While recently driving 3,100 miles, columnist Jason Williams had some thoughts about the Reds, Bengals stadium, Hilton Head and Camden Yards.
Back from a few weeks – and more than 3,100 miles logged – on the road. Lots of thinking time driving to Baltimore, New York and Boston a few weeks ago and then to Hilton Head and back last week. Here are four summertime thoughts I had while everyone else in the car snoozed:
1. The Cincinnati Reds are boring
Not necessarily boring in how they play the game. I’m a pitching-and-fielding guy, and they’re decent at both. If your Reds fandom started in the 1980s, then you know how big of a deal it is that the Reds finally have pitching.
Nonetheless, they’re treading water. They’re just another team that the logjammed wildcard standings suggest has a shot. Not good. Not bad. Stuck around .500 (like last year at the All-Star break) and no one knows what’s next other than the tease of a short winning streak followed by the madness of a short losing streak.
Wake me when the Reds fall out of love with some of their prospects and make a big splash for a run producer at the deadline.
2. Hilton Head is boring – and that’s why I love it
My family has been vacationing on the Southernmost Point of Ohio since 2010, and we’ve never had a bad experience. Last week was no exception. I love that place so much, the HHI Chamber of Commerce needs to put me on payroll.
A buddy recently asked why I love it so much. Simple answer. No drunk college bros. No trashy beachwear shops on every corner. The beach is never overcrowded (except for the first big, we’re-free-to-live-again weekend post-pandemic). And I know where everything is located (which is a big deal in a place that doesn’t have street lights or big glaring road signs telling you where Kroger, Starbucks, Walmart and every store is located).
Perfect. Only downside is everyone else from Ohio vacations there, and I’m tired of being asked if I’m a Buckeyes fan.
3. It’s frustrating that there’s not more outrage about the Bengals’ Paycor Stadium deal
It’s such a Cincinnati mentality to say: Well, it’s better than the last deal. Play nice and settle instead of fight. Take the moral victory and be fine with it. Just be happy to have an NFL team rather than hold the Bengals accountable for how they do business. So predictable. So Cincinnati.
It doesn’t behoove someone who writes opinion for a living to say this too often, but I told you so. I wrote last summer the commissioners “will cave and pay way more for the stadium upgrades than local government should.”
Some of us in the media like to call the county-Bengals stadium saga “the gift that keeps on giving.” And whoa buddy, that’s going to be manna from media heaven when the Bengals and county officially tell us the team wants (not needs) a new stadium. In the seventh year of this 10-year deal, the Bengals and county are going to assess whether Paycor Stadium is still functional.
By putting it in the contract, it means the assessment is essentially already done. Taxpayers are going to pump $350 million more into the stadium in the coming years only to be told in 2032 – right about the time the original stadium debt is paid off – sorry, time for a new stadium.
4. Camden Yards is a baseball bucket-list visit
If you could only visit one baseball stadium, my recommendation has long been Dodger Stadium. The energy in that place for a night game is unlike anywhere else in baseball. And MLB’s third-oldest stadium still feels retro-new. It’s so clean, you could eat a Dodger Dog off the concourse floor.
If you could pick a No. 2, it should be Baltimore’s Camden Yards. I covered a series there 20 years ago, but didn’t walk around. This was the first stop on a three-stadium tour I did with my two sons and a close friend and his son. We’re trying to visit as many ballparks as possible before the kids are grown up.
History is so important to baseball, and the Orioles celebrate it right. The statues of their great players are inside the stadium gates. There’s a marker for every home-run ball hit in the air onto Eutaw Street, between the right-field stands and the iconic warehouse.
This offseason, they’ll place a permanent baseball-sized plague in the concrete to commemorate Reds outfielder Jake Fraley’s mammoth home run in April. For now, it’s marked with black paint, and we got to see it.
The outfield standing areas are fantastic. Great sightlines and the area in center field allows fans to practically stand in the visiting bullpen.
The ballpark workers are incredibly nice and helpful. There’s a gentleman who sits on a stool at a podium in front of the warehouse who’ll give you the history of the Eutaw Street home-run balls and the stadium, which remains the best of the wave of retro ballparks that began popping up in the 1990s.
He also gives gifts to kids who are visiting for the first time – a button badge with the game date, postcards and a City Connect compression arm sleeve (some of the “drip” the kids wear nowadays).
Meanwhile at Yankee Stadium, they tell kids to scan a QR code to download a digital certificate to mark their first time to a game there. That stadium is corporate and sterile.
Want that $25 bucket of chicken strips and fries at the concession stand? You can only buy it if you have a MasterCard, something you don’t learn until after you’ve waited in line for 20 minutes to order it.
Contact columnist Jason Williams at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Summertime thoughts: Reds, Hilton Head, Bengals stadium, Camden Yards
Category: General Sports
