By Hal McCoy

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, waiting to see which Cincinnati Reds team shows up for the ‘second half’ and, actually, waiting to see which players show up.

—SOME HINDS-IGHT: Rece Hinds: The man, the myth, the legend.

In one week, the Cincinnati Reds outfielder is treating MLB as if he is playing Little League in Williamsport, PA.

In seven games he is hitting .423 with five homers, three doubles, a triple and 11 RBI. He also has two singles and a couple of stolen bases. And most of his home runs cover more air than United Flight 393.

Great stuff. . .and the kid is humble.

But everybdoy, take a large gulp of fresh air. It can’t continue. As the poet Yeats wrote, “Not a finish worth the start.” Let’s let this play out. He was only hitting .201 at Triple-A Louisville when he was an emergency call-up when Stuart Fairchild was injured.

Remember Aristides Aquino? When the Reds called him up in 2019, he tore it up for a month. But that was it. He was up-and-down between Louisville and Cincinnati the next three years, never making an impact.

This isn’t to say Hinds is another Aquino. It is just a reminder that high expectations and pressure can weight too heavily on young shoulders.

Let’s see how this plays out over the long haul, and a baseball season is a long, long, long haul.

—FINDING FUN: How did I fill an empty Wednesday night with no MLB on television except the fifth re-run of the MLB All-Star game, the eighth re-run of the Home Run Derby and the 10th re-run of the All-Star ‘Celebrity’ Softball Game?

Stumbled upon an WNBA game and, sure enough, it was the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark against the Dallas Wings. Clark scored 24 points, but once again displayed how much she is a team player with 19 assists. She accounted for 66 points, an all-time WNBA record.

Nineteen assists? Yep, a WNBA record. And she could have had 10 more, but teammates missed open shots after she passed to them. But it wasn’t enough to win the game. Dallas, with 6-foot-7 center Kalani Brown, won, 101-93.

And it is a poor taste joke that Clark is not included on the women’s U.S. Olympic basketball team. That’s like as if the U.S. Men’s team did not include Steph Curry.

THEN I STUMBLED upon an All-Star baseball game, one better than the MLB All-Star game. It was the West Coast League, a summer college league.

With the South leading, 2-1, in the bottom of ninth, the North had the bases loaded, two outs, 3-and-2 count on the batter. A grounder was hit to deep short. With a full count, everybody was running and the runner on third scored and a kid named Gavin Jones scored from second — a two-run walk-off infield single and a 3-2 North victory.

Some of the team names: Walla Walla Sweets, Portland Pickles, Dub Sea Fishsticks, Port Angeles Lefties, Santooth Sockeyes, Redmond Dudes, Kamloops NorthPaws, Bellingham Bells, Springfield Drifters.

—EXPRESS-LY SPEAKING: The Legend of Nolan Ryan is not a legend, it is as real as sore feet and maple syrup.

And I never get tired of finding unbelievable things Ryan did. . .as in a game in 1974 against the Boston Red Sox.

Ryan faced 54 batters in a 13-inning game and struck out 19 and walked 10. He struck out leadoff hitter Cecil Cooper six times. And he threw 278 pitches.

A 100-pitch limit? They didn’t even have a 200-pitch limit and probably not 300.

And he pitched again four days later.

—ROSE-Y OUTLOOK: The Legend of Pete Rose is not a legend, it is as real as back taxes and pork rinds.

Every baseball fan worth a called strike three knows The Hit King amassed 4,256 hits.

Some things you probably did not know about Rose’s 24-year career: 63 four-hit games, 107 times hit by pitch, 198 stolen bases and 149 times caught stealing, 56 sacrifice bunts, 79 sacrifice flies, intentionally walked 167 times and grounded into double plays 247 times.

And he hit .303 against 22 Hall of Fame pitchers.

—A BUNCH OF OH-FERS: Speaking of great hitters, there were periods when they weren’t so great. They all suffered a period of oh-fers.

The longest of Babe Ruth’s career was 0 for 21. Lou Gehrig’s was 0 for 20. Barry Bonds struggled through an 0 for 23 (while he played for Pittsburgh and before his PED episodes). Tony Gwynn’s was 0 for 19. Ty Cobb and Ted Williams endured 0 for 17s.

—THE FELTON FAILURE: A fellow named Terry Felton pitched from 1979 through 1982 and is still looking for his first major league win.

Felton, a right-hander who was a No. 2 draft pick, appeared in 49 games and ended his career 0-and-16 with a 5.53 earned run average.

He started10 games and pitched in relief 39 times. Total failure? Well, he did have five saves.

—TERRY THE TERRIFIC: Before manager Terry Francona led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series title in 2004, the Bosox had lost four straight World Series — 1946, 1967, 1975 (to the Cincinnati Reds) and 1986. There was a common denoninator. They lost all four in the seventh game.

Although I never covered one of his teams, Francona was one of my favorite baseball people.

The Reds and Cleveland Indians/Guardiansw share a spring training facility in Goodyear, Az. Even though I didn’t cover Cleveland, several mornings I would stop in at the then-Indians complex just to listen to Francona’s morning media sessions. They were always a hoot.

There was a game in which outfielder Oscar Gonzalez, thinking his catch was the third out, flipped the ball into the stands, enabling a runner to advance from second to third because it was only the second out.

At the end of the inning, when Gonzalez arrived in the dugout, Francona said to him, “I haven’t been to Triple-A in a while. Do they make you get three outs there?”

—JOEY’S OH-FER: For those wondering about Joey Votto’s progress. . .uh, not much.

In a low-Class A game last week, Votto had to take off his Dunedin Blue Jays cap and put on a golden sombero. He batted four times and struck out four times against the Tampa Tarpons. Tampa won, 10-0, as Dunedin got one hit. And Votto is hitting .211 with 14 strikeouts in 38 at bats.

—WRIGHT IS RIGHGT: From my favorite dead-pan comedian, Steven Wright: “My friend is an illiterate so he does judge a book by its cover.

—PLAYLIST NUMBER 75: Onward and upward (and some even downward):

Trouble (Lindsey Buckingham), Somebody To Love (Jefferson Airplane), Light My Fire (The Doors), Hello, Good-Bye (The Beatles), Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi), Darlin’ (Frankie Miller).

Thank God I’m A Country Boy (John Denver), You’re No Good (Linda Ronstadt), I Started A Joke (BeeGees), Green, Green Grass Of Home (Tom Jones), Wicked Game (Chris Isaak), Every Day People (Sly & The Family Stone),

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