Headline: Reds Clinch As Castellini Makes Mike Brown His Bitch

A few hundred yards down from PBS last night, the Reds secured a playoff berth for the first time in 15 years...about the same amount of time it took Mike Brown to secure his first playoff berth as owner/GM/assclown.  That's where the similarities end.  The way the two organizations conduct business are so fundamentally opposite that it's impossible to ignore.  And it should embarrass, humiliate and disgrace Bengals ownership - even though we all know it won't.  Here's a list off the top of my head of all the ways these organizations differ:

The Reds ownership publicly announced a commitment to winning a World Series from day one when they took over 5 years ago, the Bengals ownership never committed to anything.

The Reds ownership said they understand fan support wouldn't come until they proved they could produce a winner, and they spent the money to win anyway.  The Bengals won't even spend other people's money to win for their fans.

The Reds ownership is willing to run the team at breakeven or small loss to win, the Bengals wouldn't even dream of it.

The Reds do everything in their marketing arsenal to make games affordable and fun for fans, the Bengals take their entire fanbase for granted.

The Reds moved first and more proactively to help ameliorate the stadium lease burden - most notably funding a $10 million scoreboard upgrade they could have asked the county to pay - the Benagls offered a take it or leave it deal that perhaps benefitted them more than the county.

The Reds ownership invests in player development and scouting, the Bengals - if we're generous - have like 4 scouts total.

The Reds ownership made the playoffs in 5 years in a league where the odds are stacked against them.  The Bengals took 15 years to make the playoffs in a league that gives losers the advantage.

The Reds take responsibility for their on field and off field performance, the Bengals make excuses.

The Reds make changes when performance doesn't meet standards, the Bengals keep the same guy as offensive coordinator for over a decade.

The bottom line:  the Reds deserve fan support far more than the Bengals.  What support and passion that does exist for the Bengals can be exclusively attributed to the wildly successfull model the NFL created.  The Benagls have literally done not a single thing to deserve their own fans.  The Bengals "succeed" despite themselves, the Reds flourish despite the system.  I hope the fans reward the Reds for their earnest dedication to providing Cincinnati a winner.  I love the Reds.  And I love them even more now for how fucking stupid they make Mike Brown look.

I have a feeling, though, the Bengals will continue to remain immune from their abominable management and the Reds will not reap the benefits of their excellent management.

Mini Project Mayhem - take every dollar you planned to spend on the Bengals over the next year (tickets, merchandise, concessions, whatever) and spend it on the Reds instead.

 

Update:  of course, commenter Mockenrue makes a good point as far as popularity goes, people just seem to like the sport of football more than baseball by quite a large margin at this point...football became the real national pastime in America awhile ago.  I definitely prefer football, but I still would be spending money on the Reds and not the Bengals if I lived in Cincy. Also, fun videos after the jump.

 

 

 

I think this guy hurt himself:

 

Comments

[Mockenrue]

I agree with every comparison here and even the conclusion that the Reds deserve their fan support more than the Bengals deserve theirs. But it's not that simple. I'm happy the Reds are doing well, but I just hate baseball. I can't stand to watch it. It's never appealed to me, so I'll never go spend my money on it. But I love football, and while I'll also never spend my money on Mike Brown, you get what I'm saying.

I wish it were as easy as just pumping more passion into the other hometown team, but it's apples and oranges. For a guy like me, the Reds are irrelevant and the Bengals are all I've got.

[blesterov]

Congrats to the Reds on winning the division, it has been fun to watch my original team on TV again after all those dark years. After I relocated to Chicago, I began following the Cubs more than the Reds since Jim Bowden just ran them into the ground. Now I live in DC and the Nats are having to recover from all of the shitty decisions Bowden made when they started up the team- it is going to take years for the Nats to recover.

The thing the Reds will need to be careful with is Dusty Baker. I liked Dusty in Chicago, but he single handily destroyed the pitching staff that the Cubs had by over-pitching Prior and Wood during his tenure.

I hope the Reds organization stays with their successful formula that they seem to have put in place. It is amazing how simple it can be, if you have a really good foundation and principles in place for the organization.

As much as I want the Bengals to succeed it will always be an uphill struggle since they have so many obstacles in place to hinder their performance: tight-fisted owner who meddles in decision making and tends to overstep his authority; non-professional organization (firing players in the hallway); sub-par medical staff; poor scouting; and members of the organization are not held accountable for their performance.

