Photoblogging: The 2009 Cincy Opening Day Experience

By TheNaturalMevs on April 7, 2009

Sully’s in Cincinnati put on an excellent show of hospitality that really completed the Opening Day experience. Our roomate even took a body shot off this nice bartender’s belly button after she was done giving out shots from on top of the bar. What a nice lady. It only cost the poor bastard $20. In this economy? You’re damn right she’s going to go for it. She probably would have done it fo $5.

Among the hidden highlights of the day and the simpler things, we got to see Arthur Rhodes make his Reds debut. We were excited about the Reds getting this guy. We had his baseball card when we were a youngster and he came out and threw a scoreless inning. You’ll see a lot of that from Mr. Slurvy this year.

The newest food attraction at Great American Ball Park: Chicago Dogs. These are the pumped up superhuman version of the hot dog. A normal hot dog should never be eaten again. And they’re only $5.25! All that goodness for $5 and change! Don’t discount the importance of tomatoes, onions, and spicy relish on a hot dog. They just look and smell good. Served on a sesame seed bun. Get yourself one sometime if you are so inclined.

Shot from across the stadium at the In Between Tavern. The weather was just starting to show it’s ugly head. As far at the IB Tavern goes, we’ve been good to them in the past. We’ve spent many a night in this very spot before a game or after work paying high prices for their beers. But after they told us (the designated driver in the group) that they had club soda but ‘they weren’t doing club soda on Opening Day’, we packed up our shit and we’re never going back. That’s how we operate. You burn us after we’ve been good to you and we’re done with you. You don’t hold a candle to Sully’s Saloon, In Between Tavern.

Self-proclaimed MLB and Cincinnati Reds legend Tracy Jones is part of a live show for 700 WLW from Gameday Cafe just a few blocks from GABP. We listen to Tracy Jones and nightly we want to call him and tell him a clueless dick. We were sober so we decided not to wait in line with all of his fans to get the chance to tell him that on a commercial break. You should have seen the clueless saps of Cincinnati lining up to kiss this guy’s ass. You’d have thought he was the emperor or something. He was a second rate ballplayer and his takes on his second rate radio show are hideous. He did say that Edwin Encarnacion and Jay Bruce are breakout players for 2009, which we agree with. Pretty cool to see the show live yesterday for a bit. So when you heard them on The Big One we were there seeing them.

Part of the pregame festivities was Brandon Phillips getting rewarded his Rawlings Gold Glove award for his service in 2008. He deserved it, easily. We’ve never seen a Gold Glove Award given out before. There was actually a beautiful nameplate on the award and if you look close there is a drawing of Phillips’ face on the trophy. Just a great trophy to win.

We’re going to sit out in right field in the Sundeck/Moondeck quite a bit from now on. We need a name for the group that sit out behind our best young player. Perhaps we shall think of one in the coming weeks. Like our roomate said “this Bruce kid seems to be the Messiah for all of you Cincinnati fans”. He’s got it right. Bruce looked comfortable in his spot that he should be in for the next decade.

Here’s a shot of that ball that Bruce shit on off of Johan Santana. Look closely. That ball missed going out of the stadium by about 5 feet. Ended up a double for Jay boy. We can’t even imagine if he would have actually homered. When your favorite player hits a bomb on Opening Day, I mean does it get any better then that?