BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It must be awful coming to work every day knowing your best effort will never be good enough. You can wheel and deal. You can talk hopefully about new stadiums and great prospects and building for the future, whenever that is.
Reds General Manager Jim Bowden could be Branch Rickey. Acting CEO John Allen could be Bill Veeck. At the end of the day, their wallets are still empty.
The Reds are playing the Montreal Expos this weekend. Reds versus Expos. Welcome to Third World baseball, where you can work as hard as you like, but if you don't have the checkbook, it really doesn't matter.
"We can't play against the big boys," Bowden says.
So this is commissioner Bud Selig's "golden renaissance of baseball:" Two teams going nowhere now, or in the foreseeable future. Two clubs spent to death, resigned to trading veterans for prospects, so when the prospects make good they can ship them to the rich teams for more prospects.
Beanie Babies pack 'em in
Baseball is thriving in places with new stadiums. Baseball is fabulous in places where owners open their wallets and invite everyone in. Everywhere else, baseball just is.
The Reds will have a big crowd today, not because of the game, but because they are giving away toy animals full of beans.
Yeah, we're just basking in the golden glow around here.
Once, the Reds could look at the Expos, bleeding as always from losing star players for more money, and see how the other half lived. Now, the Reds are the other half.
Felipe Alou, the Montreal manager, has an outfielder now he compares to Roberto Clemente. Vladimir Guerrero is among the league leaders in eight offensive categories. On Friday night, he hit a 461-foot, red seat home run.
Guerrero has 28 home runs, 85 RBI and, most likely, a quick ticket out of Montreal. He's eligible for arbitration after next season. Third World teams don't keep arbitration-eligible stars.
"Will keeping him in Montreal be a priority?" someone asks Alou.
Alou smiles the ironic smile of a man who has been down this road before.
"A priority?" Alou says. "There was a time when it was a priority with (Larry) Walker, a priority with Moises Alou, a priority with Pedro Martinez."
All left Montreal, where the payroll is less than Albert Belle's annual take. "Now we have only one guy who is a priority," Alou says.
Guerrero is 22 and already a star. "I can see the arm," Alou says. "The hustle on every play. The home runs. This kid has more power than Clemente."
And we all wish him the best in New York, Atlanta or Baltimore.
Best of the worst
Here at Golden Renaissance headquarters, the Reds record against the Braves, Mets and Cubs, three of the top four payroll teams in the league, is 6-15. Watching Atlanta play Cincinnati now is like watching the United States go to war with Switzerland.
Meanwhile, in the Third World Division, the Reds are 10-6 against Pittsburgh, Florida and Montreal.
A case can be made that the $22 million Reds are smarter than the $35 million Brewers and Phillies. Why spend $35 million to finish fourth when $22 million gets you fifth? Now there's an incentive to put out a good product.
What do Reds fans say now when March rolls around? With a few breaks, we could finish fourth!
This can't continue. You can't sentence half the fans to no hope, because sooner or later, they'll stop hoping.
"One thing that edifies man is struggle," says Felipe Alou, who should know. "It's good to have something to fight for." Alou pauses for effect: "Or with," he says
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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