[Sly Vramavomovich]

Dusty Baker is only a shade less infuriating than Bratkowski.

[CurseofBoJackson]

I'm with Mockenrue. I don't hate baseball per say, but it is FAR less interesting and attention holding than football. I DO spend some money every year going to a few games, and will continue to do so, but it's a social event as much as anything else for me. I also have refused to put dimes in Mikey's pocket for four years, and that won't change either, until he does. That said, I won't be paying any extra attention (or money) to the reds because they've achieved mild success (so far).
Lastly, and it's the wrong thread, but I don't care, I'm lazy. I'm just about at the point Bienemy is. There's only so much energy and time I can throw into a team/org. that doesn't give two shits about winning or my happiness as a fan. I see bad things on the horizon based on what's transpired so far, despite another well written response/retort by tide urging to hold on. I see an offense with NO coordination (not just up in the booth, but yes, up in the booth too), an O line that blows and management that refuses to make what should be pretty god damned obvious changes that would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, improve the performance; and I see a QB that I can't be an apologist for anymore. I stopped doing it for Mickey at UC after last year (teams that can't inbound the ball properly to secure a win aren't coached well), and I just can't do it for Carson anymore. I hope desperately that I'm wrong, but my blood lust for watching the bengals beat other teams has been steamrolled by an extremely disjointed and inept offense, and the subsequent excuses made by management (give me a break Marvin, the O was awful on Sunday and the best you have is the smart ass remark about having to apologize for winning?) You're lucky to have a Zimmer D. Since I'm rambling (it's therapeutic as much as anything else, so I apologize) I wrote last year, that I hoped the perceived idiocy of Brat and the terrible decision amde on O were part of some grand brilliant scheme to not show other teams what we wanted to do, and I can't even hold on to that any longer. 4-1 at the break if we're lucky, yay. I see 2-11 afterwards.....

[CurseofBoJackson]

Sorry, 2-9, idiot...

[tide182]

those videos are fucking awesome

[KTRB]

@tide182
Completely agree. It's nice to see one of those videos taking place in Cincinnati.

[Hofbraunow]

Dang, Jay Bruce hit that right up Center Field, and then he put his finger up like he was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever

[and this one belongs to the reds]

I guess it's to be expected from the boards of a football blog, but to read such indifferent and, at times, outright hostile comments about the reds on here is beyond pathetic. I just assumed that for the people on these boards who were from cincy, how could you not have had a smile on your face yesterday?

Perhaps it's an issue of age. I'm not that old, but old enough to have been a kid who was dazzled by dibble and the nasty boys in '90 and remember with vivid detail benzinger drifting back up the first base foul line to sweep those punk ass a's.

I guess, to borrow a kind of decent phrase from someone else on here, for the mental midget mindset that often seems to be younger, more tattooed, less employed, drunker and fatter from being drunker, mildly illiterate, less involved with people of the opposite sex for anything other that passing the herp, then maybe i can see how baseball's just not for you. you hate it as baboons hate mirrors - just can't figure it out. i feel sad for you. you've got bullshit fathers and weak childhood friends.

again maybe it's a generational thing. you're xboxed, psp'd, mma'd and all-around acronymed addled brains just can't help themselves. with that kind of casual attention span, maybe you should stick to a sport that's only on 16 (and rarely for us - 17) days a year. it has a definite time limit with flashy lights and big noises. mockenrue like when fat man fall on small man!!! he look like when pa wants special time with ma. OHHHH, lookey, lookey, look at all the yellow blankets on the green forest. mockenrue LOVES yellow!!! it reminds him of his pee-bob and so do blankets...ma! NAP TIME!!!

