culture, but they aren't allowed to use it during a game. He said that they chew sunflower seeds or gum during a game but they will use chewing tobacco during practice or something. Gross! They were all spitting so much during the game--I was seriously disgusted.

The game went on and on and on...for a while I thought it would be over maybe three or three and a half hours after it started. But it was tied so it got "extra innings." Four extra innings later, the Angels went up 3-1. And we lost. It was a rather anticlimactic way to end a five hour game--they barely showed the teams shaking hands and focused on one or two players instead of doing the football or basketball thing of showing the whole stadium. It was just over.

I think baseball is something I could learn to really like, but last night's game was kind of a tragic beginning to my being a Reds fan. I hope the next few games are more entertaining. My fiancé said that there are tons of statistics involved in being a baseball fan. I like stats, but there has to be entertainment in the games for me to stay hooked. ;-)

Hopefully we'll do better on Wednesday (definitely won't
be watching--it's too late) or Thursday (will probably watch that game) when we play the Angels again. In the meantime, I've downloaded the MLB Baseball app, will work on learning what all the abbreviations mean, and will learn some more players on "my" team, the Reds.

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up." --Vince Lombardi