Correct opinions for your weekend

As any true bat and ball fan knows, the most important factor in a team's performance is the manager. Nothing matters more. If you don't believe me, ask the manager of any restaurant, including my favorite restaurant Baskin Robbins. There are 32 flavors in a Baskin Robbins freezer case, just like there are 32 players on a baseball team.

But I go to Baskin Robbins for the pizza. And that pizza is much like the manager of a baseball team. It doesn't get enough credit for keeping me coming back. Which is the measure of success for any baseball team - nay, any sports entertainment concern- are you keeping the media talent happy? Without us, and in particular me, no one would know what the team was doing or care.

I've seen fans at a game look in the wrong direction and miss the field entirely. Why are you looking at a Longines clock for three hours? The action is on the field, you C.H.U.D! The dugout, to be precise. Media are here to firmly and fairly guide your eyes back to the nerve center of the baseball universe - the manager's stool, clipboard and manager's body.

So I understand why fans have started calling for Brian Pryce to be axed. The Reds have been a steaming, crumpled pile of lung-goetta in the month of May. There's a whole lot of firing and trading to be done. But I wouldn't start with Head Coach Bryant Pride. No.

The common drooling fan, sucking down swills from the Consolidated Kopewell Company by the barrel-full, does not realize the transformative power of rage. Robotronic fans, mashing away at their IBM mainframes, were up-in-arms (stick arms) over Byron Price's tirade a few weeks back.

I don't think he went far enough, personally. Have you forgotten when the coach of the Dunham Bills, Jeff Dunham, threw those bats in the shower in the documentary, Bull Dunham (great political puppet work in that one)? And how it galvanized the living hell out of his team?

This may be an unpopular opinion among the SABO-metric elites, but I'm not firing my manager or trading him for Bend Soapwrist or some other godforsaken ball-looker-atter. I'm giving him some pure human adrenaline gland extract and fresh case of St. Louisville Sluggers.

If this team is starting a fiber sale - and it damn well should be - then I'm starting with the team's resident entitled egoist, Jody Votto. He teased the few remaining true ballmen by deciding to hit home runs again last month. And now he's pulled the rug and gone back to trying to read the inscription on baseballs thrown his way. I'm sick. And also sick of it.

So let's turn around the sign to 'OPEN' in that storefront and then back around to 'Take EverTHING for FREE.' I've got a hankerin' for twice-cooked pizza and the bars aren't open yet.