Sunday, September 12, 1999
Pick one: Reds or Bengals?
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If you had to choose, would you be a Reds fan or a Bengals fan? If your heart had room for one and not the other, which leap would it take?
In September, the sports intersect. They compete for your interest and your wallet. If you're already paying $40 a game for the Bengals, is there anything left for the Reds?
Forget which sport you prefer. Don't say, “I love baseball, so ...” Base it on who's doing the better job with your faith, your trust, your affections and your money.
It's pretty simple, isn't it?
The Bengals.
Sure. The Bengals. Exactly 40,378 of you went to their game against Buffalo two Saturdays ago. The Reds drew 23,262 Friday night.
One was an exhibition game, the other a game in the flame of a pennant race. One featured a team going deep, the other a team running a draw play on 3rd-and-9.
One team has its league's second-worst record of the decade, despite operating in a socialist market that caps salaries and rewards lousy teams with the best draft picks. The other has a world title and a division title and is currently chasing the playoffs, a cash-poor team in a business where money swings the biggest stick.
Winning isn't everything
One is Cinderella. The other is a welfare cheat.
I know. The Bengals make season ticketholders buy the exhibition games. You only have 10 games to catch their act (some would suggest that's overkill) while you get the Reds 81 times.
But this is crazy.
Privately, the Reds wonder why they blew their budget on Greg Vaughn, Denny Neagle and Juan Guzman. You spend the money to produce a winner, the fans will approve. They'll vote yes at the turnstiles.
Only, they aren't.
It's crazy.
The Bengals don't have Marge Schott. They do, however, have Mike Brown.
Carl Pickens? Or Barry Larkin? Are you kidding me?
Bruce Coslet? Or Jack McKeon? Which team do you take, if your heart depends on it?
The Bengals are coached by Coslet. He's a great example of why coaching can be an awful job. Players are in charge, especially players as charismatic and influential as the wayward Pickens, which was why Coslet was so quick to suck up to his best player Thursday.
The Reds have McKeon, who has Larkin and Vaughn to show young players how to behave. He has Pete Harnisch, pitching and winning with a shoulder as tender as steak tartare. Who's going to back off with a nagging hurt now, with Harnisch out there winning purple hearts.
Easy at the top
McKeon is prone to putting things on auto-pilot, anyway. At age 68 (69 in November) he knows the rewards of patience. If you don't believe McKeon has been good for this team, check out the mess Terry Collins made of the Anaheim Angels.
The highly paid Angels were expected to contend for a title and might have, if Collins hadn't run the team like a master sergeant. Veterans don't take well to tough managers who think they know everything. Doesn't anyone remember what it was like here with Ray Knight? McKeon is the anti-Knight.
Coslet is wound tighter than a pocket watch.
The Reds have made a chemistry as sweet as May. The Bengals are the Mill Creek.
The Reds have a plan for the future: Casey, Boone, Reese, Williamson, Graves. So do the Bengals: Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Franklin.
The Reds are walking the highwire, game after game. They've given us September again. The Bengals are walking the plank.
The Reds slumped for three seasons. The Bengals opted for the whole decade.
The Bengals will put close to 55,000 in Lethargy Field next week. The Reds would take that for two games against the St. Louis McGwires in a couple of weeks.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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