West Coast baseball memories

Staying up late with the Reds

Something has changed in my life. The Cincinnati Reds are back out on the west coast and I haven’t made it to the third inning in either of their first two games against the Padres.

As recently as last season, I used to roll my eyes a bit at the people who whined about the games out west because they couldn’t stay up late to watch or listen. For most of my life, I’ve been a night owl, so it was never a problem for me. I may not have made it to the end of every game, but I gave it the old college try usually. Who are these people who couldn’t sacrifice a couple of hours of sleep to watch the ol’ Redlegs?

Well…me, as it turns out. Recently, I’ve been getting up entirely too early as a bit of an experiment. I’m writing this at 5:43 AM, as a matter of fact. In a minute, I’m going to go get a workout in before traipsing off to the office. What I’ve discovered as a result of this experiment is that you people who have been getting up early had it figured out all along. I’m getting way more done, before the sun comes up, than I used to be able to accomplish. Let’s just say I’m happy with the results so far.

But what I’ve also discovered is that I just can’t stay up to watch or listen to the Reds on the left coast. Not if I want to rise at 5 AM, I can’t. And that kinda makes me sad.

One of my fondest memories — one of the gooey, Field of Dreams-type, baseball-related memories that I cherish — from my teenage years was laying in my bedroom upstairs at midnight on a weekday evening. Lights were out, and I didn’t have any screens to cast that awful glow over the room, a glow that we can’t seem to escape nowadays. All I had was a cheap Emerson stereo system, tuned in to 700 WLW. Marty and Joe came in clear as a bell on those summer evenings in southwest Virginia. Over and over, I fell asleep to descriptions of the Reds action out in Los Angeles and San Francisco and San Diego. More often than not, as many of you will recall, it didn’t go well for the Reds.

Later, as I prepared to leave my childhood home to move away to college, my parents gave me the perfect gift for a baseball-obsessed teenager. It was called a GE Superadio, and it was exactly as the name suggests. I could listen to WLW all the way in Charlottesville, Virginia, and it could pick up the games of a half-dozen other teams as well. I can’t say I was listening to baseball every single night during the season — I was in college, after all — but at least I had access. Especially for those west coast games.

GE Superadio

Look, I much prefer being able to watch every game as we can nowadays. I love having the Reds on radio accessible in my pocket every time they play. But I’m also glad I grew up in a time when you had to turn that dial through all the static, just to try to hit the precise spot that brought up Joe Nuxhall’s voice. Or not, since he took these long pauses often and made you wonder if the radio had gone out.

This week, I feel like a fan from the 1950s. I don’t have a newspaper on my front porch when I wake up, but I have been pulling up Cincinnati’s box scores on my phone (with that nightmarish glow). I’m scouring the stats to see what each player did and thinking about what must have happened while I was asleep. Nothing for Elly last night? Hey, Candelario hit a homer, maybe he’s coming around. Nick Martinez really is destined for the bullpen, isn’t he?

There’s something to be said for that, in an old-school baseball fan kind of way, I suppose. On the other hand: I wish the Reds would hurry and return back to the eastern time zone, please and thank you.

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This week at Cincinnati Magazine: The Reds’ Pitchers Are Coming Around. Will the Hitters Be Next?

Note: I don’t write the headlines over there. This piece is more of a vibe check, one month into the Reds campaign.

If you remember—and I know you will, Devoted Reader—I mentioned last week that the Redlegs were about to embark on a crucial 38-game stretch that includes nine games against last year’s World Series teams (Arizona and Texas) plus 11 games against the Dodgers and Phillies. We’re now one week into that portion of the schedule, with Cincinnati splitting a four-game series against the 2022 National League pennant winner Philadelphia and losing two of three in Texas against the defending champion Rangers. Time to take stock of where we are.

Let’s start here: Losing four of seven games in a week is not ideal. If the Reds repeat that week after week, we’re in for a bad time. On the other hand, Cincinnati went toe to toe with two of the better teams in the majors and emerged with a boatload of reasons to be optimistic about the rest of 2024. Read the rest of this week’s Reds column over at Cincinnati Magazine.

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What’s Chad Watching?

Good week for movies. The only one I saw in theaters was “Challengers,” which ordinarily wouldn’t have been in my wheelhouse but it was centered around the world of high-level tennis, so it was on my radar.* Luca Guadagnino is an Italian director who has a great reputation, but this was my first experience with one of his films (a couple others have been on my watchlist). He got far too creative with the timeline-hopping, but it is beautifully and creatively shot, with a pulsing house music score…it’s not bad! Four stars out of five.

*I am not a high-level tennis player, but I do love the sport.

“Shot Caller” is a 2017 film starring Jamie Lannister as a guy just getting out of prison. One of my brothers said he watched it because The Ringer did a Rewatchables episode about the movie, upon which another brother chimed in that he loved it. I thought I had never heard of it, but lo and behold, it was on my watchlist for some reason. Anyway, I won’t spoil any of the plot, but it’s on Netflix and it’s a good watch. Recommended.

I don’t know how I had never caught up with “Split,” as I’m a fairly loyal M. Night Shyamalan viewer. 3.5 stars. And “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” was a rewatch since it was my latest purchase from the Criterion Collection (and I had just read the book for the first time). Robert Mitchum is my guy.