Doc's TML: I'm not sure when 'excited' lapped 'winning' for Reds fans, but it has

Along about 5 pm Tuesday, after the Reds had hit enough homeruns to outlast Minnesota, the comments started rolling into my Inbox and on the radio. They went a lot like this:

Golly, this is a darned exciting Reds team, isn’t it? More entertaining than a barrel fulla Burrows. Love the way they’re never out of a game. Those boys don’t quit. Seem like nice guys, too. Easy to root for. And by the way, the owner needs to fire himself.

Right.

Question: Is this what matters most now?

One word is missing from most of the reactions.

Winning.

I’m not sure when “exciting’’ lapped “winning’’ on the local priority scale, but it has. Before Saint Joe went down last fall, the Bengals had a very exciting losing record. No team is currently playing more exciting .500 baseball than our team.

It’s not that I disagree with the sentiments. They’re all true. Except, well, the owner isn’t likely to fire himself. The Reds are compelling, though not always in ways you’d like. Is blowing two late leads in one game exciting?

They do play hard. But playing hard is implied in the contract.

They’re pleasant. I think DBell has some to do with that. His respect for everyone and his steady-as-she-goes nature has had its intended effect.

But to say that the Reds are exciting implies that winning is secondary. It’s not. Or it shouldn’t be. Frequent Perusers might recall the occasional TML rant regarding settling. It’s what we do here. We’ve been beaten down by the losing enough, we’ve become immune. It helps save our sports souls, so we can live to be complacent another day.

I also think that nationally, baseball retains its steady slide on our passion meter. More and more fans are seeing the game as a way to fill idle time. It’s no different than going to a movie or dinner. Nobody stands up, jumps around and yells at The Precinct.        

Only now, we really need to be agitated. We have to be unsatisfied. The fates have conspired to put these Reds in a position to be both exciting and successful for the first time since 2012. (The ’13 club slid into the wild card game on a down streak, then was summarily executed in Pittsburgh.)

All those good qualities mentioned above remain no match for teams with better players. Now’s the time to rise up and let the Powers know that losing half the time isn’t as exciting as losing 40 percent of the time, even if you’re playing robots at 1st and 3rd base and a trio of circus clowns in the outfield.

Ownership does hear you. The Big Man is sensitive to attendance ups and downs. He is very aware of what the fans are saying. Unlike some owners, the fans matter to him.

Ease off the praise for what at the moment is a thoroughly average team. Don’t be content with a fun night out. Pro sports is about winning and nothing else. Allow me to roll out again what Bob Knight said to me a couple lifetimes ago:

We don’t get what we expect in life, or what we deserve. We get what we’re willing to put up with.     

Stop putting up. Don’t be so nice.

Now, then. . .

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Wisconsin b-ball coach Greg Gard met with his team in the middle of last season. The players were unhappy, to put it mildly. The meeting was secretly recorded and published by a local paper.

Transcripts that the Journal shared paint a picture of a lack of trust and communication between Gard and his players. 

“I just feel like, coach, we don’t have a relationship,” senior forward Nate Reuvers said, per the Journal. “In my mind, it’s too late for that. I personally don’t think or feel like you care about our future aspirations.

“I can’t talk to you. I just don’t want to talk to you. After this, coach, I don’t know what type of relationship we’re going to have, if we have one.”

Senior guard D'Mitrik Trice told Gard that he felt a disconnect from the success of that season and the 2020-21 season.

“Last year we were playing for one another, but we were also playing for you,” Trice said, per the Journal. “I feel like the disconnect is we’re not playing for you right now. We’re not here to build your resume, so to speak, with all respect given.”

An anonymous player said, “He sat there, he listened and there was not one dry eye in the entire room at the end of everything,” the player said, per the Journal. “The biggest thing that he did at the end was he apologized again and he was in tears and he said, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s my fault.'"

Outgoing Badgers AD Barry Alvarez supported Gard and his staff. 

A few things:

We don’t know enough to say anything for sure. But if Gard were as despicable as he’s made out to be, he must also have been pretty lucky. In seven seasons, he’s made the tournament four times.

“We’re not here to build your resume.’’ What does that mean? You’re not getting a free education and 30-some pro auditions a year to help him win? Then what are you there for?

The Old School in me doesn’t completely understand the touchy-feely component to this. It should be cut and dried. Coach needs players, players need coach. It’s in Gard’s best interests to create an atmosphere where everyone gets along. But he’s not responsible for making sure players get pro gigs. That’s their responsibility.

We’re at the beginning of what could be a huge power shift in quasi-am athletics. Name-Image-Likeness rules, players realizing they are the game and acting like it. There will be more examples of what happened to Gard and John Brannen, not less.

Is that good for the game? I guess we’ll find out.

MEANTIME, THE SUPREME COURT WEIGHS IN on paying athletes, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh echoing the Court’s stance:

“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The N.C.A.A. is not above the law.”

CARL NASSIB IS GAY. SO WHAT? March 21 is among my least favorite days of the year. Since 2012, it’s World Down Syndrome Day. My daughter Jillian was born 32 years ago with Down. The ultimate goal isn’t to see her life as remarkable, though it is. The point is to see her life as typical.

Don’t give her a Day, OK?

Not unless the rest of us get one, too. National Size-9 Shoe Day! I could take that day off.

Nassib is a d-lineman for the Raiders. He came out this week and now is the first openly gay active player in the NFL. I don’t care about that. Is he a good person and citizen? Does he care about his fellow man?

Maybe his revelation helps other gay folks find some peace and understanding. Good. But what we’re really aiming for here is a time when nobody needs to be singled out. When there are no Days needed.

A LAST WORD RE MOVING. . . Yesterday, Kerry and I packed up a U-Haul with a bunch of stuff and took it to the new place. Today, the pro movers are gathering up the rest. It doesn’t take long to put lives in boxes.

Every Moving Day is melancholy for me. (Hell, every day is that way, who am I kidding? I could see melancholia in a can of peas.) Another page turned, another era closed. How many more eras? Not as many as yesterday.

The practicalities:We’re moving to be closer to Jillian. For that sincere privilege, we are spending more money on the new place than on the current place, we’re moving to a bigger house and I’m back to yard work, something I thought I’d left for good four years ago.

Downsizing is subject to varying definitions.

And the Stuff. All that stuff. I could live out my days without 90 percent of what we hauled to the new place. You know you have too much stuff when you pay the Stuff People to haul away some of it.

It’ll be done tomorrow. Praise be.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Dave Mason was just OK, but I always liked this one. “I’m going back, to a place that’s far away. How ‘bout you?’’