The number of black players is half what it was a decade ago.

it keeps the riff-raff out

were the winners of a national contest.

Maybe the Reds could sponsor an “American Idol” type contest, only for athletes, with the prize being a visa to the US and a pro contract.

Agree that hooking kids is the key, but that’s not really innovative. Baseball teams are consolidating, moving their minor league teams closer to the big league teams in order to improve marketing opportunities. Minor league teams are experts at luring families with cheap prices and kid-friendly entertainment. And the Reds and other teams have long sponsored neighborhood baseball fields and teams for kids.

Of course, the Reds could be innovative fairly cheaply, by signing some stats guys instead of old-school Jocketty and Dusty…but obviously, they’re not gonna do that.

but even younger than that I remember weekend afternoons watching the Reds or Braves on TBS with my mom, and she was explaining the basics of the game.

Both my parents are really into baseball, so it has always been around me. My dad coached my little league team, and that sonuvabitch made me ride the bench, well i did suck, and he didn’t want to look like he was playing favorites since well i have no athletic ability.

He did let me pitch a few times, the only time I completed an inning was when we were already down by 15 runs, it was the last inning before we would be run-ruled, two of our pitchers had already been knocked out of the game do to ineffectiveness, one pitcher was at bible camp, and one was injured in a car accident. So I being the teams ultimate mop up man got to pitch. I was tall and could throw hard for my age, but had no control. When I would throw alone up at the school yard, (I threw the ball against a brick wall), I could hit almost any brick I wanted at will, but in a game I had no control. I hit multiple batters, walked a ton, gave up a few hits, and probably threw about 60 pitches, I will probably need Tommy John Surgery one day because of that abuse.

Tens of Thousands Gather for German Goalkeeper’s Memorial

‘’It happened so suddenly. Last Sunday we still saw the game, applauded him … and two days later he throws himself in front of the train.’’

It says he was afraid to admit to being depressed, because he thought they would take his kid away. Do they really take your kid away in Germany because of depression?

1) Baseball equipment is too expensive compared to the price of one soccer ball. Every poor kid can play a daily neighborhood pick-up game of soccer with no equipment, no field, not even shoes are necessary!
2) You need to develop skills over many years to have real team competition.
3) Soccer is the continent-wide national pastime. Most have never seen a game, or even know what baseball is.

The only way it would work in Africa would be to pick one stable country and build an all-inclusive boarding school/baseball academy for teenagers.

I think India & Pakistan are more fruitful areas to explore. With their passion for cricket they develop throwing, fielding and batting techniques from an early age.

except the camera wouldn’t switch when there was a hit. so if you had it on the camera on the pitcher/batter/catcher once there was a hit the camera would usually just zoom in on the pitchers face to get his reaction. to compensate for that though, you could split screen it or do four screens at once and choose multiple camera angles to watch. It worked out alright since I don’t have cable, you’d watch the main camera then when there was a hit you start watching the overhead camera. The biggest problem was keeping them synced up because of being a feed over the internet and each was independent of each other so sometimes one would slow. Also the score/pitch count box was not on the screen.

They also didnt black out the cameras during the commercials so sometimes the camera would just follow the home plate umpire around, which was kind of interesting. though during one of the angels games one of the camera guys would keep zooming in on some celebrity every, single, half inning (I recognized the guy but didnt know who he was). it had the feeling of a stalker watching someone with a camera, It got pretty weird after about the 9th or 10th half inning, I ended up switching camera views.

he would be horrified by the gimmicks. I think the last game he went to was in the 90s, maybe early 2000s, but the Reds seem to get worse every year. Their is some sorta stupid promotion or fan game between every inning. They can’t just give you a little 80s music,and let you sit in peace.

The Riverfront Stadium Mr. Reds race was nice, the new races on the jumbo-tron are over done and kinda tacky. I fucking hate the new HD score board, I liked the old one better. It just felt more like it belonged in a ballpark.

and rec’ing it as such.

It’s nice that they allow you to bring food in, though. The Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees do not. Sometimes they even search your bags at the gate for contraband. I notice a lot of young families smuggling food in anyway.

plus, there’s nowhere to put it and few people would use it.

i always pack a cooler for each kid when i take them all out to game. there is no way i’m paying concessions for a family of 4. they each get a set amount of cash to spend on whatever they want but when its gone, its gone.

i like your idea about the next generation of fans but the Reds aren’t going to implement much of a discount for kiddos. besides, its hard to beat a $5 game day outer view ducat, and they’re always available.

You’d think one of the local tour boat operators would offer a ballgame cruise. (There are tour boats, aren’t there?)

a riverboat tour and a game. The boat leaves Indiana at say 4:00, serves dinner and include two free drinks, more drinks can be bought, the patrons. Along with dinner the passengers get a nice tour of the Ohio River, and arrive at the ballpark at 6. Baseball tickets are included with the price of the tour, but there can be different prices for different levels of tickets, like $15 more per person who sits field level as opposed to view level.