and what kind of disloyal, gun-for-hire are you blesterov?!? aren't you supposed to be the few, the proud or something? or is that guttersnake? whatever. you deserve no credit for comments where you openly jump ship and lie with the enemy because you move and your home team isn't winning? (by the way, you might want to recalibrate your ability to pick a winner if you're flip-flopping your loyalty for the reds to the fucking cubs and nats - most frontrunners choose new squads that have at least one something since the roosevelt administration (the first roosevelt). i see your type of ass clown fudge packing up the bars when i'm trying to find a bengals game on. over-eager ball coddling butt buddies trying desperately to watch every game on even the tiniest screens, bragging about their "keeper" leagues and desperately trying to distract attention away from your receding hairline by drinking enough beer to accommodate your proceeding gut line. for christ fucking sake. when you move, you can still follow your squad! 700wlw will pick up on your car radio after 8pm practically anywhere east of the mississippi which includes boystown and dupont circle. and the excuse that they were losing should revoke your rights to be on THIS site ever again.

pathetic. pathetic on all counts.

swb is spot on with this little piece. despite the infuriating structure of mlb, the reds and their new owners have done what was necessary to change their m.o. and in less than 5 years, they've put together a winning formula to compete on excruciatingly uneven playing field. the bengals' ownership gobbles mediocrity like revenue sharing (and cock). yet for the most part, people can't bother themselves to go down to a reds' game on a nice summer night or weekend afternoon to watch a winner but they'll liquor up in a wintry mix to pump up the flotation device around jim lippencott's waistline despite no real change in on-field production for the bengals in, let's see, DECADES.

at the end of the day - casual fans, video games, fantasy leagues, cell phone apps, texting and data plans, youth soccer leagues, espn 4, 5, 2, niner...and big fucking pussies are responsible for the snowballing you chaps are peddling above . just keep passing that money shot back and forth to each other mockenrue, blesterov, and your other friends of dorthy...and be sure to invite your fathers...because they've sucked man-ass their whole life too for not teaching you to respect and appreciate anything of value...at least it would be an activity you could share together.

[Wyatt]

@and this one belongs to the reds:

I'm not sure what you're going for here, guy. On one hand, you flout your age and supposed sophistication (as evidenced by the fact that you can watch baseball whereas the rest of us peons apparently can't), but on the other hand, you resort to childish name-calling and liberal profanity. I enjoy name-calling and profanity as much as the next guy; however, if you're trying to make a point about how high-minded you are, it's probably not the best idea.

I was 10 years old when the Reds last won a World Series, and I LIVED baseball. I played football in the fall and wrestled in the winter, but from mid-March through September, my life was baseball. Growing up outside Pittsburgh, we always made sure to schedule our trips to Three Rivers for when the Reds were in town, and I always remember the thrill of leaving the stadium after a Reds win, no matter how negative the Pirates fans were (and, to their defense, Pirates fans are far less assholish than their football-following brethren). I've lived in a lot of places over the last decade, but the Reds have always been my team.

With that said, even when I was in full-on baseball mode, I hated watching baseball on television - HATED IT. There just seemed like more important things I could be doing than plopping in front of a television and watching baseball (especially in the summertime, when I could be outside playing baseball with my neighbors). And then when high school rolled around and I had my first significant growth spurt, football became a much bigger part of my life, and, while I continued to play baseball, football eventually supplanted it as my sport of choice. That made it even harder to *watch* baseball, and in spite of how awful the Bengals were (somewhere around 1994 or 1995 - the fairly early stages of the Mike Brown Dark Ages), I had no problems dedicating three hours to watching them play (I think part of it was because it was such a rare treat to watch the Bengals play, living roughly halfway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland and only having television stations from Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio).

While I'm thrilled that the Reds are finally back in the postseason, I'm still more excited to watch the Bengals (even though there's a much greater chance that they will suck). I'll watch as much Reds playoff baseball as I can, but I get up for work at 4:45 am every morning, so staying up to watch a complete game just isn't a responsible decision on my part, especially since I'm responsible for the health and safety of the entire 13-person crew at my job site.

Lump me in with blesterov and mockenrue all you like, but I'm more of a football fan, and I say that with no disrespect meant towards the Redlegs. And, as you pointed out, this IS a football blog, after all.

[Sleeping With Bieniemy]

@and this one belongs to the Reds - let's make this clear: anyone who is a Bengals fan should rarely, if ever, be questioned for front-running, bandwagon jumping or opportunism. The Bengals are the worst fucking organization in pro sports and rooting for them is pain with no hope of pleasure. It is the definition of blind fan loyalty beyond all rational thought.

So easy there fella, some folks just like football better. And you're probably more likely to find those types of people visiting this website.

Go Reds and Who Dey.