OBSERVATIONS: ‘What’s in her wallet?’ Not Reds tickets

By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave absolutely amazed by the whopping negative feed backfrom Cincinnati Reds fans. . .and one woman is doing something about it. Keep reading.

—Sue Deister is mad as hell and she isn’t going to take it any more.

Incredibly, after the Cincinnati Reds traded Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez, she swung into action.

She already had purchased 2022 tickets, believing it when the Reds said they were going to put a contending team on the field.

So she called her credit card company, Capital One, and claimed the Reds are defrauding the fans. After she explained what the Reds are doing, Capital One agreed and she is getting her money back.

“This has nothing to do with being a fan or not being a fan,” she said. “I’m a fan. But this is about the Reds not delivering goods and services as promised. I called Capital One and filed fraud charges against the Reds and after they heard why, they agreed it fits their definition of fraud.

“They sold us tickets with an intent to deceive,” she added. “We had the expectations that they would be building off last year’s winning team, not taking players who had success and exchanging them for players of unequal playing caliber.”

“What they are doing again starts with an ‘r’ and ends in a ‘g,’” she said. “And it has nothing to do with winning a ring. It is, once again, ‘rebuilding.’’

—There wasn’t a nicer guy ever to put on the wishbone-C Reds cap than former Reds infielder Zack Cozart. He is one of those classy guys who wouldn’t say anything about somebody unless it was good and positive.

But he couldn’t resist when he saw what the Reds are doing these days when he posted this message to Reds fans:

“I’m sorry, Reds fans. U deserve better! Unfortunately, this is how they operated. . .I lived through it. . .we always wanted to win for you guys.”

—QUOTE: From New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer, who was on the MLBPA negotiating team: “We feel as players that too many teams have gone into a season without any intent to win.” (Maybe MLB should put all those teams in the same division and see which team could lose the most games.)

—If this isn’t a telling statement of why the Reds are where they are right now, how about this one?

After the 2013 season, when the team stupidly fired manager Dusty Baker and lost pitcher Bronson Arroyo and outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, the Reds did nothing in the off-season.

Former beat writer John Fay mentioned to CEO Bob Castellini that the team hadn’t done anything in the off-season. Castellini said, “We added Bryan (manager Bryan Price). That’s our big move.”

Oh, my. That one led to 90-plus losses three straight years. Among Castellini’s many, many hands-on mistakes was the firing of general manager Wayne Krivsky and the firing of Dusty Baker.

—Ken Griffey Jr. hasn’t swung one of his shiny black bats for the Reds since 2008, but the Reds are still paying him. His deferred contract calls for the Reds to pay him $3.6 million this year.

Until the Reds make another salary dump or two, Griffey is the fifth highest-paid guy on the team’s payroll.

Ahead of him are Joey Votto ($25 million), Mike Moustakas ($16 million), Shogo Akiyama ($8 million), Luis Castillo ($7.5 million) and Tyler Mahle ($5.5 million).

And if I’m any of those guys, I don’t sign any leases for housing in Cincinnati this year.

—QUOTE: From Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson on Ken Griffey Jr.: “We love Ken Griffey Jr. because he is everything we would like to be. He’s young, he’s good-looking, he’s got the best smile in the world, the sweetest swing ever and he’s a heroic athlete.” (And that smile is as wide as ever when those Reds’ checks arrive.)

—An astounding statistic surfaced recently that is mind-blowing. In the last pre-season game played by the Golden State Warriors last October, Steph Curry and Draymond Green were on the floor together for 15 minutes.

In those 15 minutes, Curry scored 41 points. . .41 in 15 minutes against the Portland Trailblazers.

Speaking of NBA games, I watched one the other night, only to see Franklin’s Luke Kennard of the Los Angeles Clippers play against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

What I saw, for the most part, was one guy dribbling around and four other guys standing around as if waiting on a bus.

Defense? That’s a dirty word in the NBA. So far in March, 50 points or more have been scored by individual players seven times with a couple of 60s.

—Popular Mechanics listed ‘The 25 Most Incredible College Basketball Arenas.’ Expecting to see UD Arena in the Top Five, I perused the list. No UD Arena.

When Fordham’s Rose Hill Gym, Princeton’s Jadwin Gymnasium and Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion made the Top 25, I thought to myself, “Popular Mechanics should stick to widgets.”

—One of my adopted teams, the University of Wyoming, came to Dayton for The First Four and I couldn’t believe what I saw. The Cowboys are a two-man show — 6-7 senior point guard Hunter Maldonado and 6-9 sophomore post Graham Ike (Eee-kay).

The other three guys were floor dressing. Nearly every time, Maldonado dribbled to the left of the foul line and passed to Ike. The ball never came back to anybody. Ike tried to back in and shoot. . .every time.

Ike sat several minutes with foul trouble, so Maldonado dribbled to the left side of the foul line nearly ever possession and wouldn’t give up the ball. He tried to back in to the basket. Those two took 30 of Wyoming’s 46 shots. And Maldonado had 10 turnovers.

Need I say they lost to Indiana. . .and the Hoosiers didn’t play that well.

—Another curious stat: The Colorado basketball team lost at home Tuesday in St. Bonaventure in the first round of the NIT. The Buffaloes played 33 games and only one player fouled out the entire season.

One might wonder if all the referees in those games are resident of Boulder, Colo., or maybe Golden or maybe Denver.

5 thoughts on “OBSERVATIONS: ‘What’s in her wallet?’ Not Reds tickets”

  1. Bob is 80 years old, and to think hiring a idiot as Bryan Price would be the best move over talent on the field shows he has no clue how to get what Marge got. She had her faults but we have yet to see a World Series trophy ( she got), much less a appearance in a World Series since then!!! Don’t worry I am writing a long letter and attaching his letter he promised fans when he bought the Reds!! I am a huge fan but have baseballcommon sense! Not to mention Bob can’t take his millions with him when he passes on, so why not hire the ppl to get the job done he promised?? But more stupid stuff I read about shows he is worse than Mike Brown and I never dreamed I would say that in my lifetime!!!

  2. If owning the Cincinnati Reds is becoming a financial burden for Mr. Castellini he should sell the team.
    A big shout out to Sue Deister. Spread the word.

  3. What’s Elon Musk’s phone number? He could put Reds into outer space! MLB will not survive unless they revenue share. There is plenty of money to go around to level the competition. It has peaked fan interest in the NFL where teams can go from worst to first; Bengals for example. No hope, no joy in Mudville. Can we fire Castellini? Only good news is now that we have the DH, maybe, hopefully, Bell will quit giving up outs by bunting.

  4. I love what she did. I’m a 50+ year Reds fan, but I am done. The whole owner/player shut-down was awful, and now the Reds’ ownership clearly only cares about money. I’ll find other things to do this summer!

  5. To me Castellanos was/is the most significant factor in carrying over what there was of the winning energy. Would make more sense if ownership would shell out for him, regardless if other pieces of the roster change.

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