The Reds could charter this boat and reap all the profits. Or the Reds could have a party boat, which does basically what i said, and it can be used for parties and corporate events, and everybody who is on the boat tour, sits in the Cincinnati Bell boat deck or whatever the fuck they call it.

Jacksonville kicked a FG with no time left on the clock.

They’re promising to switch to the Cincinnati game, so I’ll get to see the end of this one.

and they are broke.

United is in such bad shape, it can’t afford the maintenance on its older 737’s, which is why they retired their entire 737 fleet, but they can’t afford new metal either. So they had no longer have a presence in Ft. Lauderdale or West Palm Beach, because they don’t have any planes to fly there. In other cities they are reducing frequencies, or contracting more flights out to their regional partners, in part with the general capacity cuts that are occurring throughout the industry, but partly because they don’t have enough main line aircraft to fly them.

Delta Airlines bought another airline with a fleet that is completely incompatible with its current fleet, a fleet that is also aging, long standing customer service issues, and hubs close to already created Delta hubs, simply because it could. Now Delta is struggling to have enough cash/credit on hand to continue day to day operations, and if things continue like this the whole airline will shutdown in 2 years. They mainly bought Northwest so they could improve their Asian routes utilizing Northwest’s hub in Tokyo. They are starting to dismantle their newly acquired Japanese hub.

I bet big C could convince the folks at Delta to pony up a few million dollars on top of the already existent Delta Double Play sponsorship, for Delta Dog night at the park.

I’m not joking. (Although I guess I don’t expect to be taken completely seriously.)

Look, I realize that I’m talking about what would be a very large commitment by the Reds. But when attendance drops 15% from one season to the next (and it wasn’t in a great place before the drop) fans are telling you that they don’t want to go to the ballpark. The team is improving (incrementally), there are fireworks overhead every weekend, the stadium has new whoopdie-do gizmos but fans are telling you that they don’t want to go to the ballpark.

I don’t think it’s entirely an economic issue (but I do think that nearly-free tickets are the only way to get more than a few hundred extra people to want to go to the ballpark several times throughout the season). I think that most people think of baseball (if they think of it all) as something that baseball fans enjoy. They’ve been to see the new stadium (as part of a company outing or maybe a church event) and they remember that first season that their son used to check the paper to see if Griffey homered. That’s as about as excited for the Reds as most Cincinnatuns have been in the post-Larkin era. The games are on tv for baseball fans to watch in the comfort of their homes and the games are being played downtown if baseball fans want to spend sixty or seventy dollars for an entire baseball-centric evening. Reds baseball kinda merits a big ‘meh’ from most people. Nobody goes to the games and nobody really talks about it much if they do: “We took the kids down to the Reds game on Sunday… Yeah? Yeah.” …That’s it.

If the Reds are looking for innovations that will immediately increase attendance they would be wise to recognize that drastically increased attendance is possible as long as they’re willing to pass up some revenue in order to create a buzz through (and beyond) their regional marketplace. For too long now, baseball owners have operated on the old idea that if they get fans to come to game just once, they’ll hook ‘em and get ’em to come back again. That might have worked twenty or forty years ago but we live in a world with soccer leagues for four year-olds and where people (not just kids and teens) line up at midnight to buy video games and that’s exciting to them. That’s something unique to them and that’s something that they’ll talk about: “Dude, got the Grand Theft Auto last night… No way! You stood in line? Yeah, Trapper and I were there at 6:30. At 11:00 we counted forty-five people behind us. But we were home by 12:30 playing. Stayed up ‘til 5am. I’m goin’ on about an hour and a half of sleep today.”

There are your fans. (Remember that ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic.’) They have disposable income, they have free time and they’re looking for something cool to to do with their friends and then later talk about with their friends.

If the Reds want thousands of extra people at each of their home games they’re going to have give (yes, give) their fans something completely new and unexpected. Everybody’s already expecting t-shirt cannons and another crappy bobblehead.

And take another look at how and where you think the Reds lose buckets of money on ‘Wooden Nickel Nights.’ The promotion gets a buck from every fan. The cost of the hot dog is covered. Every fan is then going to buy a drink with their hot dog sooo… the cost of the labor is now recovered.

  And every fan is going to stand in a line at a souvenir stand.. that’s something that they might not do on a normal night at the ball park. Wooden Nickel Nights get every participating fan waiting in line for souvenirs at least twice each season. Once for their ball and then again for their hat. (Now.. maybe they’re hooked!)

Yes, corporate sponsorships might be difficult to line up. But that’s somebody’s job with the Cincinnati Reds. This is a unique promotion that is going to go beyond another tacky sign next to the scorebored that 14,000 people might look at. This is a chance to get a logo on a wooden nickel! – something unique (and ironic) and tactile that Bob might show to Susan when they’re standing in line waiting for bagels. Something to talk about. Something buzzy, even.

And he’s had chocolate beer go wonderfully, wonderfully right.

it’s not really worth it.