The Reds, Bungles, and FC Cincinnati

How I plan to add the Queen City to my rooting hierarchy

It’s been a minute since I moved. Seventeen years! The Nationals used to play in RFK Stadium and were a barely new franchise when I came to Washington. Dan Snyder owned the Redskins and the stadium had something like 20,000 more seats than it does today, if that gives you any insight into how things are going for that franchise.

I love sports. My newsletter at work is named “Overtime” because I grew up playing hockey in Shaker and at St. Ignatius. By the way, there is a 100 percent chance I am getting the St. Ignatius Ohio license plates, which are totally a thing.

Ohio was my first generation for sports, so Cleveland takes priority over all. I also grew up an Ohio State fan, as both my parents and sister went there. It helps that my alma mater, Saint Louis University, doesn’t have a football team. But when they play OSU in anything, I do cheer for SLU. Mizzou is on my passive list, as I was a resident of Missouri and my grandma attended there, and boy did that make last year’s Cotton Bowl thumping awkward.

I played baseball up until high school, and it is probably my favorite sport. My dad grew up north of Dayton off I-75, and was a big Reds fan. So much so, that for his 40th birthday, he got an autographed Pete Rose picture on a plaque and had it bolted to his office wall to prevent theft. (This was before the era of the internet and Pete Rose selling his autograph to virtually anyone.)

Doing a Pete Rose impression at Cassano’s Pizza.

I am a diehard Guardians fan, having attended every World Series they’ve lost in my lifetime. Perhaps I shouldn’t go to the next one in person.

In Saint Louis, I adopted the Cardinals as my National League team, which worked out pretty great when a few years later, I married a diehard Cardinals fan I met here in Washington. Some of our earliest dates were at Nationals Park, and since they’ve won the World Series recently and the Reds haven’t, the Reds will displace the Nationals as my #3 team in hierarchy, with the Nationals falling to #4.

This means how it sounds. Cardinals play Guardians, I root for Cleveland. Nationals play Reds, I root for the Reds.

I have never been to Great American Ballpark for a game. I went to Riverfront Stadium as a kid when you could still smoke in the seats. I plan to attend a lot of games, and a friend / old colleague from Cincinnati is sending me my first Reds hat.

I do plan to go to some Florence Y’Alls games. I love minor league baseball, and worked one summer for the Lake County Captains, the then-Indians’ Low-A team. Woodbridge, Virginia, had for the longest time the Potomac Nationals, who decamped to Fredericksburg when we moved there. It was part of Manfred’s horrible defenestration of the minor leagues, which for the price of a bunch of dead franchises, we get streaming of MiLB games and he gets more control. Not sure that was worth it. Rob Manfred is awful, ruining the game, and can’t wait until he retires.

If he puts Pete Rose in the hall of fame, which he should given how much gambling money these peckerwoods are taking, I will despise him slightly less. But he will still suck. It’s hilarious to me that Bally Sports and its betting money cannot pay these teams and is in bankruptcy.

RFK, soon to be torn down.

Soccer is a treat as FC Cincinnati is hot right now.

Go look at this goal. Marvel at it. I have been a passive DC United Fan, having attended a few matches at RFK (not at Audi, but XFL games, yes). It’s easy to say that I need one team here I will root for above all others and then picking the team that is doing best. But soccer is fickle, so don’t think I’m selecting FC Cincinnati as my Cincinnati-first team because they’re so good. It’s just easier to relegate D.C. United to #2.

Football is a bit more complicated. I have very passionate thoughts about football, and have been, on and off, a die hard Browns fan for most of my life. It’s complicated for a number of reasons but they all boil down to one: Jimmy Haslam.

As a kid, I’d have a bet with my grandpa Wally, a big Bengals fan. Most of my family are Bengals fans. We’d bet $1 a game on the two games they played each year. So, I did have it out for the Bengals for many years in ways I did not have it for the Reds. Plus, the Reds haven’t seen the same success the Indians/Guardians have.

Jimmy Haslam signed Johnny Football when homegrown talent (and high school classmate) Brian Hoyer was doing great things for the Browns. Yes, Hoyer got injured, but Jimmy Haslam does not understand old Browns fans. He’s a southerner who believes in razzle dazzle football. Cleveland fans know that defense wins championships. That should have been my first clue.

Next, Haslam signed Deshaun Watson, who, are you kidding me? Browns fans, myself included, chanted things to Ben Roethlisberger over one accuser and you go and sign this guy and expect us to cheer for him? Not me. Any time Watson is on the field, I am paused as a fan. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with him for a few more years, but wasn’t that Joe Flacco run so fun?

Most absurdly, the Haslams now want Cleveland taxpayers to finance a dome. I do not believe that football should be played in a dome. Especially not in cold weather climates. Domes are for wussies, but again, Jimmy Haslam is a southerner and thus, a weather wuss. He doesn’t understand that we like watching football in bad weather. I guess a few more concerts in the winter and a Super Bowl in Cleveland are worth pissing off the most diehard fans. And that includes me.

If Jimmy Haslam gets his dome, the Bengals get a new full time fan. Right now, they’re at #2 ahead of the Washington Commanders. I never got into the Rams before they moved for the same reason: Domes are for preventing heat stroke, not frostbite.

It’s funny, in a way, that Art Modell’s stupidity basically created the Bengals. Paul Brown, a hero if there ever was one, basically was the first very public victim of the Unitary Executive for Franchise Owners theory to poke his former boss in the eye. Good for him. Art Modell sucks and so does Jimmy Haslam.

I do love the XFL / UFL, and the D.C. Defenders are my team. I am happy the Battlehawks are doing well in Saint Louis, but again, domes.

I played hockey continuously until I stopped playing sports. By the time the Blue Jackets came onto the scene, I had already been a Saint Louis Blues fan for years. (Because of my grandma, Al MacInnis and Brett Hull.) I like the Cleveland Monsters in the AHL, but I miss the Lumberjacks. Making the Cyclones my ECHL team is easy since they’ll never play the Monsters for anything of meaning.

I don’t care anything for Tennis but appreciate that the city, like Washington, enjoys the sport. I like golf, but the Saudis ruined that for me. I’ll just stick to my game.