If this month’s first matchup between the Bengals and the Bills was the night the whole city could not sleep, then the past seven days have been the week the whole world count not shut up.
It is a frustration that the two people on the planet who should stop talking the most– Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Phil, Duke of Going Elsewhere– have quick access to microphones attached to very large sound systems. I realize that I’m typing this as a person who has made an entire career out of oversharing, sometimes in extremely uncomfortable ways, but I also don’t take an entire monarchy or a 154 year old ballclub down with me. I tumble off the highwire all by my lonesome.
Those with a custodial mindset understand that the position they serve overshadows themselves, as well as their impulses to announce the details of a lawn-based deflowering and the absolute fact that a 1.19 billion dollar franchise is actually a financial liability. I can’t top Doug Gray’s analysis of Phil Castellini’s lament, so I’ll simply marvel at the jeweled setting of this week’s MLB outrage.
The incident comes more sharply and insultingly into focus once it is understand precisely when and where Castellini said what he said. This was a prepared speech at a luncheon of the Rosie Reds, a staple of Cincinnati society long before the terrifying giant-headed mascot showed up. “The Rosies” were founded 1964. Why? For the gals to gab? No. To save the team.
At this point in the century, the ’60s were still pretty much the 1950’s, and women wore dresses or their very best capris to the ball park. Yet in this moment, Crosley Field wasn’t a source fond nostalgia, but increasing frustration; the neighborhood around it was rapidly deteriorating and fans were jealous of the big shiny multiuse stadiums popping up elsewhere.
Partially founded by local superstar Ruth Lyons, the Rooters Organized to Stimulate Interest and Enthusiasm in the Cincinnati Reds was designed to help keep the hometown team at home. The organization persisted even after the franchise remained safely attached to its new aluminum home by the river.
So here was a group of (mostly) women so dedicated to the home team that they were happy to pay thirty dollars a year to be even fan-ier, descendants of the enterprising ladies who laid down time and tea to preserve the organization, and the Cincinnati Reds:
1) Sent them, of all people, the gift of Phil Castellini
2) To inform them that team was eliminated from competition for an Opening Day that is yet three months off.
I suppose (1) is the very reason the Phil was even there; the front office must have correctly profiled the Rosies as the warmest and most forgiving possible group to listen to him. From a fan’s point of view, though, I would pay cash money to watch Joey Votto silently play chess, but you’d better make a fairly large deposit in my checking account to sit in a large room containing a screen, a microphone, and Phil Castellini. I know I’m a lost cause of an absurdly romantic human being to continue to foster any interest in Major League Baseball. I don’t need Phil to remind me of that.
I also don’t know if the assumption was that these (mostly) women wouldn’t check his math, or if he simply assumed that not one single person would put down a fork and blast his fantasy league projections all over the Interwebs, but I do know that the viral picture of the back of several unimpressed heads facing down a bunch of statistics that don’t even exist (how are you out of contention on Opening Day?!) is every bit a real-life episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. There were very bad, very poorly produced things happening up on that screen, we are forced to live them, and the only way out is to watch Sam run again and think of better days.
