The Cincinnati Reds seem to have “it” this season. They have swagger and resilience.
They are winning tough games under tough circumstances – like Wednesday night, when they blew a 10-1 lead, fell behind 11-10 . . . and still managed to pull out an emotional 12-11 victory in 12 innings at San Francisco.
“Ugly, beautiful, whatever,” Reds utility man Miguel Cairo told the Cincinnati Enqurier. “It was a win. You got to look at positive. We had 6-3 road trip.”
MVP favorite Joey Votto led the charge, hitting two home runs earlier in the game and the game-winning single in the 12th.
“That was a heavyweight fight out there,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “Votto, that’s what MVPs and All-Stars do. They come through when you need them.”
Exactly. The front-line Reds are better clutch players than the front-line Cards right now, which explains the standings differential.
The under-achieving Cards find ways to lose games. The scrappy Reds find ways to win them.
“We had several games this year where teams have some back on us,” Votto said. “We didn’t come back and overcome that. . . For us to do it here in San Francisco against such of competitive team means a lot. This deep into the season, it means more.”
RULES 1, GOLFER 0
Tipsheet often complains about the arcane rules of golf that trip up top golfers and ruin events for spectators. A silly PGA Tour rule knocked out Jim Furyk out of The Barclays on Wednesday.
He overslept, arrived a few minutes late for his pro-am assignment – and got sent home. This is a tough blow for the No. 3-ranked golfer in the Fed Ex Cup standings; he got eliminated from one of the four playoff events before it started.
Did we mention a $10 million prize is at stake?
Furyk sets his cell phone alarm to wake up. But his phone ran out of juice, so he woke up at 7:23 a.m. for his 7:30 tee time. He scrambled to get to the course by 7:35 a.m., arriving without socks or a belt. Also, his shoes were untied.
Nice recovery effort, but it wasn’t enough. Furyk was slated to start on No. 11 with a shotgun start and his group began without him.
The PGA Tour established this rule to punish golfers for skipping out on the pro-am entirely, but couldn’t commissioner Tim Finchem use common sense when applying it? Phil Mickelson was furious, noting that only 54 of the 125 entrants were slated for the pro-am.
“The rule itself applies to only half the field,” Mickelson said. “So if you’re going to have a rule that does not apply to everybody, you cannot have it affect the competition . . . I cannot disagree with it more. I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through. It’s ridiculous.”
Hear, hear.
MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE
Questions to ponder while wondering how, exactly, Stan Kroenke intends to turn around his hapless NFL team:
Why haven't the Reds given Baker a long-term contract extension offer? Why does this guy have such a hard time getting respect in the game?
So what the heck is Dennis Rodman up to these days? Is he as wild and wacky as ever?
Did beating the Cards in this mid-week series help the Pirates feel better after 18 years of uninterrupted failure?
What is going on with the Oregon and Oregon State football programs? Why are so many of these young men a menace to society?
QUIPS ‘R US
Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:
Ray Ratto, CBSSports.com: “Between the leaks of the Pirates', Mariners', Rays', Marlins' and Angels' financials, and the drips and drops of Dodger internals from the magnificently bloody McCourt divorce, we are getting at least a better look of how the system really works, and how it takes an extraordinary amount of misfeasance/malfeasance to lose real money owning a team. Not that profits are bad, mind you, but lying about not making any profits while having your hand out for public money is bad. Even the concurrent dodge, ‘We just want to stay competitive,’ is exposed here as the whopping lie it is.”
Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports: “The swindlers who run the Florida Marlins got exposed Monday. They are as bad as anyone on Wall Street, scheming, misleading and ultimately sticking taxpayers with a multibillion-dollar tab. Corporate fraud is alive and well in Major League Baseball.”
Jim Caple, ESPN.com: “Nice week for the Pirates. They clinched their 18th consecutive losing season and then someone leaked their financial records, revealing that they made $30 million in 2007 and 2008. If you're a Pittsburgh fan, you must be grinding your teeth over that. But if you're the owner of another team, which would you rather the Pirates do? Take your revenue-sharing money and put it in their wallet rather than invest it in the team like they're supposed to or take your money and try to be more competitive against you?”
MEGAPHONE
“I’ve been through hell. It’s hard to think you have this life, and then all of a sudden - was it a lie? You’re struggling because it wasn’t real. But I survived. It was hard, but it didn’t kill me.”
Tiger Woods’ ex-wife, Elin Nordegren.
