Big Red Machine?

Something strange is happening in Cincinnati. The Reds actually look like a team that might contend for the Central Division crown in the National League. The Reds improved themselves in many ways over the winter:

1. They picked up Eric Milton and Ramon Ortiz as starting pitchers -- even though
they have their detractors, both are legitimate starters.
2. They got Joe Randa to play third base and Rich Aurellia to play shortstop. Randa
is the real deal with good fielding range and a deceiving bat. Aurellia is a former
All-Star shortstop who gives the club stability at that position. Last year, Ryan
Freel manned third most of the time and short was filled with 40-year-old Barry
Larkin and Felipe Lopez. Barry was hurt and Lopez was inconsistent.
3. Ken Griffey, Jr. is back. Already having five hits on the season (all singles, by the
way), he looks like a million bucks--well several million bucks.

If they continue to play this well, they will surprise a lot of folks. Like the Mets, who already had placed a victory cigar on new manager Willie Randolph's desk for the after-victory celebration. Not today.

Hail to West Virginia Hail

Kudos to John Beilein and the Mountaineer men's basketball program for making it into the Elite 8. They stunned the country and gave home to all of us who are Mountaineers. This once proud program had recently become stagnant, but a good old dose of old-time fundamental basketball has caused a resurection of the roundball in the Mountain State.

Yes, I doubted Beilein and his system, but it worked...this time. I can't wait to see if it works next year.

Don't Go to Bristol

Please stay away from Bristol, TN, in April and August. Let me tell you why...

I attended the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend and the place is just not suited for the 170,000 folks that show up twice a year for the NASCAR Nextel and Busch Series races. Why? Too many people and not enough land to put them in. Bruton Smith has created a monster of a situation because he has the best race track in the world...and he's a greedy human being (just kidding, Bruton...).

Bristol Motor Speedway is small. It's a half-mile track and gives the world the best racing on the planet. As long as Mr. Smith offered tickets and seats, he could sell every one of them. So, he built a lot of seats. Some are so high you can actually see the race better on TV. Yet, they come.

They come into an area that is smaller than you can imagine. That's not the problem. The problem is the space around the track for parking and just people moving around. You should be there when 170,000 people decide to leave (like after a race) or try to get there before it starts. Wall-to-wall people. The track sits on a steep hill, so they offer carts pulled by tractors which are continuously full to climb the steep hill up to the track. Lots of fun.

After the race, you are on your own and sometimes the crowd moves less than two steps in a minute. There is basically one way out and it is complicated by a narrow bridge which fords a small stream that everyone has to cross to get out.

Still, they come. There are very few motel rooms in Bristol, so everyone (well, almost) camps. On hillsides and in lots miles away (one couple told me they walked three miles to get to the track) and if it rains, it really gets rough.

This Saturday, a cold front came through Bristol, wiping out the Busch race on Saturday. Those poor souls camped in tents and RV's on the grassy hills around the track lived in a sea of mud. Still, they smiled. If the government required us to do that to , say, go to a high school football game, we'd protest. But, not here.

I'll never understand. Of course, I was camped on the pavement near the drag strip, so I guess I shouldn't talk.

But, we don't need any more people in Bristol on race weekends, so stay away.

Bloody chance you will, I know. It's a great show. Just be warned...