Just in case you missed it, the highlight of MLB’s Opening Day was Pete Rose showing up at the Brewers-Reds game in Cincinnati. Or more specifically, that he raided your grandma’s closet before going to it.
Hundred bucks says there’s an 8-ball on the back of that jacket. Pete would take that bet.
CHICAGO CUBS
2010 record: 75-87
Biggest offseason acquisition: Matt Garza, who, along with Carlos Zambrano, could give the Cubs the angriest 1-2 pitchers in baseball.
Biggest offseason loss: Tom Gorzellany, on purely technical grounds.
Is this the year that the Cubs…: Whatever you were going to say, no.
Best name on 40-man roster: Welington Castillo, Dominican duke.
The That Guy’s on This Team? Award: Kerry Wood, whose presence here seems more weird than it should.
Spring standout: Last year’s star callup Starlin Castro has 12 RBIs and 4 home runs, which can only mean his untimely demise is imminent.
Probable Opening Day starter: I’m sure Zambrano has already made it abundantly clear to Mike Quade that he will start on Opening Day.
Biggest question for 2011: Has Alfonso Soriano been so underwhelming for so long he’s come all the way back around to being underrated?
Strengths: Idyllic ballpark with laissez faire attitude toward the wearing of shirts
Weaknesses: The oppressive weight of history
Semi-serious assessment: The Cubs are a little better than I first thought before taking a closer look at their lineup. Carlos Pena is a good fit for Wrigley, and Garza should fare well in the National League. I don’t know if it adds up to contending per se, but I think they’ll enjoy a solid season of not completely sucking.
Continue reading Scratchbomb’s Thoroughly Compromised 2011 MLB Preview: NL Central
To celebrate the advent of this year’s MLB playoffs, which I am looking forward to with rapt anticipation (no, really), I’d like to do a few posts featuring YouTube finds representing each team that’s made their way to October. Next, the Reds.
How long ago were the 1970s? Back then, Johnny Bench was considered handsome. Really! According to Joe Posnanski’s excellent book, he was quite the eligible bachelor in the hotbed of sensuality known as Cincinnati. He also parlayed his good looks into several hundred endorsement deals.
Here’s the most horrifying of them all: Hall of Famer Johnny Bench schilling for something called Bubble Fudge. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about a chocolaty bubble gum product makes my skin crawl. And if that didn’t, then I’d still be creeped out by the tons of unappealing close ups of the best catcher of all time failing to blow bubbles in this ad. See you in my nightmares, Bubble Fudge!
Johnny also hosted a kids’ show in the early 80s, The Baseball Bunch, which taught children fundamentals and sportsmanship and all that other crap. As a kid, I knew this existed, but somehow never got a chance to see it and always wondered what I missed. Now I know: Pete Rose screaming at children. YOU MISSED THE BAG!
Rose did his fair share of commercial work, too. (Couldn’t keep the knuckle-breakers away from your door on a ballplayer’s salary in those days.) He did a bunch of ads for Aqua Velva, but this one is my favorite, because it has a unique combination of bad acting, poor dialogue, and singing.
Rose slides steals second base headfirst, and Joe Morgan says, “Hey, it’s Pete Rose of the Philadelphia Phillies,” as if Pete stopped by his house and wasn’t playing a game against him. Then Pete Rose sings the Aqua Velva jingle in a voice that sounds like someone’s got a gun to his back.
I have an enormous mental bank of hideous ads from the 1980s, but I have absolutely no memory of this one for Kool-Aid. Little kids play baseball in weird pleather uniforms, while the Kool-Aid Man destroys a stadium and takes away a sure double from Pete Rose. The set looks vaguely like the landscape that appeared when Homer Simpson at a Guatemalan Insanity Pepper.
Finally, no survey of Reds YouTubery would be complete without the stellar acting chops of one Bronson Arroyo. Watch the high-kicking righty do a spot for a local Ford dealer and get all potty mouth on us. You’ll never play the big rooms working blue, Bronson!