Paul Daugherty

pdaugherty@enquirer.com

AS FOR FC CINCINNATI… They drew 19,310 Saturday, and lost. They’re 2-4-3 now, two Ws in nine games. When does the novelty/entertainment factor ebb, and fans start treating them like a normal pro team and begin demanding wins?

It sounds ironic and crazy, but it would be a good thing for FCC if their fans treated them the way Reds and Bengals fans treat their teams. It would properly pressure ownership to bring in the best players and coaches. More, it would suggest that the fans care about winning and not simply being entertained. The entertainment aspect is fine, of course, but not necessarily a long-haul thing. Winning is a long-haul strategy.

You don’t want your professional sports franchise to be like a popular-at-the-moment restaurant. Make sense? The Precinct isn’t The Precinct because it was popular for awhile. It’s been winning for 40 years. It’s not trendy. It has very good food.

Winning also helps the goal of MLS membership. Not as much as a new stadium, of course. But that’s another story.

Now, then. . .

WHY BASEBALL IS LIKE WRITING, PART 1:

You can be cruising along, knowing exactly what to do and how to do it when suddenly, for no reason at all, you’re completely lost.

You can write sports for 15 years – or in my case, 35, god help me – then one day feel as if you’ve never done it before.

I used to talk to Bret Boone about this. He’d be slamming the ball, then all the sudden go 0-for-20. Then, just as inexplicably bust out with a 3-hit game.

Why Bret Boone, Doc?

I don’t know. Why not?

I could go weeks when the words flowed like raindrops down a window, then encounter the desert. For a stretch I’d commit typing atrocities such as actually writing the phrase “had went’’. Had went?

Just as quickly, I’d cease and desist and return to the Land of Pretty Good.

There is no reason for this. It’s just writing. It’s just baseball.

Long way of explaining the weekend that wasn’t for the Reds. The 17-inning L might have taken some starch from their shirts. Mostly, the magic dust that had been with them awhile decided to sprinkle itself elsewhere.

They stopped getting big hits. Tim Adleman’s neck bothered him. They made a few errors. The Big 162 has its way with every team. Best thing about baseball. No phonies when you play six days a week for six months.

The Club is off today, then three at Wrigley. The Cubs have lost 7 of 10 and are a game under .500. But they’re the Cubs, and will awaken sooner rather than later. The Big 162 will work in their favor. The Reds?

Playing above their heads a bit until Friday. Time for them to stop typing “had went.’’

TRIP REPORT: SATURDAY ON KELLOGG AND BEYOND. . . The first chance to explore our new area since we moved from Loveland, aka the Land of June and Ward Cleaver. We’re about seven minutes from Riverbend, which is good, and about five more from California golf course. Heading down Kellogg toward downtown, there is Lebo’s, a fine roadhouse where I saw Sonny Moorman play a couple weekends ago. And the Grove Park Inn which looks fancy, but has been recommended, and The Sandbar, where we had lunch outside and they were selling a bucket of five Coronas for $15. All good. Passed Walt’s Hitching Post, too, also recommended.

Further down on the right side was an antique mall. I love places like this. (My feminine side, Mobstettes.) I picked up a piece from sculptor Michael Garman for $25. Garman’s subjects are usually skid-row types. The piece I bought was a golfer completing his backswing.

Garman’s stuff is an acquired taste. I have four of his pieces. Here’s my favorite.

Cruised through the slowly gentrifying East End, past Eli’s. The first time we went there, right after it opened, there were more dogs than people. Now you can’t get a table. Wonder if they still have the turntable and allow customers to choose an album to spin. There’s a new brewery down there as well, Streetside, which we’d have tried if I enjoyed day-drinking, which I don’t.

What’s better about this area than Loveland is, it’s eclectic. Lots of different kinds of folks, with different interests. Not a Friday’s in sight. Nor a Starbuck’s. That’s good.

LOTS OF INTERACTION LATELY on stuff I’ve written, starting with the Joe Mixon columns, through the woooo-ing and again Sunday, when I suggested that the infatuation with numbers is nipping at the soul of baseball.

Frequent perusers of This Space know I’m a mild fan of metrics. I understand their usefulness within teams and organizations. I think we’re going overboard with them in my profession, forgetting that what creates interest and sells tickets (beyond winning, obviously) is drama, real or imagined. Not numb-bers.

Fans want to like the people they pay to see. Fans want stories about players, not about the numbers they produce. Too many numbers make the eyes glaze over.

The NFL gets this. While it might have its own exhaustive data, the NFL is our most popular game because of its drama, even though much of it is overcooked. Baseball simply does not have enough big personalities. Its appeal rests in its ambience, its long, languid season and the storylines that unspool in slow motion. Numbers are just numbers.

Here’s that column.

CONGRATS TO IAN HAPP, UC guy, who homered in his first major-league AB over the weekend.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . This is a favorite Broooce tune, from a collection of outtakes, tunes that didn’t make the album cut. I think it was originally a country tune that Bruce re-did. Regardless, pretty sweet.